Okay--just a quick request. Could a few of you glance at the flyer and let me know if it looks okay? Any typos I'm not seeing? Etc. FWIW: I left the meeting time at 7, since that seemed to work for people at the last meeting. So...one last time...Tuesday, October 19th, at 7 pm, in room 120 of the TMCB. Sound good?
http://www.jamisbuck.org/rug_flyer.pdf
Thanks! If no one has any objections, I'll print the flyers out tomorrow and take them to the secretaries in the CS department tomorrow afternoon.
Hans or Jacob -- I can't remember who said they could post an announcement to the UUG. 
Whoever it was, you could post the announcement anytime after the flyer is validated.
···
--
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis
Jamis Buck wrote:
Okay--just a quick request. Could a few of you glance at the flyer and let me know if it looks okay? Any typos I'm not seeing? Etc. FWIW: I left the meeting time at 7, since that seemed to work for people at the last meeting. So...one last time...Tuesday, October 19th, at 7 pm, in room 120 of the TMCB. Sound good?
http://www.jamisbuck.org/rug_flyer.pdf
Thanks! If no one has any objections, I'll print the flyers out tomorrow and take them to the secretaries in the CS department tomorrow afternoon.
Hans or Jacob -- I can't remember who said they could post an announcement to the UUG. 
Whoever it was, you could post the announcement anytime after the flyer is validated.
Arg. I'm stupid. I meant to send this to my local RUG. *blush*
It's too late. I'm not thinking straight. *sigh*
···
--
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis
Jamis,
I'm intrigued about this RUG. How many members do you have? How did
you get it started? I'd love to get involved with something like that
in my area.
Bill
···
On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:25:23 +0900, Jamis Buck <jgb3@email.byu.edu> wrote:
Jamis Buck wrote:
> Okay--just a quick request. Could a few of you glance at the flyer and
> let me know if it looks okay? Any typos I'm not seeing? Etc. FWIW: I
> left the meeting time at 7, since that seemed to work for people at the
> last meeting. So...one last time...Tuesday, October 19th, at 7 pm, in
> room 120 of the TMCB. Sound good?
>
> http://www.jamisbuck.org/rug_flyer.pdf
>
> Thanks! If no one has any objections, I'll print the flyers out tomorrow
> and take them to the secretaries in the CS department tomorrow afternoon.
>
> Hans or Jacob -- I can't remember who said they could post an
> announcement to the UUG. Whoever it was, you could post the
> announcement anytime after the flyer is validated.
>
Arg. I'm stupid. I meant to send this to my local RUG. *blush*
It's too late. I'm not thinking straight. *sigh*
--
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis
Bill Atkins wrote:
Jamis,
I'm intrigued about this RUG. How many members do you have? How did
you get it started? I'd love to get involved with something like that
in my area.
We've got about 6 (give or take) active members, with three more that have moved and keep in touch via email (Carl Youngblood among them). There are a handful more on our mailing list that haven't been to a meeting in a while. You have to understand--we're at a university with a student body of 30,000+ students. So a friend of mine and I were talking one day and thought, "you know, with so many students (and a sizeable CS department, to boot), there ought to be at least a few people interested in Ruby."
Thus, we founded the BYU Ruby Users Group. It started mostly with people in my office, but has gradually grown to include a few other members, mostly by word of mouth. I post those flyers about a week before each meeting, but I don't know that anyone has actually attended a meeting because of one.
I'm curious: has anyone found a successful strategy for adding members to their RUG?
- Jamis
···
Bill
On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:25:23 +0900, Jamis Buck <jgb3@email.byu.edu> wrote:
Jamis Buck wrote:
Okay--just a quick request. Could a few of you glance at the flyer and
let me know if it looks okay? Any typos I'm not seeing? Etc. FWIW: I
left the meeting time at 7, since that seemed to work for people at the
last meeting. So...one last time...Tuesday, October 19th, at 7 pm, in
room 120 of the TMCB. Sound good?
http://www.jamisbuck.org/rug_flyer.pdf
Thanks! If no one has any objections, I'll print the flyers out tomorrow
and take them to the secretaries in the CS department tomorrow afternoon.
Hans or Jacob -- I can't remember who said they could post an
announcement to the UUG. Whoever it was, you could post the
announcement anytime after the flyer is validated.
Arg. I'm stupid. I meant to send this to my local RUG. *blush*
It's too late. I'm not thinking straight. *sigh*
--
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis
.
--
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis
My experience, both with Ruby-NYC and a previous group, is that it's good not to push it. I was in a previous group that met once a week, which means that it required a big commitment, and if you could only come once a month you sort of felt out of the loop of the discussion. Also, that group worked on a project together, whereas Ruby-NYC is just a bunch of folks getting together and talking.
Over the last year, Ruby-NYC has grown steadily, but it's never huge -- the last meeting was 7 people, which is our high so far. What we do is:
+ Always assign somebody to give a casual, over-the-shoulder presentation of some sort. This is usually somebody talking about a library they wrote, but in theory could also be, for example, a survey ("I needed to pick a Ruby web framework so I looked at all of them, and here's what I found"). When you have a specific topic for a specific meeting, sometimes you get people who wouldn't come for a general Ruby group. Last time, Rob talked about topic maps, so we got a few folks showing up more to hear about topic maps. ( I've joked that at this rate, I'll have to rename it the Ruby-Ontology-NYC group. )
+ I've been to these sorts of things both in offices and in semi-public spaces like internet cafes. There are lots of pluses and minuses to each approach, but wherever you are I think it's important that you have quick access to lots of different sorts of snacks & drinks. It should feel like you're relaxing after work, not working late.
+ Also, I suspect that group coding sessions are for a certain hardcore faction of programmer, so we don't do a lot of that. We do a lot of talking and a teensy bit of coding. I'm thinking of mixing that up occasionally in the future, though.
+ I always send an after-the-fact email to the list where I give a brief synopsis of what we talked about and how many people came. It seems to work well to nag lurkers into finally showing up.
F.
···
On Oct 12, 2004, at 11:31 PM, Jamis Buck wrote:
Bill Atkins wrote:
Jamis,
I'm intrigued about this RUG. How many members do you have? How did
you get it started? I'd love to get involved with something like that
in my area.
We've got about 6 (give or take) active members, with three more that have moved and keep in touch via email (Carl Youngblood among them). There are a handful more on our mailing list that haven't been to a meeting in a while. You have to understand--we're at a university with a student body of 30,000+ students. So a friend of mine and I were talking one day and thought, "you know, with so many students (and a sizeable CS department, to boot), there ought to be at least a few people interested in Ruby."
Thus, we founded the BYU Ruby Users Group. It started mostly with people in my office, but has gradually grown to include a few other members, mostly by word of mouth. I post those flyers about a week before each meeting, but I don't know that anyone has actually attended a meeting because of one.
I'm curious: has anyone found a successful strategy for adding members to their RUG?
- Jamis
Bill
On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:25:23 +0900, Jamis Buck <jgb3@email.byu.edu> >> wrote:
Jamis Buck wrote:
Okay--just a quick request. Could a few of you glance at the flyer and
let me know if it looks okay? Any typos I'm not seeing? Etc. FWIW: I
left the meeting time at 7, since that seemed to work for people at the
last meeting. So...one last time...Tuesday, October 19th, at 7 pm, in
room 120 of the TMCB. Sound good?
http://www.jamisbuck.org/rug_flyer.pdf
Thanks! If no one has any objections, I'll print the flyers out tomorrow
and take them to the secretaries in the CS department tomorrow afternoon.
Hans or Jacob -- I can't remember who said they could post an
announcement to the UUG. Whoever it was, you could post the
announcement anytime after the flyer is validated.
Arg. I'm stupid. I meant to send this to my local RUG. *blush*
It's too late. I'm not thinking straight. *sigh*
--
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis
.
--
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis
We did well out of immigration last summer. An Israeli and a German
bolstered our ranks in short order. We're lobbying the federal
government to up the intake again this summer.
Cheers,
Gavin
···
On Wednesday, October 13, 2004, 1:31:42 PM, Jamis wrote:
I'm curious: has anyone found a successful strategy for adding members
to their RUG?
We'd like the members breathing when they attend the meetings, Ara. 
Thanks for the thought, though. I'll be a little more specific next time. 
- Jamis
···
Ara.T.Howard@noaa.gov wrote:
On Wed, 13 Oct 2004, Jamis Buck wrote:
I'm curious: has anyone found a successful strategy for adding members to
their RUG?
poison darts and twine.
-a
--
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis
Francis Hwang wrote:
... Last time, Rob talked about topic maps, so we got a few folks showing up more to hear about topic maps. ( I've joked that at this rate, I'll have to rename it the Ruby-Ontology-NYC group. )
Are there any notes or other tangibles from this discussion? I'm interested in Ruby + topic maps as well.
In general, do groups tend to keep any sort of notes from their meetings? My guess would be that any sort of admin overhead would make the meetings less fun, but as a practical matter it would be nice if there were some record of the myriad ad-hoc discussions and presentations.
Thanks,
James Britt
Francis Hwang wrote:
... Last time, Rob talked about topic maps, so we got a few folks showing up more to hear about topic maps. ( I've joked that at this rate, I'll have to rename it the Ruby-Ontology-NYC group. )
Are there any notes or other tangibles from this discussion? I'm interested in Ruby + topic maps as well.
Not much, sorry.
In general, do groups tend to keep any sort of notes from their meetings? My guess would be that any sort of admin overhead would make the meetings less fun, but as a practical matter it would be nice if there were some record of the myriad ad-hoc discussions and presentations.
I've never been in any sort of techie group that keeps detailed notes, myself. I figure that's what RubyConf is for; monthly Ruby-NYC meetings are just for hanging out.
F.
···
On Oct 13, 2004, at 5:06 AM, James Britt wrote:
Francis Hwang wrote:
I've never been in any sort of techie group that keeps detailed notes, myself. I figure that's what RubyConf is for; monthly Ruby-NYC meetings are just for hanging out.
I would imagine so. The Phoenix Ruby Users Group has never gained any traction, but I would expect that doing anything formal would make attendance even lower.
James