A couple nights ago I was reading my Twitter feed and followed a link to a blog post writen by @realmofzod (I believe his name is Brandon). Go read it and then come back, this post will still be here.
After reading Brandon’s post it seemed like a Portland WordPress Developer Meetup might be a good idea. I try to make it out to as many of the user group meetings as possible and from my experience there are usually many more “users” than “developers” in attendance. Having a second group that is dedicated to development topics makes a lot of sense in my opinion. Personally, I just want a group where I can get together and talk about WordPress code for an hour or two with a bunch of like minded individuals. I’ve felt this way for a while now and have talk to other who have shared similar opinions.
How Many Others Feel the Same Way?
I sent out some messages on Twitter about the idea of a WordPress developer meetup and got a pretty good response. 15 people seem to really like the idea. There are another 9 that I haven’t talked to yet as well as a few others that I think may be interested. This sounds like a pretty decent sized group … all in under 24 hours! Added to that, there are 3 businesses who may be able to host the meeting as well. Needless to say, I’m pretty stoked!
Are Two Groups Better Than One?
After some careful thought on this topic I came to the conclusion that a second group may be a really bad idea. If Portland had 2 group meetings each month, I would end up going to both – or at least try to. “Double the WordPress, Double the fun!” Right? Others may not want a double-dose of WordPress each month and may end up choosing between the two groups. I would really like to avoid this at all costs. I started to think of ways of having some developer fun without splintering the user group. I kind of like the idea of a …
WordPress Hackathon
Well, I guess “hackathon” in a very loose sense. I’ve only ever been to one of these in the past and I thought that the format was pretty cool. There were developers of all skill levels in the same room working on projects related to the common topic of Open Data. I learned a lot that day, met a few new people and had a really great time! This Hackathon had a very open format – every now and again someone would jump on the projector and share something that they were interested in or demonstrate an idea that would spark discussion.
I can easily picture a 2 – 4 hour hackathon where everyone is sharing knowledge about WordPress. Whether it’s hacking core, plugin & theme development, optimization, html, css, javascript, SQL, HTTP, etc. It could be a great alternative to creating an official developer meetup. I mean how much awesome would come out of a room filled with wordpress developers for half of a day? My guess is Alot of awesome!
In all honesty. I would be up for trying it out once and seeing where it went from there.
What Do You Think?
I think that this idea has some potential and feel that it is worth giving a try. What are your thoughts? Feel free to comment below.
I think this is a great idea; shall we make it part of PDXWP? We can certainly promote it through PDXWP channels.
Hi Kathleen. Sounds like a great idea to me! I’ll keep you posted as this idea progresses.
Maybe do a “Hackathon” after a major WP release (like 3.2).
Also we could expand the current user group and find a larger location that will allow for more than an hour and maybe after a general info session we could split to a user and dev tracs for the remainder of the meetup.
I like the idea of having a hackathon as a supplemental effort, however I also appreciate the structured meetups that kathleen has been organizing for the wp user group. Setting a theme for at least the beginning part of a session would help keep the discussion focused and it would provide a better venue for expert speakers. I think it would be superb to follow that up with a more open format ‘hackathon’. In either case, it couldn’t hurt having a room full of wordpress developers. I sent Kathleen an email with some thoughts regarding combining efforts and expanding the wp user group to include more of the technically minded developer community. I’m looking forward to reading the response.
Great thinking! I share your feelings about avoiding two groups and people choosing, and I think a hackathon, whether as a separate meeting or supplementing a general meeting, would work.
@Brian : Uhoh! We just missed that by a few days :) I think that the hackathon idea could be independent of the release cycle, but scheduling them after each major release could have it’s merits too. Having a more structured meetup group would be a great idea. Having a speaker for the first part and then breaking out into groups sounds golden to me!
@Brandon : This is actually how some of the meetings have happened in the past. Unfortunately, most times when there is a speaker, they tend to take up the whole meeting. I’ve presented to the group twice and have been guilty of it both times. I guess it’s just a naturally occurring phenomenon? When I did the “plugin” presentation, I actually dod not want to “present” in the traditional sense. My goal was to say what I needed to say and then open the floor up to all members of the group to share their experiences with plugins that they find really useful. I think it’s important to engage everyone as much as possible. Give everyone time to be heard.
I really like the idea of someone speaking for 20 minutes and then separating into smaller groups. I went to a WordPress meetup in Seattle and this is exactly what they did. Someone had the entire floor for ~20 minutes and then there was some time for “mingling”. After this period, three smaller groups were formed: developers, designers (I think) and then people who really wanted to ask the speaker questions. I really like this model and I believe it is really close to what you and Brian suggested above.
@Michelle : Thanks! Really looking forward to it. Let me know if you come up with any ideas in regard to it. I’ll be working on planning it in the next little while. Really excited!
Not that I live in Portland, but my experience is that while it’s great to go to structured meetups to learn, Hackathons offer a different experience: I get to crank away on the very projects I neglect when I got to structured meetups, but I do so in the company of people who may be interested in or can help me with what I’m cranking on!
So if I were in Portland and not sweaty old North Carolina, I would vote “Yay!” on this.