Considerations for visual branding and site relocation

[jary]

I'll fork off the site talk since I essentially hijacked the topics
discussion. Sorry David. ;) I have no qualms with donating the cost of
the domain for a few years to Kerry if he wants to host. I'm also ok
with doing some original artwork for a logo to consider. Can't go
wrong with 100% authentic, but it won't be completely glamorous. I'll
try and come up with a panel to submit to the group within the next 2
meetings and maybe some others can contribute as well.

- Jeremy

[Greg]

Here are the pertitent comments:
======================================================
On a different note, I'd like to help bring some visibility to the
group, so
what are the feelings on starting with the virtual front and possibly
putting a domain and design together?
======================================================
...not to step on toes, just considering my abilities that I can
contribute.
I suppose I should first inquire into how you all feel about the
current
state of delivery. If this suffices, what areas are we lacking in
that
could
use some assistance?
======================================================
Currently Greg is in charge of the site. Obviously it's a standard
posterous site. I have a hosting plan and would be glad to throw it
up on my server if we wanted to go that direction. I am not sure how
much flexibility posterous has, nor am I fully aware of the benefits
of using it over self hosting. I typically self host wordpress for
the simple fact that I like control and owning my data.
We should consider what domain to buy. njug.org is available I
believe, however I wouldn't be opposed to using something a little
less generic like 'music city jug', or 'nashville jvm user group'
since we may want to get the word out that we aren't just all about
Java. We have done scala and groovy stuff in the past.
Any thoughts?
kw
======================================================
I do like the sound of broadening it out a little as, for example,
groovy is
something that appeals to me as well, so being able to discuss in
group
would be nice. I think it also opens up to the avenues of repos and
other
tools like David has recommended. I too spotted njug.org and that's
kind of
what spawned the idea. My 2 cents is that it would still be easy to
remember
and fit the branding if we have or were to bring a logo to the table.
Keeping the familiar term could also help in bringing in new members
or
visitors to the area as it's a natural term to search out. It's how I
found
out about the meeting this month.
======================================================
1) If someone wants to host a site, whether it is something like
wordpress or custom, that is fine with me. Just be advised that I
won't be able to maintain it. I'll be happy to sign up for an account
so I can post entries, but that is about the amount of time I have.
It's one reason I picked posterous: free and automatically posts to
twitter. FYI: wordpress can do this with the right plugin, and it is
something I would really like. NJUG won't be funding a domain because
we don't hanle money, so if there is desire for a custom domain, then
it has to be donated by someone. Of course, wordpress.com offers
something similar to posterous, like njug.wordpress.com. Regarding
owning your own data, well I totally understand that. I just didn't
feel like I was putting THAT much info on the posterous site to need
to go that far.
2) Your right, this isn't Java The Language user group. It's Java The
Technology, which extends to the language, the runtime (which
includes
any JVM language you think of like scala, groovy, clojure, erjang,
ceylong, kotlin, etc.), and java the community, which means just
about
any library/JSR/components/IDEs/news you can think of are fair game
for meetings. I feel this gives us a wide range of options. To show
how open we can be, if you want to talk about a fantabulous
javascript
library you use to build the front end of your java system, I would
even be open to that. (Partly because I'm playing catchup on
javascript). I'll probably draw the line if you want to demonstrate
a .NET library (but feel free to mention if your java library being
demonstrated has been ported to .NET, or you are using scala
on .NET).
Personally, I think it's fine to keep going as the Nashville Java
User
Group, but if you want to change that, well we need to decide what is
right venue for that. Should it be put to a vote at an actual
meeting?
That would seem to empower to attendees to make the real decision. If
we actual video'd every meeting so people could remotely attend, I
would be open to online voting, but since we don't it seems those
that
make it to the meetings should be given top ranked status.
Everyone has heard of JUGs, and I don't think they constrict things
too tightly over what it means. Besides, we will be defined by the
content of our site.
3) Regarding logos, that is fine with me. Just pay careful attention
to IP rights. Don't assume you can go grab some image from the
internet, tweak it, and call it a logo. It's possible you stole
someone's IP. Right now, someone is drawing a logo for my Spring
Python open source project (http://springpython.webfactional.com). I
have made it clear that if they want to contribute that, it has to be
100% free of cost and and also 100% free of IP entanglements. I don't
want to get encumbered with content I don't have full and complete
ownership of. This is where it pays to read up on Creative Commons
licensing. For some examples, check out how I license the material on
my podcast (http://pondjumpers.com, bottom right corner). I admit I
don't have any licensing stuff on the posterous site, and I should.
Of
course, IANAL, but any ownership must be put in real names. We aren't
some 501c3 organization, so we can't just say that "NJUG owns it".
Whoever is volunteering to host the site, are you willing to put your
name on the license as the owner?
======================================================

[Greg]

P.S. I pulled David's version of this thread so we are all on one
thread of discussion.

[Kerry Wilson]

OK, I say we just get a domain and point it to posterous and fancy it
up a bit by adding a logo, etc... Create 'official' linkedin,
facebook and Twitter accounts for posterous to post to. Also, I am
going to put up a job board for java job postings in the area that
recruiters can post to.

kw

[Greg Turnquist]

1) Registering custom domain is simple with posterous. (I did the same for springpythonbook.com).

2) Insert custom logo isn't hard either. I know the logo can be used to replace the avatar shown on the site (currently showing as a frame from a slide show I gave). I can look at the gallery of themes to see where else it can be plugged in.

3) Static pages/links to things like linkedin pages and facebook pages is pretty easy as well. Creating custom twitter easy as well.

--
Greg Turnquist (Greg.L.T...@gmail.com)

[David Escandell]

<sarcasm>Once we have a logo, we should get t-shirts! </sarcasm>

[jary]

Hi all,

I've come up with 6 draft logos to submit to the group. You can view
them here:

http://i.imgur.com/3VSeL.png

If there are any proposals or standards in place on a decision-making
process to narrow it down, I'd like to hear about them. If not, I was
thinking that since the most active members appear to be present on
the email list, we could vote down to a few before next meeting and
then take a vote in person between the final designs. That
is...provided any of these fitting! :) I'm also not opposed to just
taking the whole decision to the group, so whichever suits the popular
opinion fits me well.

If there are any other who would like to join in with a few designs, I
welcome you and hope I've inspired you in some way to contribute.

If we need volunteers on setting up or pitching in on managing any of
our social network presences, I'd be willing to help out, just let me
know.

- Jeremy

[Greg]

If I were to note them as:

A B
C D
E F (left-to-right, top-to-bottom),

I like F the best and B second best. I favor the idea of narrowing
down to 3 and then conducting a vote at a meeting. We can whittle down
to three here or on the mailing list, post a posterous article with
the logos, indicating a group vote is coming, and then make final
choice there. Sound like a fair process?

[Jeremy Ary]

That sounds fair to me. Following your format, I put my votes on A & F.

I preserved the psd file for all of them just in case there's any questions of source or originality. That will also let us make some color choices if we want to change it up any or have a future need for resizing.