Group Direction followup

[Rob Warner]

I've been thinking about the issue that Paul Elliott raised last
night, about increasing attendance at the RubyJax meetings, and the
idea he floated to expand the scope of the group to include more
technologies. He mentioned Java and .Net specifically. I'm against
expanding into Java and .Net for two reasons:

1) Those groups already exist in Jacksonville, and
2) Those are yesterday's technologies. Not much exciting happening
there, except maybe how're they're trying to catch up with today's web
frameworks (see http://www.playframework.org/)

RubyJax has historically attracted a segment interested in more
leading-edge technologies, and I think that's still the ethos of the
group. I agree with the notion of expanding to other technologies,
though--things like Node or jQuery or writing a Vim plugin or doing
mobile development (native or HTML5). I don't know where to draw the
line on what's cool and what isn't, but it probably isn't important to
draw a line.

I think the way to draw more folks is 1) Having interesting topics, 2)
Having interesting speakers, and 3) Giving enough advance notice so
people can make plans to attend. Expanding the scope to other
technologies increases the probability of having #1 and #2. My $0.02.

--
Rob Warner
hoo...@gmail.com

[Ben McDonald]

I'm fine hosting it at my new office downtown. I also had two guys queued up to go last night but the last minute change caused them to change their mind. They were interested in the subject Steve was going to speak on.

How about Node.js stuff or HTML5 topics. Or web basics. I think that would get new members. I think we sometimes forget how many people out there are doing a job that is well understood by them but they don't know what they don't know or how to go about getting started efficiently.

Ben

------------------
Ben McDonald
(904) 318-8478

Brevity disclaimer: sent from iPhone

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[Binod Purushothaman]

I'd be interested in showing up for a class/discussion of Node.js, and HTML5. That's a great idea, thanks.

Binod

[Cayce Balara]

Interesting topics is the biggest draw for me. For instance, I had
several things going on last night, but was planning on coming because
the topic sounded interesting (when that changed unexpectedly, props to
the guys for scrambling and coming up with something on the fly, but my
other stuff took a higher priority).

I doubt I would ever come to a Java or .Net topic. All those other
things you mentioned - Node, jquery, Vim, mobile, etc. - would be
interesting to me.

I think also just trying some different days occasionally would help. I
personally know of a couple folks that would like to come but Thursdays
are bad for them (school) and thus they haven't been able to come to the
last three or four. The group did some Fridays this year - not a great
day for me personally, but I understand those meetings were
well-attended. If it's rotated on different days of the week there's the
potential to draw some of those folks in once or twice, at least.

c.

[Rob Schmidt]

I haven't been to a meeting yet, but recently moved to Jacksonville Beach and signed up for this list.  I'm learning python/django, but would be interested in any of the related web/mobile topics mentioned (JQuery, HTML5, VIM, etc.).

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