[Usergroups] Outreach Advice

Christopher Johnson cjj at ifpeople.net
Sat Mar 7 16:41:50 UTC 2009


Howdy,

A few quick things:

- re outreach to others, I suggest infiltrating other usergroups. You
basically have to go to where the potential Plonistas are and give them good
reason to come to your event. In our case, we have infiltrated the much
larger Python user group. We started making presentations there to help
people learn about Plone. That just started this year and we are hoping
after a couple more, we start getting more attendance from that group (if
nothing else, it put Plone back on the radar for many). Other suggestions
are PHP groups (a remarkable number seem to go to those because they need a
cms or something to run their website and php pops up...). You also may find
local web design meetups or general web developer groups. Often times these
groups are happy to find new presenters, so giving a nice intro presentation
to Plone is a great way to spread the word.

- beyond just marketing at those meetings, we actually became a "special
interest group" at PyAtl. This helped us cut down on the overhead of
maintaining a website (Atlanta Plone had already built a Plone 3 site for
PyAtl!) and makes sure we have ongoing overlap with their members.

- I agree with Tim that private companies can be OK. In the case of Atlanta,
the easiest places to get started at were (a) Georgia Tech (= no beer) and
(b) ifPeople's offices (= beer). We went for the beer. We recently had a
meeting where we reviewed the usergroup setup, meeting type, etc and
everyone wanted to keep it including beer :).

Good luck with the new group!

-c


On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 12:06 AM, Tim Knapp <duffyd at kokorice.org> wrote:

> Hi Chris,
>
> Wow that was a monolith but a very useful one, thanks!!
>
> On Fri, 2009-03-06 at 16:54 -0500, Chris Calloway wrote:
> <snip />
> >
> > 2) Don't ask for RSVPs. Your commitment as host is to show up and be
> > there for whoever else shows up. Don't clutter you email list with
> > RSVPs. Clutter it up with Plone instead. RSVPs make people feel like
> > they have to RSVP in order to come. That's a blocker, not a helper. Many
> > people won't even have the opportunity to decide to come to your meeting
> > until right beforehand. They just have jobs or family situations that
> > don't permit them to plan that far in advance for something as optional
> > in their lives as a user group meeting.
>
> I call for RSVPs for the express purpose of having a book draw on the
> night as I've tried to get names on the night and its troublesome and
> drawn out and I'd prefer to just run my (python) script and give away
> the book, done, finito.
>
> It also serves the dual purpose of giving me a record of the numbers
> attending over time and who (please don't say I can do this on the
> night, have you ever tried hosting/chairing the event and keeping track
> of this kind of stuff - it just doesn't happen). Of course, anyone is
> welcome to come on the night and they do; I've never seen it as an
> inhibitor to people just turning up on the night.
>
> <snip />
> >
> > Meeting at private companies is a no-no.
>
> I can't say I entirely agree with this. We have a python group meeting
> at a private company and thus far the topics have been varied and broad
> and in no way influenced by the company hosting the event. The said
> company is a very positive supporter of open source in NZ and is very
> supportive of any open source activities and provides free
> pizzas/drinks :)
>
> -Tim
>
>
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>



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