[advocacy-discuss] OSUG Discussion: OGB Reorg and New Webapp Issues

[Jim Grisanzio]

Alan DuBoff wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Jun 2008, Simon Phipps wrote:
>
>> Sounds appropriate to me. I would certainly support "User Groups" as 
>> one of the top-level entities I propose in 
>> http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/entry/simplifying_opensolaris_governance
>
> I haven't been reading this fora for a while, but just wanted to 
> comment on a couple things, as I'm trying to get a grip around what I 
> think will be the future, and it's not user groups as we know them 
> today or how we've know them.
>
> I'm going to take this meeting for my user group to try and find out 
> what some of the people want, what they would like to see done, and/or 
> how we can change what is a typical user group of today, so that it 
> fits in and/or better suites the global economy we live in today.
>
> One thing I'm thinking of is trying to get some Technical Architect 
> Groups (TAG) going, where people with common interests could get 
> together and speak face-to-face, but go off and work on 
> coding/implementations/work as an outcome of that. These are difficult 
> to pull off in the global aspect, but it's something we need to 
> ponder. I don't think the forums are working in that capacity, and the 
> user groups are not pulling that together. So, we have this void to 
> fill. I keep thinking that user groups can help assist this, and/or 
> allow others to join.
>
> Also, I have been thinking that the typical 1-2 hour presentation just 
> doesn't work these days. 
I agree.

> People value their time differently, things need to be in shorter 
> duration, for web, more in the order of lightning talks. In this 
> regard, I've pondered if it wouldn't be better to have 4 short 
> presentations, where the video could be shared and/or used amongst 
> other user groups. How to fit that and tie it in with the user groups 
> could really help many of them survive. Otherwise many of the user 
> groups will die on the vine, they ALWAYS do.

The Sun Japan team does little micro-talk events called "Developers' 
Lounge" in Tokyo from time to time. Multiple communities. Food. Drink. A 
series of 5 minute presos with the schedule made up on the spot. Pretty 
cool. Lots of participation. http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/tags/lounge

I also know that the Ruby community in Tokyo does a lot of shorter talks 
at their conferences. I think shorter is better.

I think UGs come and go, and that's normal. But I think our focus should 
be on /users/ much more than user /groups/. We should look beyond the 
mechanics of how UGs form and function and look to building a global 
user community. If we can better support the needs of users generally, 
then I think the user /groups/ will take care of themselves.

> Another aspect I've pondered is talks from community members on things 
> they are working on. It has been hard to get folks from the community, 
> and I think there are things they're doing. As an example, Bob 
> Palowoda is using some software to create a tunnel to a VirtualBox on 
> a network, so that the VB appears as another host on the network. I 
> think that is cool, software was written in the community, I'm sure 
> who wrote it. That is goodness. Am trying to get him to talk about 
> that. More short talks by people that are doing different things with 
> OpenSolaris, any type of multimedia, web related work, servers using 
> OpenSolaris, etc...

Also, another example from Tokyo. The Tokyo Linux UG meets monthly -- 
one month for a technical meeting and nomikai (party) on a Saturday, and 
the next month they meet for /only/ a nomikai usually on a Friday after 
work. In other words, they value the act of just meeting as much as 
delivering technical talks. UGs don't have to always have a monthly 
technical meeting.

Jim

-- 
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/