APM: January meeting

[Ian Remmler]

On Thu, Jan 08, 2009 at 01:20:18AM +0000, jameschoate at austin.rr.com wrote:
> I'd like to suggest another venue. It's called Frugal Media and
> it's at 5400 N. Lamar. It's a used bookstore with plenty of
> seating space and they have wireless. That's the same
> building that Laboratory Computers was in.

Sounds interesting.  Please do look into it if you'd like.

> As to topic, I'd like to suggest a change with regard to
> the general approach to the meeting. Instead of them
> being primarily a presentation mechanism I'd like to
> suggest the default to be a 'problem solving' session.

I like the idea of having different types of meetings, or
different sessions within a meeting.  Having shorter sessions
means less pressure for presenters, and if someone has to bow
out at the last minute, there is still something lined up.

We did some Bring Your Perl Problems type meetings a while back,
and I think they were very beneficial.

> So, what I'm proposing is that the default for
> the APM meetings is for atendees to bring
> their laptop, some pen & paper, some books
> or papers to share with the group. The primary
> goal is to first improve problem solving, and
> secondarily to write some Perl code where
> appropriate.

I generally like the idea, but I feel the emphasis should be on
How To Solve Problems Using Perl.  If we go too far toward How
To Solve Problems (and I guess we can use Perl to do it), I
think we're getting a bit too big for our PM britches.  That
would fit better in a more general group like I mentioned at the
last meeting.  I think APM would benefit from an association
with such a group, but I'd rather it not morph into something
that isn't PM anymore.

-- 
    - Ian.