[pm-h] July Houston.pm: Call for presentation
B. Estrade
estrabd at gmail.com
Sat Jun 28 15:07:53 PDT 2014
On Sat, Jun 28, 2014 at 11:12 AM, G. Wade Johnson <gwadej at anomaly.org> wrote:
> On Sat, 28 Jun 2014 08:22:41 -0500
> "B. Estrade via Houston" <houston at pm.org> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 7:28 AM, G. Wade Johnson via Houston
>> <houston at pm.org> wrote:
>> > On Sun, 22 Jun 2014 13:39:39 -0400
>> > Todd Rinaldo via Houston <houston at pm.org> wrote:
>> >
>> >> I have a partially formed idea I've been tossing around. There is a
>> >> ton of content online from past and present YAPCs now. Not to
>> >> mention other conferences. Often this content is coming from the
>> >> author of the feature / method being discussed. I was wondering if
>> >> we could somehow integrate that into a meeting with discussion.
>> >>
>> >> The format might be:
>> >> 1. We vote up and watch a list of videos people like (possibly
>> >> clipped to the good parts)
>> >> 2. Discussion / Q&A of content.
>> >>
>> >> I get that I and others could do this on our own. So I'm hesitant
>> >> to say there's value. I thought I'd throw it out to the list and
>> >> see if anyone's had any thoughts based on the idea.
>> >
>> > [Drat, I didn't reply all on this one.]
>> >
>> > I can see this as a start to a discussion in the group. On the other
>> > hand, would everyone really want to sit as a group to watch a video
>> > of someone presenting somewhere else?
>> >
>> > Any real opinions?
>>
>> I think there is something to Todd's idea that could work and not just
>> be a bunch of geeks watching Youtube videos while sitting idle.
>>
>> Perhaps we could dedicate some time (5-10 min, max) to providing some
>> "recommended videos" list. I know that inevitably there are talks
>> that are and are not worth your time. Some of us could help compile
>> this offline.
>>
>> Likewise, coming off the heels of YAPC, would it be worth
>> brainstorming with the group to get a list of interesting topics that
>> attendees might wish to hear or talk about? I have this half-brained
>> idea that if we cultivate a list of "interesting topics," it might
>> dawn on someone that their specialty/interest is also an interest of
>> others. Once we get an initial list, I am happy to feed and water that
>> list. I am interested in such a list, not just for Houston.pm, but as
>> a general list that anyone looking for Perl talks could turn to to see
>> what might be some interesting topics.
>
> The mailing list has a kind of informal, impermanent version of this
> list. I trawl through it once in a while looking for things. An
> official list is a good idea.
>
>> Looking ahead .. Another approach that we might want to consider is
>> that instead of collecting ideas or topics to present, is to
>> proactively seek out a stable of individuals who want to present and
>> who like to present. It seems like it'd be a lot easier to grow a core
>
> We've done that before. The result was a small number of us who
> presented until we burned out on the whole notion of presenting for a
> while.
>
> One downside of the "stable of presenters" is that they get better and
> better at presenting, which adds a barrier of entry for any new
> presenters. When we had the same people always presenting, I had people
> propose cool ideas, but say they couldn't present because they would
> never be as good as the "official" presenters.
>
Excellent point, so we don't do that, but we can't ignore the fact
that there are certain individuals who actually like giving talks.
However those willing to present regularly should take it upon themselves
to identify and bring in a new speaker (perhaps at their workplace or
from another user group).
We can also directly ask those who have demonstrated the willingness
to speak in the past to come back again. The key is not to ask
"everyone," but to ask someone specifically. We can all think of at
least one person. And thanks to your hard work, we have over 10 years
of talks to look back on (!! :)
>
>> group of presenters rather than each time trying to convince someone
>> new to step up. The reason I say this is because we have a group of
>> people who would certainly talk about (whatever) if asked. I would, I
>> know a few others who would (and do) regularly.
>>
>> We should absolutely seek out new speakers and highly encourage it,
>> but in my opinion it's a whole lot easier to generate talks if we have
>> a maintained list of topics and a group of people who we know are
>
> I think the list of talks is a good idea. And, to some extent, we will
> always have a group of people who are willing to present on almost any
> topic.
>
> As a group, we have a lot more to say than _any_ small group of
> presenters. Personally, I would love to learn from the people who feel
> like they don't have much to say. They are often the ones who do
> presentations on topics no one else would have thought of.
>
I'm not sure how to force these interesting people and topics to turn
up. I can only think of creating an environment that invites it. Or we
have to identify them outside of PM and directly ask them if they
could please come talk about something, anything.
And like I said above, we have a lot of 1 time speakers who may be
willing to come back - their choice of topic. If they ask what they
can talk about, well we have a list we're keeping now.
>> willing to talk (about anything.) This would also work well for
>> "lightning talk" meetings if we make sure the people who we know will
>> talk (about something) will show up. I think that focusing on having
>> a regular rotation of @speakers willing to talk about @things (as
>> determined by work we do to survey the group) is a good recipe for
>> building up regular attendance.
>>
>> (beware, blue sky tangent)
>>
>> At some point if we have some "go to" people and have built up
>> attendance (bc we're serving real needs), I think it'd be super cool
>> to take that leap and organize a bona fide 1 or 2 day Houston Perl
>> Workshop - especially considering that 2/4 of the YAPC::NA sponsors
>> that had tables are also sponsors of Houston.pm, I imagine that we
>> have that part covered pretty well. I say all of this fully
>> recognizing the fact that I am also volunteering to play a large part
>> in any effort to organize this.
>
> This sounds like a great idea. It is a lot of work, but it would be
> worth it to get more of the Perl people in Houston engaged with the
> group.
>
>> Thank you,
>> Brett
>
> Good thoughts,
> G. Wade
I am going to try my theory about asking specific people if they'd be
willing to give a talk at a Houston.pm meeting. It may not pay off for
this coming meeting, but I think it might for future talks.
Thanks, Wade.
Brett
>
>> > G. Wade
>> >
>> >> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 5:46 PM, G. Wade Johnson via Houston
>> >> <houston at pm.org> wrote:
>> >> > Hi everyone,
>> >> >
>> >> > It's about 3 weeks to the next Houston.pm meeting on July 10 at
>> >> > cPanel.
>> >> >
>> >> > Does anyone have a topic they would like to present?
>> >> >
>> >> > Is there any kind of topic you guys would like to hear about?
>> >> >
>> >> > * Perl beginner
>> >> > - we've had a couple of these lately
>> >> > - ?
>> >> > * Perl advanced
>> >> > - ?
>> >> > * General programming
>> >> > - ?
>> >> > * Open Source projects we should know about
>> >> > - ?
>> >> > * Tools/environment
>> >> > - we haven't had editor presentations in a while
>> >> > - ?
>> >> > * Security
>> >> > - ?
>> >> > * Hardware
>> >> > - doing anything cool with hardware and Perl?
>> >> > - ?
>> >> > * Something unrelated to Perl, but still of interest to the
>> >> > group
>> >> > - Mind hacks
>> >> > - Making
>> >> > - ?
>> >> >
>> >> > Remember the quality of meetings is under your control.
>> >> > G. Wade
>> >> > --
>> >> > It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter
>> >> > how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's
>> >> > wrong. -- Richard Feynman
>> >> > _______________________________________________
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>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Be a good ancestor. -- Jonas Salk
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/houston
>> > Website: http://houston.pm.org/
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>
>
> --
> Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
> violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage, to move in
> the opposite direction. -- Albert Einstein
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