[Pdx-pm] April Meeting

[Josh Heumann]

I sent this around 1pm, but it got rejected because I forgot to change
my From: header.  Here it is again, although the meeting is long over.
I'd like to hear what was discussed, if anyone feels up to summarizing.

J

<quote who='Eric Wilhelm' when='Wed, Apr 12, 2006 at 10:44:37AM -0700'>
> Josh's assignment is to phone-in a list of issues/responsibilities that 
> a new president will need to consider.

A rough collection of thoughts I've collected from going to most of the
meetings for the past two years:

- We need to encourage more beginners, or at least reach out to those
  who are beginning to use perl.  This is as much for ourselves (or at
  least those of us who might have to maintain their code) as for them.
  It would also be good to see new faces at meetings.  No offense to
  those who come to meeting, of course.  I love looking at each of your
  shining faces.

- Be more of a resource for those out-of-towners that descend on our
  fair city for OSCON.  Actually get buttons this year (I recently
  located a good local source for buttons[1]).  Maybe try to arrange
  something with O'Reilly wherein we can get a discount and help out but
  not violate the terms of whatever contract they are in with the
  Convention Center folks.
  
- Get a group project going.  We have some cool people here, and even if
  we're just writing a script that tells time in Klingon, it would be
  cool to have everyone contributing at once.

- More lightning talks.  This was identified in an earlier email in this
  thread, but even having two topics per meeting is a good idea.  I
  tried to do this when I could, but sometimes there's a shortage of
  willing speakers.

- Make better use of the wiki.  We have several half-executed ideas on
  the wiki, like the sqlDebate[2], PerlApps[3], Regular Expression
  Compendium[4] and the PerlProjectsPage[5].  Each of these could use a
  meeting to flush out the idea itself, or just add content to the page
  in a group-fashion.

- More social meetings.  This is more of a half-baked idea than anything
  else, but I know that other pm groups have one technical meeting every
  month and one social one.  Approval and participation from enough
  people would be required.

- More participation by group members.  It would be nice to have more
  traffic on the list, but also having people requesting topics they'd
  like to see presented.  Randall Hansen wrote a simple polling script
  that is in use on the main page of the site (thanks, Randall).  I'm
  sure that others would be willing to write little tools like that for us.

- Speaking of the poll, the most recent poll ("Are you currently looking
  for a perl job?") yielded some interesting results:


    30% Yes, I'm po' and hungry

    38% No, I'm liking my job, thanks

    32% Not actively looking, but not so happy I wouldn't consider leaving
    if the opportunity was right

  While it's nice to know that the biggest group is happily employed, we
  should talk about what we can do as a group to help the other 62%.

That taps out the list I've been keeping.  I'm sorry I won't be able to
be at the meeting tonight.  It's always interesting to listen to
perlmongers talking about the future of the group.

J

[1]: http://www.microcosmpublishing.com/manufacturing/buttons/
[2]: http://pdx.pm.org/kwiki/index.cgi?sqlDebate
[3]: http://pdx.pm.org/kwiki/index.cgi?PerlApps
[4]: http://pdx.pm.org/kwiki/index.cgi?RECompendium
[5]: http://pdx.pm.org/kwiki/index.cgi?PortlandPerlProjectsPage