[Pdx-pm] April Meeting
Josh Heumann
perl-pm at joshheumann.com
Wed Apr 12 23:30:24 PDT 2006
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
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