Re: Starting Chicago Gnome User Group

[Dave Neary <bolsh gnome org>]

Hi,

Patrick Wagstrom wrote:
> Dave Neary wrote:
>> Great! There's also a biggish GNOME presence elsewhere in the mid-west,
>> in Ohio and Michigan. You might consider widening the scope a little (or
>> is that too wide of a scope? From where I am, distance between US cities
>> is measured in centimeters).
> As far as land area, what you've just proposed is about 
> 460,000km^2.  For reference, Germany is 357,000km^2 and France is 
> 547,000km^2.

Pittsburgh in the mid-west? /me thought I was OK at geography, I didn't
think Pennsylvania was anywhere near the mid-west (I was thinking
Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin)

In any case, I don't think that's a prohibitively big area for a small
group of GNOME users.

To give an example, we have gnome-fr, where we're essentially a bunch of
GNOME guys living in France/Belgium/Canada (I don't think we have any
Swiss or North African members right now). Some cities have 3/4 people
from the group living there (like Lyon, Paris) and in those cities,
people meet more often. But mostly, we only meet up in conferences in
Brussels, Nice, Lyon, Rennes/Bordeaux/Dijon, Paris (and that's about
it). So, as I said, 5 or 6 times a year. Which is cool, because when we
meet up, we have a meal together, we know each other from the mailing
list & IRC, and it's good fun. But having the group ensures that we have
a presence at those conferences, at least.

In that area, you have (correct me if I'm wrong) the following major cities:
Chicago
Columbus
Cleveland
Milwaukee
Indianapolis
Des Moines

That's 6 major urban areas - I imagine that each of those has their own
LUG, and that from each of those you can get 2 or 3 people who are into
GNOME. Add in Shawn McCance in Champaign, you in Pittsburgh (you'd be on
the list, wouldn't you?) and a few others scattered around the lakes,
and you have the makings of a good group.

> Distances to some of those conferences are also no go (1260km to Ottawa 
> for OLS, 3250km to Los Angeles for SCALE).  For hardcore hackers, I can 
> see them putting up the money for it, but for the casual person who is 
> just looking at getting started, it's daunting.

I was thinking more of conferences in Chicago, Columbus, ... I don't
know if there are many, but it'd be good to find out :)

A quick search showed up these:
http://www.flourishconf.com/
http://www.tiepgh.org/event02152007.shtml
http://www.ohiolinux.org/

Some LUGs:
http://www.milwaukeelug.org/HomePage
http://www.inluc.org/ (doesn't seem to have much but links to other groups)
http://www.clug.org/
http://ftp.ndlug.nd.edu/drupal/
http://www.chicagolug.org/

There's a full directory here: http://www.linux.org/groups/usa/

> Another issue that we have in starting up US based user groups, is that 
> there is a much less clear description of what we can do.  Many of the 
> other locations can focus on providing localization and localized 
> support.

In fact, that's not what most of the regional groups do at all. It's
often the other way around - translators are hanging out together and
say to each other "it's a pity no-one is promoting GNOME in our region"
and form a user group.

> So what can American groups do?  I've had good luck marketing GNOME to 
> individuals at conferences and educational institutions.  Last year we 
> had a good booth at Ohio LinuxFest, which is probably the closest large 
> show to you, although it still is a five hour drive there.  Around 1000 
> people came last year, I got a chance to talk to about 350 people at the 
> booth.  We'd love to have you join us at the booth this year -- 
> typically this brings together folks from Michigan, Indiana, Western PA, 
> and wee bits of Illinois and Kentucky.  The CFP for OLF is also up, 
> maybe we should try to get some rocking GNOME sessions there.  Last year 
> jdub made it out to beautiful Columbus for it.

Yes! This is exactly what I was thinking of. That, and making friends,
having meals together, that kind of thing.

> Is there a way to make this a higher resolution map?  While it's cool 
> and all that, it's nigh impossible to actually read the data on the map 
> for anywhere that has more than 200 people.  Barring that, does anyone 
> have GoogleMaps-Fu to make it into something scalable, so we can better 
> see where people are.   I can make out a few names in the Northeast and 
> Midwest, but I can't tell enough about where they are.

Aside from figuring out how to use xearth to re-render it, sorry - I
don't know.

>> 2. Create a mailing list, get people signed up, and advertise the list
> 
> Does GNOME provide resources for this?

Yes. But the list should follow the formation of the initial group of
people - there are far too many dead mailing lists on gnome.org now.

http://live.gnome.org/NewListRequest

>> 4. Most important: give the group a first meeting - get people to the
>> same place, identify a conference in the area to represent GNOME at, or
>> have someone from the user group give a presentation to a local LUG.
> 
> Kevin, if you contact me directly, we can talk on the phone about what 
> I've done in Pittsburgh to push GNOME and getting people excited at our LUG.

Thanks for your help Patrick :)

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
bolsh gnome org