Re: Starting Chicago Gnome User Group

["Paul Cutler" <pcutler foresightlinux org>]

I'm also watching Kevin's attempts to get a GNOME group going.  I'm in
Minneapolis, MN, and we're just getting our LUG going again
(www.tclug.org, horribly out of date), which I'm involved with as
well.  Depending on the turnout of the next couple of meetings we
have, I'm hoping to survey how many GNOME users we have and form a
GNOME LUG, or at least present on GNOME in the next few months.

Kevin and I are both involved with Foresight, which releases with
every GNOME release, so we're staying in touch on his GNOME efforts.
I may even pop down to Chicago for the first meeting.

If anyone knows of any GNOME developers or users here in Minnesota,
please contact me off list.

Thanks!

Paul
pcutler foresightlinux org

On 4/23/07, Dave Neary <bolsh gnome org> wrote:
> 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
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