Jim, one thing we did in the beginning was provide a template for a
website and offer hosting that linked to a common repository of
resources (software, FAQs, etc.). In some cases all they did was
translate the site into their native language. Here are a couple
more examples of the older sites still in use:
http://www.pegasos.org.ru/ (Russia)
http://pegasos.amiga-klub.si/ (Slovenia)
http://www.pegasos-italia.com/ (Italy)
It really does help get the word out.
We also supported/hosted sites around operating systems we
supported. These are for MorphOS:
http://developer.morphosppc.com/
http://www.morphzone.org
http://www.morphos-news.de
And, finally around the CPU architecture itself:
http://www.ppczone.org
Different strokes for different folks but all basically supporting
the community and the platform with different angles all funneling
into the same pot.
You could draw all user groups in initially like this and then farm
them out as they take legs:
http://www.morphzone.org/modules/newbb_plus/
Scroll down and look how we have it broken down into languages.
Again, this helps often significantly because everyone does not speak
English.
Or, this...
http://www.ppczone.org/forums/
Scroll down and see how we break it up by functional interest and
operating system - even OpenSolaris has a Forum! :-)
The point is to leverage the interest of the Users/Developers. You
could have a CDDL Forum, a Zone Forum, etc.
Anyway, we would be happy to provide the sources for any of the sites
if they could be useful as a template for any of your User Groups.
PPCZone and MorphZone in particular can be modified relatively easily
with the right compliment of graphic support. All the sites are well
tuned and tested.
R&B
On Jun 29, 2005, at 3:53 PM, Jim Grisanzio wrote:
Raquel Velasco and Bill Buck wrote:
Hi Jim, one suggestion: Let the User Groups be User Groups. The
Community Leaders you mentioned should be mentors to the Users
that step up to the responsibility to lead/manage groups. Set
some requirements and empower the local guys to do their thing
within the context of your guidance. We had some experience with
this and can provide more feedback if you want. Examples:
http://pegasos.jinak.cz/ (Czech)
http://www.pegasos.org/ (Swedish)
http://www.pegasos.hu/ (Hungary)
http://www.pegasosforum.de/ (Germany)
http://www.pegasos.pl/ (Poland)
http://pegasos.vkt.lt/ (Lithuania)
etc...
R&B
Thanks. I agree. I'll look at these links to see what you guys have
done. The user groups community I'm proposing is simply a place for
us all to meet, collaborate, pool resources, and make connections.
It's just a community of communities. The individual user groups
leaders will have to step up and lead or nothing will get done
aside from building out a web site page. I'd like to see the
OpenSolaris User Group Community become not only a place to network
and quantify what's already out there but also a place to help new
people get started so the entire Solaris user community has more
leverage points and grows faster.
Jim
On Jun 29, 2005, at 2:17 PM, Jim Grisanzio wrote:
Hey, guys.
I'm getting a lot of calls regarding user groups, and some user
groups are already starting to crop up out there -- Brazil, UK,
USA, Australia, and I hear the Canadians are interested. There's
also been some interest at universities, too, so this could get
pretty big.
Special thanks to Alan Duboff, Alan Hargreaves, Ulf Andreasson,
and Simon Phipps (and I'm *sure* I'm missing some guys here, so
I apologize) for initiating the groups that are already up and
running.
Sun doesn't have a lot of resources to support these activities
directly, so why don't we leverage what they do have and create
a user group community on opensolaris.org? It would be a way for
the entire community to contribute ideas, connections, and
resources to help focus the effort. Sun can participate in the
community, of course, but it will be a community gig from the
start.
How about this to get going:
* We open a user group community on the opensolaris site.
* Sun engineering and marketing are the community leaders initially,
but we'd be looking for community leaders to help share the
responsibility real quick.
* The user group community site will have links, descriptions, and
contact info for all the user groups currently out there, and
it will
grow regularly and rapidly.
* The user group community has its own lists, announcements,
news, and
blog feeds.
* The page can also have initial resources for starting a user
group,
such as presentations that can be customized for local areas,
etc. We
need some feedback on what these resources would be and who could
provide them ...)
* Through Sun employees, we can help establish contacts for
potential
speakers -- sometimes this is brain dead easy; other times
extremely
difficult.
* Speakers can also come from the community as we figure out where
everyone lives and where they travel to.
* Sun marketing can help provide some swag for inaugural user group
meetings.
* Community members may be able to provide meeting facilities,
and in
some instances Sun may be able to as well. We may also be able to
leverage existing conference venues to meet.
* Sun will announce the formation of new user groups on the main
announce page, but all subsequent user group announcements would
take place within the user group community itself. The purpose
of this
is to simply help drive traffic to the user group community
initially.
* Sun will encourage other groups at the company to get involved
on the
OpenSolaris User Group community site and in the field.
* Anything else?
Community leaders (initially):
* Jim Grisanzio
* Eric Boutilier
* Sara Dornsife
What do you think? Doable? Interested? If so, we'll get this set
up and see what happens.
Jim
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