On Friday, I posted a message to the Chicago Python list about the possibility of doing weekly code sprints.
excerpt: “… which got me thinking even more… what if every week there was a “mini-sprint” held at some central location downtown where folks can meet up and code. Kind of like a running club, but for coders. A coffee shop with WiFi near Millennium Park might work, or perhaps the food court in Citibank Plaza. To fit into the work schedule of people who get paid to do other things, the “sprint” would be before or after the standard 8-5 work schedule of most office dwellers.”
“This doesn’t have to be Python-specific…. Rubyists, Perl Mongers, PHPimps, and Javanauts are welcome. Even Lispers, Schemers, OCamlists, Haskellians, Eiffelers, HyperTalkers, and Stegosauruses (COBOL programmers), too. :-)”
Read more here. And if you live in Chicago and can attend, leave a comment here.
Spread the word, the first Chicago TECHcoffee will be held on Monday, June 19th, 6-8 a.m. in the Loop (near an L stop I hope). Place to be determined. If you don’t live in Chicago, feel free to start one in your city! :-)
(editor’s note: astute readers will notice I changed my tune on Lispers being allowed to join, too, between the original ChiPy post and the creation of the techcoffee site. I was kidding originally, but there’s no reason to be mean, even if they do talk funny.)
Did you mean something along the lines of this: http://confluence.public.thoughtworks.org/display/GN/Home
You could always set up a GeekNight Chicago.
–ade
Link | June 12th, 2006 at 2:37 am
ade, true… but I found I could never attend the TW GeekNights because of other commitments (dinner, putting my son to bed, etc.) Also, at least in Chicago, many ThoughtWorkers couldn’t attend because they were out of town on projects… TechCoffee does take the spirit of GeekNight, yes, but puts more emphasis on the “and others” in the phrase “ThoughtWorkers and others”… Also, by having it in a coffeeshop (or similarly public place) it’s easier for folks to come and go as they please. On that note, I’ve noticed that it’s been awhile since most of the offices have had a GeekNight… Are there some other lessons learned there (you’re in London, right?) that I should know about?
Link | June 12th, 2006 at 4:10 am
The main lesson (which I’ve only recently learned) is that you must have a large and diverse set of convenors organising the sessions. This means that the loss of any one organiser is not fatal. It also means that you have a mechanism for bringing in ‘new blood.’
More importantly it means that there’s a greater chance that one of your pool of organisers will have the energy and enthusiasm to initiate things every week. With GeekNight (at least in London) we had a couple of people who got too busy to run these sessions and so nothing happened for a very long time.
Having a diverse group of organisers (e.g they shouldn’t all be working at the same place) mean that a busy period or intense project doesn’t effectively wipe out all your organisers.
A really great example of a successful group that is mostly self-organised is the Extreme Tuesday Club: http://www.xpdeveloper.net/xpdwiki/Wiki.jsp?page=FrontPage
The wiki acts as a central point of organisation, the mailing list enables people who want to do something special to drum up interest and hosting it in a public place like a pub means that people free to wander in off the street.
Link | June 12th, 2006 at 10:51 am
Ade, thanks for the Extreme Tuesday link… thanks also for the other lessons… Yeah, I agree that having it some place public (in my case a coffee shop) will be easier to organize (drinks and wifi already provided)… All I have to do is advertise it and show up. :-)
Link | June 13th, 2006 at 12:58 am