Our Purpose

[stevenwadejr]

Bringing together and building a community of local area developers to solve problems and provide assistance through the use of software where needed.

[BigBlueHat]

Great start, @stevenwadejr Let's get some stuff in here about "open": collaboration, source, etc.

I want it to be abundantly clear that this is collaborative, meritocratic, collaborative, etc. ;)

@OpenUpstate/greenville got any thoughts?

[allella]

I was out of town for the discussion. Can someone summarize the thoughts and direction discussed so far?

[BigBlueHat]

@allella most of it centers around focusing on building "open collaboration" (via open source, etc) in Upstate, SC. There are some ideas--which need writing up (in the Wiki?)--that would help all the various, fabulous groups now in existence collaborate on making the upstate more awesomer. 😸

@allella did that sum it up? 😄 Let's turn this thread into iterating @stevenwadejr's proposed summary.

[stevenwadejr]

I had a great discussion with @wryenmeek last week about OpenUpstate. The idea came up that there are so many great groups in this area but not many groups or members know about other groups. We threw around the idea of openupstate.org becoming an "umbrella" home in name and location only for area groups. It'd be a localized meetup.com. Each group could have a "sub site" with event integration, calendars, and any information they may want.

The benefit that Wryen and I saw from this "umbrella" was to centralize and make a home for these groups. To allow for these groups to become "neighbors". The site could have a shared centralized calendar which we saw as an asset since so many groups overlap and trying to find time between events and regularly scheduled meetings is a pain. With a shared home and especially a shared event calendar, groups obviously benefit, but members and individuals benefit from "group discovery".

In my opinion, this would benefit all groups under this "umbrella" of OpenUpstate. It's that whole "a rising tide lifts all boats" mentality.

[BigBlueHat]

👍 to all the things!

[allella]

Yes, lately there seem to be a lot of new groups and momentum at OpenWorks, Iron Yard and Greenville as a whole. The lines definitely blur a bit between some and OpenUpstate falls into that blur, though I feel the topics of recent events have stood on their own.

Regarding an umbrella for events, OpenWorks has a public calendar on our to-do list. OW will have a need for reserving event spaces for both open and private use, so that could break the mold.

Though we'd like to see what can be done with Meetup.com. It looks like TIY has a Meetup account too.

Here's a list of groups/events which have met at OpenWorks for a feel of who's utilizing the OW space and the overlap in purpose we're seeing without even factoring in other communities who meet at various locations.

Beer and Napkins
OpenUpstate
Code for Greenville
10-4 Good City
OpenUp
DesignThinkers
PHP Upstate (UpstatePHP)
Technically a Beer
Open Data Day
NEXT High School
RESTFest

[stevenwadejr]

@allella I was thinking the umbrella of OpenUpstate.org would reproduce some of the functionality and community of meetup.com but localized. It could tie in with OpenWorks and other venues. I think the point and benefit would be collaboration, community, and centralization.

Also @allella, it's UpstatePHP ;)

[wryenmeek]

The problem for the tech community and (other communities) is: who is doing
what when where and why?

Everyone is using a ton of different means to tell people about events.
Email, meetup, eventbeight, Facebook, Twitter and the list goes on.

There is a TON of stuff going on (go look at greenville forwards'
collection of event calentldars).

Finding contextually relevant events and the groups and places that host
them is hard with so much noise and so many different places to look.

There are a couple of approaches:

1. Cetralize collection and distribution. One webplace to collect and
   distribute information. This directly competes with facebook events and
   meetup. Im not a fan of reinventing the wheel.
2. Scrape or syndicate the data then make it accessable via an API (say
   ckan?) Webplace agnostic. Use rss, ical and email to automate submission.
   Have a simple signup for organizers to add their group details and tell the
   app where to listen for event notifications. Then use the api to build a
   search site to stream line finding relevant info.

@allella https://github.com/allella I was thinking the umbrella of
OpenUpstate.org would reproduce some of the functionality and community of
meetup.com but localized. It could tie in with OpenWorks and other venues.
I think the point and benefit would be collaboration, community, and
centralization.

Also @allella https://github.com/allella, it's UpstatePHP ;)

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[BigBlueHat]

@wryenmeek 👍 2️⃣ sounds best.

There's this thing called "The Web." It uses hypertext to give anyone the opportunity to re-organize anything. 😉

Nothing has to end up in OpenUpstate.org, though. The hope is that it becomes a valuable place to look for stuff to collaborate on...and collaborate! 😺

"Centralize" can be a confusing word...so to be clear, the intent is more to aggregate, collect, curate rather than to own, manage, or oversee.

🆒 ❓

[stevenwadejr]

@wryenmeek & @BigBlueHat I guess that means I still need to build a website for UpstatePHP. Dang :)

[wryenmeek]

Correct me if I am wrong but your looking for OpenUpstate to be more of a
hub for the opensource community right?

Its more than just events

Its repos, opportunities to help, requests for help, facilitating
communication, whos who, community knowledge

I leave anything out?
On Jun 17, 2014 11:29 AM, "BigBlueHat" notifications@github.com wrote:

@wryenmeek https://github.com/wryenmeek [image: 👍][image: 2️⃣]
sounds best.

There's this thing called "The Web." It uses hypertext to give anyone the
opportunity to re-organize anything. [image: 😉]

Nothing has to end up in OpenUpstate.org, though. The hope is that it
becomes a valuable place to look for stuff to collaborate on...and
collaborate! [image: 😺]

"Centralize" can be a confusing word...so to be clear, the intent is more
to aggregate, collect, curate rather than to own, manage, or oversee.

[image: 🆒][image: ❓]

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[wryenmeek]

Dont jump off the boat yet. Were still brain storming no?
On Jun 17, 2014 11:32 AM, "Steven Wade" notifications@github.com wrote:

@wryenmeek https://github.com/wryenmeek & @BigBlueHat
https://github.com/BigBlueHat I guess that means I still need to build
a website for UpstatePHP. Dang :)

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[wryenmeek]

I kid you not this is the first thing in my inbox when I got home:
https://groups.google.com/a/codeforamerica.org/forum/#!topic/brigade/ELtMHm23eis

we arn't the only ones interested in this solution space.

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 5:16 PM, Wryen Meek wryenmeek@gmail.com wrote:

Dont jump off the boat yet. Were still brain storming no?
On Jun 17, 2014 11:32 AM, "Steven Wade" notifications@github.com wrote:

@wryenmeek https://github.com/wryenmeek & @BigBlueHat
https://github.com/BigBlueHat I guess that means I still need to build
a website for UpstatePHP. Dang :)

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Wryen Meek
678.701.5005
http://www.linkedin.com/in/wryenmeek/ https://www.google.com/+WryenMeek

[GlenKPeterson]

I started a page:
https://github.com/GlenKPeterson/GreenvilleScTechMeetings/wiki/Greenville-SC-Tech-Meetings

If I know you and you lead a local group, just ask and I'll give you write access. Ditto those who I give write access should feel free to give others write access under the same conditions.

[stevenwadejr]

@GlenKPeterson can you/I add UpstatePHP to the list? We meet on the 3rd Thursday of each month