What is OpenUpstate?

[BigBlueHat]

OpenUpstate exists to foster collaboration in the tech community of Upstate South Carolina.

We are a loosely federated group of software and web developers in Upstate South Carolina who meet semi-regularly to discuss and hack on problems. Typically, we solve problems using open standards, open source, and open APIs.

How's that strike everyone? @OpenUpstate/greenville

backstory

This is a first step to solving a problem in the Mission (see the README) of being about creating an organization--which is a pretty sad mission for anyone to be on...

This is an attempt to refocus who we are and what we do on us and our shared problem space.

[nullvariable]

Leaner. Something like:

OpenUpstate promotes local tech community collaboration.

We're a group of developers who occasionally meet to tackle problems often using open standards, open source and open APIs.

I think it might be possible to narrow it even further, but the shorter something like this is, the better. You can elaborate more elsewhere, and people can infer or research things like what the Upstate is etc.

Just my 10¢

[stevenwadejr]

@BigBlueHat and @nullvariable, I wouldn't limit it to just developers. I would open it up to anyone who's vision is to help foster and promote collaboration and the Upstate as a whole through technology and community. This could be open to business leaders, community leaders, government officials, anyone really.

We should really focus on what is our goal, not who is going to solve it or how they will.

[BigBlueHat]

Well, the focus does need to be narrow enough to achieve. 😉

OpenUpstate exists to foster collaboration in the tech community of Upstate South Carolina.

is a plumb line statement we can measure stuff against.

@nullvariable using your "OpenUpstate promotes local tech community collaboration" sentence would be a great place to start for a list of things (existent or nonexistent!) we think do that. If they're nonexistent, maybe we make them! If they are existent, then we point to them. 😄

Maybe that's two of our goals @stevenwadejr?

• point to collaborative activity, projects (etc) in the tech community of Upstate SC.
• create activities (events), projects, code, etc, to foster and further collaboration in Upstate SC.

To @stevenwadejr's point, I do want to be careful that anyone feels welcome, but I also want to be sure that our output is technological--just to narrow scope so we don't die trying to boil the ocean. 😁

[joetamburro]

Not sure if this pertains, but I am looking at opening up GreenvilleJS a little more to break free from just JS and open it to some other languages and programming disciplines as well. Would love to discuss how this might pertain to Open Upstate

[BigBlueHat]

@joetamburro definitely!

FWIW, I think Greenville needs language specific meet-ups, so people know where to look for JS, Ruby, PHP, etc.

What's also needed is big arrows pointing to all the things we do, where we do them, and places for anyone to find other developers--across language, company, technology preference, etc.

I think we need both. :)

[BigBlueHat]

@joetamburro What you should feel (very!) free to do, is start an issue here that says "Should I broaden the scope of GreenvilleJS?" (or whatever in your own words...please 😉). Then, hopefully you'll get some feedback from those of us interested in making all this collaboration happen--not because we're authoritarians (or even authorities!) of this space, but because we stuck (and keep sticking) our hands up and saying "We'll help!" 😄

Also, if you see anyone else wandering around the Upstate being generally helpful and collaborative in the tech community, send them along! 😄 We'd love their help. 😉

[joetamburro]

Sorry wasn't trying to steal the thunder.

[BigBlueHat]

@joetamburro not at all!!! 😀 Just wanted you to feel free to do that--in case it seemed otherwise.

Feel free to share whatever you'd like in here. It's what this space is for. 😄

[stevenwadejr]

@joetamburro, with UpstatePHP, I wanted it to be more community based. So we have dev ops, sys admin, database, Ruby, NodeJS talks. For us, it's about everyone growing together and sharing knowledge, because we don't just use PHP, we're developers, not just PHP developers. PHP just happens to be the center unified topic/commonality for the group.

[joetamburro]

I would love to sit down and have a discussion about joining forces and having one awesome meetup. Maybe that is for another issue

[BigBlueHat]

@joetamburro yeah, a meet-up of the meetups is definitely in order. I'll setup an invite for one in Events.

[BigBlueHat]

@rhynodesigns I'd love your thoughts on this thread, fwiw. 😉