From: Eric Hodel <drbrain@...7.net>
Date: 2005-02-10T13:58:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby users in India?

--Apple-Mail-73-855266467
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

On 09 Feb 2005, at 20:40, Yogi wrote:

>>> Don't you think a dynamic languages user group would quickly
>>> disintegrate? We have a Python user group in Bangalore (started
>>> recently). I was wondering if there are enough Rubyists in India to
>>> form a user group.
>
> How many people would we need to sustain a user group?
>
> Actually, why don't we just meetup and see who turns up. Even if there
> are only 4-5 passionate rubyists, I'd love to meet... hopefully some
> kind of group will emerge from it.

Forming a solid and active Ruby user group (or any user group) is 
something that takes time, advertisement and recruiting.  Seattle.rb 
hasn't grown much since we first started meeting over 2 years ago, but 
we do have a few things that are important for a good user group:

* Regular meeting location
* Regular meeting time
* Mailing list

OMNI Group has been letting us use its space for Ruby meetings for 
quite some time, which gives us the advantage of a stable place to meet 
and nice big screens for doing demos and so-forth.  We've established a 
consistent meeting time, and we announce on the mailing list before 
each meeting and try (but don't always succeed) in choosing something 
to talk about/demo/whatever.

For each meeting we've typically had only 3 or 4 people show up out of 
a rotating stable group, and maybe 2 or 3 other new faces.  Getting 
famous Ruby faces (like DHH) brings in a much larger crowd (17, last 
meeting).

Most importantly, you can't give up.  Also, try bribing people with 
cookies or food or something.

-- 
Eric Hodel - drbrain@segment7.net - http://segment7.net
FEC2 57F1 D465 EB15 5D6E  7C11 332A 551C 796C 9F04

--Apple-Mail-73-855266467
content-type: application/pgp-signature; x-mac-type=70674453;
	name=PGP.sig
content-description: This is a digitally signed message part
content-disposition: inline; filename=PGP.sig
content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (Darwin)

iD8DBQFCCundMypVHHlsnwQRAl5VAKCtpUaFwleFnf5CZtsSSylJbEZHNwCaA4Z5
aXWT39FrvJBlN0nl7ALBikk=
=iOCU
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--Apple-Mail-73-855266467--