Hello and Happy New Year to all Acadiana Open Source Group members! It's hard to believe that we're only a few meetings short of the first full year of AOS.
When the group first started, I had some time to devote to promotion and evangelism for it. Since then, however, that time has dwindled and these days I'm only able to do what it takes to continue having meetings: ensuring we have a facility and a speaker as well as announcements of meetings and other relevant information via the web site, Facebook, and Google.
I still want to see the group continue to grow and expands its membership, however, so I'm putting out this message in hopes that someone might be willing to step up and take on this position. It's a volunteer position and would only require as much time as you're willing to put into it. Here are potential duties involved:
- Maintaining a membership database, tracking attendance, and keeping in contact with members to increase awareness of interests related to group topics and activities
- Communicating with localized media sources such as (but not limited to) newspapers, TV stations, and online interest groups to raise awareness of the group
- Communicating with other user groups in the area for cross-group promotion and helping to organize combined group social events
- Locating and communicating with local businesses that use open source software to encourage their presence at group meetings and participation in other group activities
If you're interested or know of someone that might be (a marketing major at the university perhaps), please contact me. Thanks in advance for your help and I look forward to seeing you at the first meeting of the new year!
All Acadiana residents with an interest in open source technologies are invited to attend the January 2009 meeting of the Acadiana Open Source Group on Thursday January 29 at 6:30 p.m.
The meeting will tentatively be held in the Advanced Computer Technology and Research building on UL campus thanks to arrangements made by faculty of the Computer Science Department for us to use their facilities. Signs will be posted around the building on the day of the meeting to direct attendees. Parking is available in Zone 13. See this map for locations of the parking lot and the ACTR building.
Keith Thibodeaux, CIO for Lafayette Consolidated Government, will be leading an open forum on challenges and opportunities involved in the use of open source software in government organizations. People with related experience or views are encouraged to attend and participate.
Please remember to help to spread the word about the meeting to family, friends, classmates, and colleagues so we can get a good turnout!
Brian Jones has created a Google Calendar with corresponding XML and iCal feeds that includes conferences and similar events dealing with open source technology around the United States. If you're looking to attend a conference, this is a great resource to find out what's out there.
Thanks to all who attended the December 2008 meeting of the Acadiana Open Source Group. The presentation done by Frank Ducrest and his CMPS 497 students was well attended and provoked a good amount of discussion about the software development approaches involved in the project and its currently sported feature set. Thanks to UL Computer Science Department for continuing to host our meetings.
Announcements:
- A seminar entitled Do It With Drupal will be held December 10-12 in the Marriot Hotel in New Orleans. Seats are limited, so register soon if you plan to attend.
- The annual php|tek conference will be held May 19-22 in Chicago, IL. Its Call for Papers is open until December 15th.
- DrupalCon 2009 will be held in Washington, DC on March 4-7. Tickets are being sold in blocks with the earlier blocks having cheaper rates, so register early if you plan to attend.
- WordCamp New Orleans 2009 has been announced. WordCamp is a class of conferences aimed at developers, users, and enthusiasts of the open source publishing platform WordPress. No date has been set yet for WordCamp New Orleans, but more details will be syndicated here as they become available.
- The Acadiana Open Source Group is always looking for speakers to present at meetings, sponsorship of refreshments or door prizes, and information about upcoming open source-related events (especially those local to the state or surrounding states). Please contact Matthew Turland if you can provide any of these.
All Acadiana residents with an interest in open source technologies are invited to attend the December 2008 meeting of the Acadiana Open Source Group on Thursday, December 4 at 6:30 p.m. Lack of a November meeting and the unusual timing of the December meeting are due to the holidays.
The meeting will be held in the Advanced Computer Technology and Research building on UL campus thanks to arrangements made by faculty of the Computer Science Department for us to use their facilities. Signs will be posted around the building on the day of the meeting to direct attendees. Parking is available in Zone 13. See this map for locations of the parking lot and the ACTR building.
Frank Ducrest and some of his CMPS 497 students will be presenting an alpha version of the virtual classroom software they have developed and plan to release as open source software. They will also be looking to recruit local PHP talent to help with integrating their software with Moodle.
Please remember to help to spread the word about the meeting to family, friends, classmates, and colleagues so we can get a good turnout! Also, if you're on Facebook, please RSVP via the Facebook event for the meeting.