The Health of Networks

The Health of
Networks
JavaOne 2015, UGF11078
10/25/2015
Csaba Toth

About me
 Csaba Toth csaba.toth.us@gmail.com,@tocsa2
 LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/csabatothdev
 Polyglot full-stack developer (C++, Java, C#, Python)
 Full time remote developer of SportsBoard (WestShore Tech is
located in Sausalito, CA), living in Fresno, CA
 Plus has a consulting company
 Co-founder of Nashville JUG
 Founder of Central California JUG

Agenda
 Details of my two JUGs I’m affiliated with
 Three pillars of tech meetups
 Lessons learned
 Take away messages
 Scope: both JUGs are in the US, but I think most take away
messages are international
 What I won’t talk about: big JUGs like Brazil, London, New York,
...

Three pillars
 1. Quality content
 2. Venue
 3. Food (+ swags)
 The key is always: the member should get over satisfactory
experience for his time and effort!

Java User Groups
 Nashville Java User Group, co-founded in 2010
 Central California Java User Group, founded in 2014
 Scope of user groups:
 Java User Groups are not strictly about Java. There are many JVM
languages, I consider Android also as Java development topic
 There are a ton of technologies in the Java eco-system, which
sometimes more define the experience
 Beginners and advanced members too

Nashville JUG
 There was a functioning JUG in Nashville before 2006 but it got
dissolved
 Maybe the JUG was dependent on the leader?
 Maybe there were content issues?
 Many things depend on the companies around

Nashville JUG
 Takeaway 1: it matters how many/how big companies are Java
shops
 Takeaway 2: dissolved JUG means good and bad news
 Takeaway 3 - by Dr JUG:
 A JUG can dissolve if it mainly depends on a sole person and that
person steps down

Nashville JUG - Beginning
 In 2010 I met with Greg Turnquist (from SpringSource – now
VMWare) at DevLink conference in Nashville, where I initiated a
Java talk in the open spaces section
 We decided to found NJUG
 First 3 meetings were at Vanderbilt University
 Greg presented mostly in the beginning

Nashville JUG – Beginning
 We initiated a site on Posterous to cover multiple social media
channels
 I tried to distribute flyers and at least motivate Java developers
at Vanderbilt
 Takeaway 1: it may take a long time (more than 6 months) to
boot up – the word spreads by itself, but there’s a propagation
 Takeaway 2: members may not only come from where you think
/ focus – the word spreads by itself
 Takeaway 3: It maybe a lot of effort to cover parallel social
media channels

Nashville JUG – Early Days
 Kerry Wilson joined the leadership board
 He helped to move the meetings to VACO
 a local recruiter, hosts other user groups too
 Food/pizza + drinks (including beer!) provided
 Good internet access and projector, screen
 Much better parking compared to Vanderbilt
 He also spread the word
 Takeaway 1: good venue is important
 Takeaway 2: helpers come along

Nashville JUG – Growing
 Attendance slowly started to rise.
 When Oracle visited us to give an insight about the upcoming
Java 7 our attendance was still not too high
 Chris Mihalcik joined the board and he advised to put our main
site to Meetup
 Downside: the subscription costs money
 Takeaway: Meetup - looking back it worth it

Nashville JUG – Growing
 Our attendance ramped up above 20
 Jeremy Ary and Josh Murphy joined the board
 Jeremy designed T-shirts and logo
 Helped with other errands
 We got to know great presenters and developers like David
Escandell and Jim Siegienski, who also help in the leadership
 Takeaway 1: worth looking for and involving local presenters
 Takeaway 2: Regular leadership lunches

Nashville JUG – Raffles
 Raffles
 We got 5 text books from O’Reilly and also from Oracle, we raffle one
per meeting
 E-book vouchers from O’Reilly
 We got a lot of Java 7 T-shirts
 Food is important in the end, but raffles are nice!
 Takeaway 1: Oracle’s JUG program can help!
 Takeaway 2: Better to have valuable giveaways

Nashville JUG – Presenters
 Early presenters:
 Greg Turnquist: different topics about testing, Spring introduction,
Security, Spring Roo
 Zach McCormick presented 3 times on Android
 Eliah Minor on bad JavaScript habits for Java programmers
 Oracle
 Takeaway: it’s beneficial to invite inter-meetup presenters, co-
operate, plug-in to the local meetup scene

Nashville JUG – Budget
 Absolutely no budget, we don’t deal with money Some user
group goes to non-profit
 Chapter 3, 5, 7 ???
 There are some opportunities to get help, in the $100-$150 range,
they’ll do all work
 Can be inevitable if you organize a conference
 VACO and some sponsors are willing to chip in if we’ll organize
a conference
 Takeaway: you can get away for a long time without a budget,
but eventually you may need to formulate some entity

Nashville JUG – Meetup
 More than 600 members* on Meetup
 30+ attendees per meeting
 There seems to be enough people in the leadership board and
enough momentum that it won’t dissolve (I moved away and
Greg is not always there)
 Takeaway 1: number of active attendees matter much more than
total membership
 Takeaway 2: the more leadership help you have the better

Nashville JUG - Leadership
 Joined the JCP - Easy to do
 Takeaway: Join the JCP, look for related programs (Adopt a
JSR, adopt OpenJDK)
 Big leadership:
 Different opinions can arise, that’s fine if the problem settles
 Be open to other’s opinions, you can still try to steer, but let others
steer too

Central California
 Agriculture, agriculture, agriculture
 Some healthcare
 But there’s a blossoming meetup scene, much smaller though
than Nashville
 Needs a JUG!

Central California JUG
 Founded in 2014 summer
 I provided presentations in the beginning
 PlayN framework
 Java 2014 recap
 …
 Later Nick Groves chipped in
 Venue and food is taken care of Bitwise Industries (local tech
incubator hub) - THANKS!

 80+ members on meetup
 But low attendance
 Many members and first timers are beginners
 There are a few advanced developers
 Started to watch vJUG recordings and add annotations
 Takeaway: people expect live content. Although James Gosling
is better speaker, they want local presenter. They think they
gonna watch the YouTube recording…
 Takeaway 2: Size of the critical mass matters

 Plans:
 Will provide local content on beginner topics
 May try to attract kids with Minecraft modding
 Some conversation is going on about book reading (Murdoch’s Java
book)
 Co-operating with other meetups
 Involve more people in the leadership as soon as possible

Generics
 Not only Java is competing with other technologies, but a Java
User Group is competing with the other local tech meetups
 Always be thankful to your sponsors, mention them*
 Monitor the demand for materials/topics and respond

Thanks for listening
 Questions?
 Csaba Toth
 http://www.linkedin.com/in/csabatothdev

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