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Community Dinners

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• Community

As mentioned already by Mitch, my Vista talk at Code Camp generated a lot of interest around how we will cope when we are forced to run as a Standard User.  This got me thinking harder about an idea that I've had for some time now...

Over the past year or so I've been attending a lot fewer user group meetings.  Actually I've reached a point where I'm actually unsure that spending 3 hours attending a user group meeting is a good investment of my time.  This is not to say that my community exposure is any less - in fact, quite the opposite.  Over the past 6 months I've participated in Code Camp Australia, TechEd Australia, Vista TTT, and geek dinners.  I'm also very deliberate that I make the time to catch up with people interstate whenever I'm travelling.  So it's not like I see people any less since withdrawing from user groups it's more that my experience of community is changing.

Before continuing I think that I should describe what we'll refer to as the 4 levels of community involvement (there are probably many more beyond the fourth but my own limited understanding and experience only allows me to see that far).

• Level Zero - Stays at home.
• Level One - Attends community events.
• Level Two - Participates in community events.
• Level Three - ...

NOTE: For now I'm trying to avoid the term "thought leader" for the fourth level but I'll throw that term in here just so it's clear what type of person I think falls into this category.

It's pretty clear about how people in the first three categories get and provide the stimulation that they need to grow and there's an abundance of activities available that suit those people: user groups, roadshows, forums, mailing lists, etc.  For people in the fourth category however, sitting in a user group for an hour listening to discussions that are largely irrelevant to where you are at represents a distinct under-utilization of time and effort. 

Give that the arrival of Longhorn is now right on our doorsteps, the next 12 months represents a significant challenge for Level Three people - as these are the people most responsible for:

• Choosing methodologies
• Implementing patterns and practices
• Selecting suitable team structures
• Deciding on what tooling to use
• Designing application architectures
• Running under LUA
• Uses for InfoCard

While some of the existing activities that I've mentioned are not well suited to openly discussing topics such as these, other activities - such as geek dinners - are very well suited to open discussion.  Given the number of topics that are available for dicussion at the moment (as shown above) I think that there is an opportunity for Geek dinners to advance to a more prominent role in how community operates.

... Now back to the idea that I've had for a while now...

What I'd like to do is to start a geek dinner group in Canberra that would meet monthly on a structured date (just as user groups meet at a timed interval).  The group would ideally be between 7 and 10 people and would agree to meet regularly for the next 12 months.  The ideal person for the group would:

• be involved at the right level of business and development decision making
• have opinions
• have some level of passion or interest for excellence

I think that this could be a great way to explore "fringe" thoughts and to gain insights that are not regularly available outside of less structured geek events - such as Code Camp.