From ron.duplain at gmail.com Sun Mar 13 21:13:55 2011 From: ron.duplain at gmail.com (Ron DuPlain) Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 16:13:55 -0400 Subject: [group-organizers] PyCon Attendees Message-ID: Hi group organizers, Does anyone know if/where I could get a list of attendees at PyCon? I'd like to contact attendees about our Python user group if they do not already attend. Thanks! Ron From ron.duplain at gmail.com Sun Mar 13 21:15:28 2011 From: ron.duplain at gmail.com (Ron DuPlain) Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 16:15:28 -0400 Subject: [group-organizers] PyCon Attendees In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 4:13 PM, Ron DuPlain wrote: > Does anyone know if/where I could get a list of attendees at PyCon? > I'd like to contact attendees about our Python user group if they do > not already attend. I should be more specific, sorry. I only intend to contact attendees who are a short drive from our group's location in Charlottesville VA USA. -Ron From sdeibel at wingware.com Sun Mar 13 21:26:39 2011 From: sdeibel at wingware.com (Stephan Deibel) Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 16:26:39 -0400 Subject: [group-organizers] PyCon Attendees In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4D7D287F.2040405@wingware.com> On 3/13/11 4:15 PM, Ron DuPlain wrote: > On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 4:13 PM, Ron DuPlain wrote: >> Does anyone know if/where I could get a list of attendees at PyCon? >> I'd like to contact attendees about our Python user group if they do >> not already attend. > I should be more specific, sorry. I only intend to contact attendees > who are a short drive from our group's location in Charlottesville VA > USA. Hi, You may want to contact pycon-organizers at python.org. I'm not sure what the current policy is for something like this but at the very least your request might spur some change in future conferences that let people check a 'allow local user groups to contact me' box or something like that. - Stephan From rdmurray at bitdance.com Sun Mar 13 22:30:34 2011 From: rdmurray at bitdance.com (R. David Murray) Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 17:30:34 -0400 Subject: [group-organizers] PyCon Attendees In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110313213034.F38C01FF391@kimball.webabinitio.net> On Sun, 13 Mar 2011 16:15:28 -0400, Ron DuPlain wrote: > On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 4:13 PM, Ron DuPlain wrote: > > Does anyone know if/where I could get a list of attendees at PyCon? > > I'd like to contact attendees about our Python user group if they do > > not already attend. > > I should be more specific, sorry. I only intend to contact attendees > who are a short drive from our group's location in Charlottesville VA > USA. I'm pretty sure that isn't a public list. But if you contact the PSF they might have a procedure to do a mailing (I vaguely seem to remember reading about that, though it probably applied to the PSF membership). -- R. David Murray www.bitdance.com From bradallen137 at gmail.com Tue Mar 15 17:06:32 2011 From: bradallen137 at gmail.com (Brad Allen) Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2011 11:06:32 -0500 Subject: [group-organizers] Notes from PyCon 2011 PyTexas dinner Message-ID: Yesterday at PyCon, we held a "PyTexas dinner" and had a number of lively discussions with ideas about the next PyTexas, as well as general approaches to teaching Python. Since it was a large table with 15 people seated, not everyone had the same discussion. Also, several of us continued the discussion after dinner. Let's use this thread to collect the notes from various conversational threads; please post what you recall from the discussion. Later we can condense them for the wiki. (I've cc'd the general Python group-organizers list since it might give ideas to other organizers). Here are my notes (so far): * The date is not set but the range is July through October (see notes below for reasoning about this). * I am planning for a capacity of 200 attendees, but expect 150 attendees based on positive feedback of PyTexas 2011 (which had 94). I'm counting on last year's attendees to tell their friends. Also, I'm noticing more people interested in volunteering this year so we should be able to rally a lot of promotion. * So far we have no guarantees of a large auditorium at Baylor in Waco, though I have heard from Jeremy Langley that he will check into that. I think we need to reserve an auditorium with a capacity of 200 people. * Jeremy Kelley has pointed out the alternate choice of College Station which has adequate auditorium space in the Computer Science building. He also pointed out that College Station includes Python in the curriculum; this specific course has proven popular enough to be packed to capacity each year. The faculty is very interested in Python. There is an additional advantage that food and drinks are allowed in the rooms at College Station, opening possibilities of catering. A variety of bars and restaurants are two blocks from the computer science building. Another benefit is that it's possible to have sprints the following day because the Computer Science building can be opened on Sunday morning. Driving distance compared with Waco is a wash; one is further for DFW and shorter for Houston, and vise versa. Jeremy is investigating this option further with his contacts at College Station. * We discussed various ideas about promoting to students. Most seemed to think that undergrads would not likely be motivated enough to travel to PyTexas even for a 2 hour road trip, so the promotional efforts should focus on the university venue for undergrads. However, grad students are more likely to be motivated so we should focus on getting the word out to grad students and compsci departments at surrounding universities. * Given likely low undergrad turnout, and better room availability/guarantees, it's ok to have PyTexas in the summer. July is probably the earliest we can consider given lead time needed for sponsors and speakers. * I'm planning to put together a budget for PyTexas 2011 which will include 200 t-shirts/bags, travel expenses for at least one prominent speaker and/or Python trainer, AV recording/production, badges, art/designs, and potentially snacks/drinks catering. This will be on a wiki page shortly and I'll need help with ideas. Let's brainstorm and estimate costs so we'll know how much much to ask for from sponsors. * I picked up a lot of sponsor contacts at PyCon, and am optimistic about getting funding. Jeremy Kelley also mentioned a possible Google contact. The general theme of my discussions with sponsors was that we're open to coming up with ideas to help sponsors meet their goals. Several sponsors told me they need several months lead time to produce swag and/or approve monies. * There were a lot of ideas about good ways to teach Python depending on student interests. We want to have a teachpython.org wiki to organize ideas and resources for teaching Python. Since the users of such a wiki would be Python experts, I like the idea of MoinMoin, but others seemed to want to use MediaWiki. Maybe we should add a Teacher's Guide section to the existing python.org wiki... I plan to discuss this with the PSF and the Python education SIG. Maybe there is already a similar existing site we can utilize. This is a topic worth breaking into a separate thread. * Python Koans has some downsides as a teaching tool; it's too obscure in parts and needs adjustment. Any volunteers willing to fork and make it more beginner friendly? (For example, beginners have no way of knowing how to derive the string name of the class associated with an exception object instance...e.__class__.__name__) * Last year's presentations didn't make it onto the PyTexas.org wiki. We need to follow up with speakers to get that done. (Any volunteers to do the nagging?) * Kent Fraser and Gary Wilson who work at UT Austin mentioned they can help promote PyTexas there; they also mentioned that their department at UT Austin has switched to Python for some of their internal projects. So far it's not part of the curriculum but there will be a definite interest in sending people to PyTexas to improve their Python skills. * Several Texas area volunteers are eager to get started; I need to put together a list of projects to give these folks something to get started on. * Walker is thinking about setting up a framework for Python gaming, where gamers can upload code to a common server running a common overhead screen for spectators to watch the Python scripts competing with each other in some visual manner. * A glossy printed program guide is not worth the cost for a small conference like PyTexas, imho, but we can still print something basic like a one-page schedule. I would like to get a mobile guide for The Conventionist app since that proved so handy to Android and iOS users at PyCon. Jeremy Kelley investigated this and found that it would probably cost around $750, but he has some ideas for alternatives. * We need to send out the call for talk proposals much earlier this year (as in right away). * We need to cross-promote with SciPy, and make sure PyTexas isn't too soon after (people need time to rest/recover between conferences). The contrary view is that having PyTexas prior to SciPy might work better, because we can help scientists brush up on their Python skills prior to SciPy, and SciPy speakers can rehearse their talks at PyTexas. * The folks from OpenHatch.org have come to PyCon to promote some good ideas about community organizing for open source. We should explore their site and see if it's useful to PyTexas. * Jeremy Kelley suggested shortening the name PyTexas to PyTX; he pointed out the domain pytx.org is available (and shortly thereafter purchased it). I have doubts about this considering the naming convention established for other regional conferences (PyOhio and PyArkansas). However I'm open to feedback about this. Regardless, I'd like to use the #pytx hashtag for microblog (Twitter) posts about PyTexas. * This morning, Jeremy Kelley, Josh Marshall, and I had some further discussions. The wiki approach to registration was a bit clunky. They want to build a simple PyTexas registration web app which will also combine some optional survey questions. I gave them a brain dump of feature requirements, and they are sprinting on it today :-). * Josh Marshall wants to plan for a post-PyTexas survey. * Jeremy Kelley has some ideas for a t-shirt design and has asked a designer at his company to spend a little time on it.