Date: 2011-06-16 18:51:12 Created: 2011-06-16 14:38:07
During WWDC 2011 Mark Aufflick, organizer of Cocoaheads Sydney, arranged a breakfast for Cocoaheads organizers. I, being qualified (it still surprises me a little bit sometimes) by running Cocoaheads Göteborg, attended and had a great time chatting with nice people, forgetting names way too quickly and having many, many cups of coffee.
A few subjects were very common during the morning, and a few days ago Andy Lee of Cocoaheads NYC kicked off an online discussion around these things on his blog. As usual, my response quickly grew beyond most sane comment bounds, so I made it into this post instead.
Cocoaheads Göteborg averages ten to fifteen people and we meet the second Thursday of every month. Around thirty hang around on our mailing list. TimeEdit, the company I work for, provides space and coffee. When we were getting started (way back in the autumn of 2010), I was in touch with a few companies asking about willingness to sponsor and generally participate. I got some positive responses back but not much concrete results. Then, my time and focus went to other things, but I have a feeling it could pay off to send out some more feelers some day. Most of our group are either working more or less independently, or are just getting started and doing their Cocoa in their spare time.
As for the IOS/OS X balance there are clearly more people on the IOS side, but the balance is better than I expected starting out. We actually have a few full time OS X developers in the group (and I do not think there are very many even in Sweden as a whole), including a few regulars who have been into Apple since the Apple II and were full time into Next in those days. Our topics so far seem to have been quite balanced between the two platforms.
Finally, how do we get speakers? So far, mostly by me asking everyone I can think of until someone happens to say yes :-) … As I write this, it occurs to me that the ball has perhaps started rolling a little easier now, as a few people (both regulars and the odd external person) have offered to speak about something recently. I aim to build up some kind of plan a few months into the future, but so far I have at best had an idea of the content of the very next meeting. One thing I was told right from the start was to not put too much pressure on myself, so whenever we lack speakers we just settle for random development discussions and time flies away just as easily. The group is very casual and friendly, feeling more like a bunch of friends getting together for a chat, so pressure is very low all round.
We do not have any regular speakers, as is probably clear from the above, but I would definitely not mind having some.
I agree with what seems to be the general viewpoint so far: if someone wants to speak about a subject which fits I am happy to hear about it and assume everyone else is too. I do ask what people are interested in hearing about too, but unless we suddenly end up with a LOT of speakers in line I can not see myself turning anyone down for bringing in the wrong topic.
Do we do videos? No, but I have been thinking about it ever since we started. If/when we get to more regular presentations I will definitely start thinking seriously about it.
I thought of two more questions I am interested in hearing from other organizers about:
1: How much spread is there in Cocoa experience in your group? Our span is pretty wide it seems, all the way from the Next people to those just trying their hand at IOS. I think it is great to have all these different points of views and such inside the group, but I can also imagine a more homogenous group would have a different dynamic when it comes to questions and subjects.
2: Do you try to reach new people much? If so, have you found any interesting ways of doing so? I have a distinct feeling that there are a lot more people nearby who would be interested in attending and sharing if they only got to hear of Cocoaheads, and people I have got in touch with have pretty much said the same thing.