RefreshAugusta

Before we can look at where RefreshAugusta needs to go, we need to look at where we’ve been. From summer 2008 through Fall 2009 we held regular meetings. We had several lunch meetups. We had great speakers, great giveaways. Attendance was good, but not great. Things were going pretty well. And then: it stopped.

What happened?

• Waning interest. People that were enthusiastic about Refresh at the start didn’t stay enthusiastic and stopped coming to meetings.
• Poor promotion. Meetings weren’t promoted very well. I posted events to Upcoming, on Facebook and on Google Calendar. Emails were sent out, but often without enough notice for people to make plans to attend.
• Bad timing. We moved meetings around trying to find the best day of the week and time to hold meetings. But nothing ever seemed to work.
• Giveaways weren’t enough to entice larger crowds.
• I’ve lost interest. I lost my job back in July 09 and have been focused on trying to build a business for myself ever since. Running Refresh in some capacity is something I haven’t minded doing, but I did it only because no one else would.
• One person cannot do it all. Several people offered to help, but I never really took anyone up on those offers.

What do we need to do to make RefreshAugusta better?

1. Start having regular meetings again. I don’t care where or when, but we need to start meeting again – even if it’s just for lunch.
2. Plan as far ahead as possible. We need to start creating and scheduling events well in advance so that they can be adequately promoted. We can bring in outside speakers. I’ve already spoken with two people who’d love to come talk to us at some point this year. If any locals are interested in speaking, let us know.
3. There needs to be more than one organizer. I know my limitations now. I know I don’t have exhaustive amounts of time to spend planning and promoting RefreshAugusta. Spread out amongst several people, though, this job can be easily handled by a group of dedicated people.
4. Better leverage our website. I’ve made steps to make the site into more of a social network. If you haven’t setup an account yet, I encourage you to do so. Use this site for discussion. Use it to network. Use it to reach out to others. This community has tremendous potential if only we’d decide to use it.
5. Better community outreach. One of the reasons I started Refresh was to find out who else was working on the web in Augusta. I know for a fact that we’ve barely scratched the surface.

Augusta desperately needs a more unified technology/web community. It needs a group like RefreshAugusta more than ever. I hope that 2010 is the year where we’re able to turn things around and press forward stronger than ever.

What are your thoughts on this? How do you feel we can make RefreshAugusta better?

The new RefreshAugusta site is now powered by BuddyPress – a social network platform designed specifically for WordPress. If you haven’t already signed up or signed in, I invite you to do so.

We’re changing things up a bit in how we use social media. Our own site is “okay” but many of the people that come to meetings regularly are more connected to Facebook and Twitter… so we’re going to do more there. What does this mean? Well, for starters, we’re probably going to stop posting events to Upcoming. Facebook provides an all-in-one solution for sending out notifications, creating events, etc. If you’re not on Facebook, no worries. Get in touch with me and I’ll make sure you’re kept abreast of developments in the group.

Become a fan of RefreshAugusta on Facebook

This is just a reminder that we’ll be meeting this Wednesday, 22 July 2009 from 6pm-7pm(ish) at The Well (716 Broad Street, Augusta GA). Food and drinks will be provided. If you haven’t already: RSVP.

User-Centered Design

Nobody ever set out to build a Web site that’s difficult to use. Even so, many sites prove to be frustrating for the very people they’re built to serve. When we design without a clear and proven understanding of the site’s audience–or with our own preferences and biases unchecked–we put the overall usability and effectiveness of the site at jeopardy.

In this presentation, Will Sansbury overviews user-centered design, a process that infuses concern for the audience into every step of creating a site or software product. He’ll share practical tools for learning about your audience initially, checking your decisions against your understanding of the audience throughout the design process, and gauging the effectiveness of your final design using qualitative usability testing.

As an information architect on the WhatsUp Gold team at Ipswitch, Will has successfully introduced user experience design into the Scrum software development process. Because he’s a practitioner first, he has a pragmatic, from-the-trenches view that makes user experience and user-centered design approachable to designers and developers of all skill levels.

All Your Base Are Belong to HTML5 & CSS3

HTML5 and CSS3 aren’t finalized specs yet, but browsers are starting to support them. In this presentation, Chris Harrison will walk through what you can you use right now in your designs.

Sponsors

RefreshAugusta is sponsored, in part, by:

• Adobe Systems, Inc. – Offering business, creative, and mobile software solutions that revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information.
• PowerServe – A full-service design and development company, PowerServe integrates the creative design services of a traditional ad agency with the technical innovation of an IT consulting firm.

With a very special thanks to:

• Choice Catering – for sponsoring food and beverages
• The Well – for allowing us to use their building to meet

Continuing a long tradition of innovation, Adobe is pushing the boundaries of the Adobe Flash Platform with exciting new releases for Flash, Flex, and ColdFusion designers, developers, and administrators. Join us as Ben Forta, Adobe’s Director of Platform Evangelism, presents the future of ColdFusion, Flex, and more! On the ColdFusion side, Ben will talk about the upcoming releases of ColdFusion (currently known by the code name Centaur) and the highly anticipated first ColdFusion IDE from Adobe (currently known by the code name Bolt). You’ll learn about exciting new features and discover how Centaur and Bolt will accelerate your ColdFusion application development. On the Flex side, Ben will talk about the next release of Flex (currently known by the code name Gumbo). You’ll see product feature demos and learn how Gumbo breaks new ground for not only developers but also designers as it powers the design, development, and testing of rich Internet applications and content. And of course, Ben will explain and demonstrate the power of ColdFusion and the power of Flex working together!

Click here for more information and to RSVP.

We had a great meeting last night. We had lots of new faces, which is always a good thing. Thanks to Michael Wales and Peter Mourfield for speaking to us. Thanks to The Well for having us again. Thanks to PowerServe for providing the food and beverages. And thanks to Adobe and NAPP for the giveaways this month.

Michael Wales and Kenny Adams both posted great recaps on the meeting. Rather than rehash what happened, I encourage you to check their posts out:

• MichaelWales.com: RefreshAugusta Recap
• OddZuki.com: RefreshAugusta Meeting – 5/20/2009

As far as giveaways are concerned, here are this month’s luck winners:

• Chris Rhoad walked away with a copy of Adobe Illustrator CS3.
• Charles Pluto won a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS3.
• Kenny Adams won a one year subscription to Layers Magazine.
• Dave Bonds won a one year NAPP membership and subscription to Photoshop User Magazine.

Fun fact: Three out of the four winners were first-time attendees. It pays to come to meetings!

More pictures from the meetup can be seen here and here.

Details on next month’s meetup will be available soon.

We’ll be meeting on Wednesday, 20 May at The Well. RSVP. This month’s topics include:

A Deep Dive into jQuery – This session will dig deep under the jQuery hood and will demonstrate some of the powerful features of the framework, including the jQuery core, selecting and traversing, manipulating the DOM/CSS, event handling and Ajax.

Peter Mourfield is a Software Developer with TaxSlayer.com (an online income tax preparation and e-filing web site). He is a Microsoft Certified Professional Developer – Web Applications, a Certified Scrum Master, and leads the Augusta Developers Guild (a local developers user group).

An Introduction to CodeIgniter – In the Introduction to CodeIgniter discussion, Mike will provide a brief history of the framework, discuss why it may be the best solution for PHP development, and show off some code as he covers some of the most useful features the framework has to offer.

Mike Wales is a Senior Developer with General Dynamics Information Technology out of Ft. Gordon, GA, where he primarily dabbles in PHP, Python, Javascript and SQL. When he’s not “working for the man,” he manages the CodeIgniter community as the sole Community Chieftain, a public liason to the EllisLab staff.