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

The Health of Networks

More Related Content

Viewers also liked (15)

Similar to The Health of Networks (20)

More from Csaba Toth (10)

Recently uploaded (20)

The Health of Networks

Editor's Notes