More writing

Author: paulproteus

index.rst

@@ -1,8 +1,62 @@
 A Guide to Running a Python User Group
 ======================================
 
+This guide is intended to be a simple collection of wisdom learned by
+watching, participating in, and helping organize in-person Python
+communities over the years. The target audience is anyone who wants to
+make their user group better. It focuses on hands-on tips.
 
+If you want to improve it, or you have an idea for new content to add,
+or new questions to answer, email me: <[email protected]>!
 
+Meetup.com or not
+=================
+
+*A story*: Two user group organizers were sitting next to each other
+at the PyCon user groups birds of a feather session. One was talking
+about how, nine months earlier, he had put together a Python user
+group for his city. He created an email list, and advertised the
+group, but never got more than a dozen people to show up. The one
+sitting next to him created a group in the very same city, and quickly
+saw meetings of 20+ people. Eventually, they found each other and
+merged their groups.
+
+*A recommendation*: In this guide, I strongly recommend your group use
+Meetup.com. This is despite various reservations: their administration
+panel makes it impossible for group organizers to find attendees'
+email addresses, and the interface is always changing, to the chagrin
+of some users. I personally remember the early days of Meetup.com,
+when its free-of-cost group creation is what powered a political
+campaign I cared about deeply. But I find user groups are larger, more
+diverse, and have more co-organizers if they use Meetup.
+
+Having said that, some user groups seem to do reasonably well with
+their own event announcement software. A handful of those, such as
+ChiPy in Chicago, also host Meetup.com pages so they can reach people
+who use that site.
+
+If you do use Meetup.com, the Python Software Foundation will
+reimburse you for your yearly Meetup.com account fees. See a sample
+grant application (forthcoming) on how to get that.
+
+Lightning talks
+===============
+
+Lightning talks are brief talks, usually capped at five minutes, where
+someone introduces a topic or tool they care about. This format keeps
+the barrier to entry for speaking low, which means that as an
+organizer, you can walk around and ask people, one-on-one, "What are
+you going to give a lightning talk about?"
+
+Montreal Python found that by focusing on lightning talks, the core
+organizers didn't need to do much publicity for their group. Instead,
+they asked the lightning talkers to invite their friends, and the group
+grew and grew.
+
+More about lighting talks:
+
+* Montreal Python (PyCon 2011 talk)
+* Why you should keep a strict time limit on lightning talks
 
 Navigation aids
 ===============