[Events] hello everyone

[Daniel Choi]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Daniel Choi and I am a
Rubyist in Boston. I love programming and am the author of a few
websites and open source projects, including Vmail[1], a Vim client for
Gmail. I run a small software shop in Cambridge, MA with my friend.

I'm introducing myself to this mailing list now because three weeks ago,
everything changed for the Boston Ruby Community. There were stirrings
of malaise in the Boston Ruby mailing list about our lack of diversity
and beginner-friendliness.  Our female representation at monthly Boston
Ruby meetings is embarrassingly low, and too often our events are 
intimidating for beginners and newcomers. We wanted to do something
about this, but had no clear idea how.

Then someone pointed to Boston Python as a community that had its act
together on outreach and welcoming newcomers. I contacted some people
there, and they pointed me to the 2012 PyCon presentation by Jessica
McKellar and Asheesh Laroia titled "Diversity in practice: How the
Boston Python User Group grew to 1700 people and over 15% women."[2]  

After I watched that video, I urged everyone on the Boston Ruby mailing
list to watch it. Then things started happening fast.

Jessica and Asheesh's presentation changed our whole outlook on
what is possible for the Boston Ruby community.  In 40 minutes, they
opened our eyes to how we were stunting ourselves as a community, and
they excited us by laying out such a clear, practical, and feasible
outreach strategy that we could follow to change things dramatically in
a short period of time.

We were so pumped that a day after we saw the video, we organized a
BostonRB outreach organizational meeting to start moving. We even got
Jessica and Asheesh to attend it! (Asheesh, 3 time zones away,  was
there virtually, thanks to Google Hangouts.) In an hour, we got everyone
to agree that we would follow the playbook Jessica and Asheesh laid out. 

Two weeks later, which was last night, we held our first outreach event,
a beginner-friendly Ruby Project Night, modeled on the Python Project
Night Asheesh and Jessica pioneered. It was a great success. Newcomers
went out of their way to thank us for organizing it. The volunteers who
helped the beginners loved it too, and everyone who took part feels more
engaged and invested as members of the Boston Ruby community.  

Now we are about to start planning our first Boston Ruby Workshop for
Women and Their Friends. We are gathering a support and volunteers from
all sides. Our outreach effort, which was nonexistent just a month ago,
is growing strong and confident legs.

I wanted to share that good news with everyone here. I also hope this
message can help inspire new outreach efforts elsewhere. 

Dan


[1] http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/01/gmail-for-vim-vmail.php
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrITN6GZDu4

----
Sent from vmail
https://github.com/danchoi/vmail