[Events] hello everyone

[Asheesh Laroia]

Excerpts from Daniel Choi's message of Wed Jun 06 13:16:30 -0400 2012:
> 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. 

Well, thank you for the unbelievably unenthusiastic email! I'm floored.

I'll conclude a few things from this:

* Jessica's plan that people should try running project nights
  before they dive into an outreach workshop seems to be quite
  reasonable!

* Dan, the work you've done is truly amazing.

* Giving talks is not only fun, but probably a good idea. (:

Dan, I'm curious if you can write a little bit about the fact
that Boston.rb renamed the "Hack night" to a "Project night."
Did you guys change anything in particular about the hack night
other than the name? (And what sort of feedback did you get about
the name change?)

-- Asheesh.