[Events] User group outreach, weekly report, 2014-01-29 edition

[Judy Tuan]

https://twitter.com/CallbackWomen is a bat signal for conference CFPs. Do
you already know Carina Zona?


On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 12:33 AM, Asheesh Laroia <asheesh at asheesh.org>wrote:

> (As context, this is a weekly updated as regards
> http://openhatch.org/blog/2013/psf-funds-openhatch-to-
> reach-out-to-and-help-python-user-groups/ )
>
>
> This week, I accomplished:
>
> * Identified a person who is willing to lead an SF-area Django workshop
> for women and their friends, namely Sandy Strong. Next step will be
> scheduling and finding other volunteers.
>
> * Identified a person, who has already set a schedule, who is interested
> in running an intro Python workshop series in February 2014 in Seattle,
> namely Mako Hill.
>
> * Started a conversation with a few London-area Python groups, many of
> whom collectively identify and are interested in addressing their gender
> diversity problem. Attendee retention is one of their concerns. I'm not yet
> sure what the best next step here will be; since the London Python Dojo
> already runs something Project Night-esque, perhaps the most "obvious"
> thing to do is run a Django Workshop for Women and their friends.
>
> * Continued to get in touch with more groups. I've successfully begun to
> pre-write greeting messages and ask my assistant to send them out, which
> will help me do this more reliably.
>
> * Worked with my assistant to successfully get a list of contact info of
> women speaking at PyCon in 2014.
>
> * Gathered excitement from Tobi in PyLadies NYC, where probably they're
> interested in at least doing a Project Night.
>
> * Gathered excitement from Jennifer in PyLadies Boston, where they seem
> interested in running a Django tutorial.
>
> * Got one more group to apply for the Python Software Foundation's Meetup
> grant.
>
> * Watched as a Chicago Python Project Night seems to be in the process of
> getting scheduled for a time in the end of February.
>
>
> My obstacles/lessons were:
>
> * More time on my part would mean more progress per week, but I think that
> will always be true. (Relatedly -- huge thanks to people who have replied
> to these messages -- Akkana, Jen, Jessica, and surely others. If anyone
> else is interested in helping out, I bet I can further subdivide things and
> find a way to have you benefit this project!)
>
> * Generally, I'm less certain of what to recommend for small Python user
> groups (of size 5-25 people) in smallish cities than I am for big-ish ones
> (40+) in big cities. For big ones, the project night and/or Workshop for
> Women and their Friends strategy seems reasonable. For smaller ones
>
> * I've been reading _Better_ by Atul Gawande, and one thing he remarked
> upon is that helping people work together to solve a problem is often more
> successful than telling them how to solve the problem. I try to encourage a
> collaborative approach, but I realized I could do even more, which is why I
> did got the London organizers together on a thread rather than talked with
> them one-on-one.
>
> * Finding diverse speakers in locations that I don't live in (heck, even
> in ones I do live in) remains hard. I would love to have a "speaking
> opportunity bat-signal". Until then, see below ("Reach out to...") for one
> strategy. (To this extent, extra huge props to PyCon's outreach chair
> (Jessica McKellar) this year.) I had mistakenly believed this would merely
> be a matter of researching people and connecting them with the user group,
> but it seems to be the case that existing organizers are easier to convince
> to do something novel than prospective speakers I have to identify and
> basically cold-call. (Saying this out loud makes me realize that in the SF
> Bay Area, I could talk to the Hackbright organizers about this, which also
> makes me think about how I could see if similar efforts exist in cities
> like Boston, where I've recently been trying to find speakers for Django
> Boston.)
>
> * I'd been hoping to work more directly with PyLadies, to the extent that
> they have a central planning list, but haven't heard back from Lynn about
> how best to work together, so for now am just contacting PyLadies
> organizers like all Python user group organizers I run into on Meetup.com.
>
>
> This coming week, I will:
>
> * Help the SF Django prospect turn into an actual event that gets
> organized.
>
> * Meet with Mako to discuss the Seattle plans (on Thu) and nail them down.
>
> * Meet with Tobi to discuss NYC plans (on Thu) and nail down something,
> hopefully, probably a Project Night.
>
> * Meet with Jennifer to discuss Boston plans (on Fri) .
>
> * Meet with Michelle to discuss Portland (on Mon).
>
> * Reach out to women speaking at PyCon to see if they're interested in
> giving demo versions of their talks to their local user groups, to boost
> speaker diversity. (How to make this a *lasting* change is a different,
> more challenging question. Asking those speakers to invite their friends to
> attend the meetup is likely a start; having more of those groups run
> Project Nights is probably also related, as then hopefully there will be
> more newcomer-oriented events.)
>
> * Continue to stay in touch with other organizers, such as PyLadies
> Dominicana.
>
> * More precisely tabulate my successes and failures so far to answer the
> question of how I am progressing in achieving the current goal set.
>
> * Beyond this coming week, I will research women who do academic work that
> relates to Python and see if I can connect them with speaking opportunities
> that would enrich their local user groups.
>
> * Wrote this email, which turned out longer than I expected. (-:
>
> -- Asheesh.
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