Q1 Meet Review and Retrospective

Message Boards

Bijan Vakili, modified 9 Years ago.

Q1 Meet Review and Retrospective

Expert Posts: 375 Join Date: 3/10/09 Recent Posts

I was missing in action for good chunk; I came to the room around 12:30; I apologize since I should be there; it's a long story I'll tell you later.

We made some decisions about format; and I'd like to touch one decision: what kinds of talk should we present in meet ("The dilemma on what talks to provide")?

My colleagues, Vincent and Shama, were there; and I saw the second presentation; which was really an impressive slide deck. I gathered some feedback for next meeting; which may help us improve experience ("Improving experience for next meet".)

The dilemma on what talks to provide
There was a dilemma for this meeting; similar to Symposium's first ones; will we have business or tech audience? Johnnie and I talked about this a lot; going back and forth a couple of times; and we decided business audience; not that people would not be tech-savvy; but for our first meet, we'll do business-like; since some didn't know what Liferay's about; even though they may be quite technical. So to showcase Liferay, we had two talks: one by Johnnie and one by EastBanc folks; both were showing what Liferay delivers; not how or anything technical-wise (though the latter had some hints to tech-terms.) The talks were each about 30 minutes; with 30 minutes for lunch in between (thanks to Johnnie for providing the food!) Both were presentation format with slides.

Improving experience for next meet
I had a great time at yesterday's meet; and so did the two folks who came with me . When I asked their feedback, I was quite glad: one wanted more on authentication; which we can certainly do in Q2. In fact, I will reach to Tai Ton on that.
Additionally, I talked to Shahab; who has great ideas on meet topics; such as Adaptive Display Templates use; and the Audience Targeting plugin; to attract audience, hold a contest (a mini-hackathon for designers; or quick-hand developers and hackers; to showcase what can be done with Liferay; and chance to win a gift card or something; in a portion of the UG meeting!) More to chat on with Shahab on these points. Lastly, he suggested more frequent meets; for example, one meet per month or so.
I agree the next meet target tech folks; since there is so much to talk about there. Though I think we need to address one thing; which is an extremely important point: too many people haven't seen Liferay; and I don't mean from a technical point; just what Liferay can do in a short time; out of the box and in their hands for free! Too many don't know the history too; as opposed to competitor products. Instead, they often go rebuild the wheel; since the competition's too expensive; and they don't know the can use the CE. Long story short, my bottom-line point is: each meet should have a new-comer section; and assume we know nothing of Liferay; and nothing of Liferay's portal products. I have some slides we can inject here; and I've tested them with one large success; the new-comer section can be quite short; but we should not neglect to recruit folks; and target our content to newcomers; so not just features but the big picture.

So let's plan the next meet ASAP; so we have time to work on Agenda; and improve the process based on last one.

Thank you again for your contribution.

David H Nebinger, modified 9 Years ago.

RE: Q1 Meet Review and Retrospective

Liferay Legend Posts: 14919 Join Date: 9/2/06 Recent Posts

Isn't the purpose of a "Liferay User Group" to serve and bring together Liferay users? If you're going to turn it into a regional sales briefing, you may be going in the wrong direction. If all of your feedback was "show more actual tech/usage stuff", it would seem that the attendees weren't there for fluff either.

Just my opinion. I would have been there, but since I moved to SC, DC is just too far to drive...

Bijan Vakili, modified 9 Years ago.

RE: Q1 Meet Review and Retrospective

Expert Posts: 375 Join Date: 3/10/09 Recent Posts

It would have been great to have you, David.

To Johnnie and EastBanc's credit, no fluff; they showcased what Liferay could deliver; without going into technical depth.

We had little idea what folks want; since the conversation was bit muted; this meeting opened up their eyes a bit; and now we got feedback on what they want.

The issue we considered before was: let's say we cover a technical point (e.g. Liferay 7 OSGi); some folks might not care about that at all; since they're quite new to Liferay Portal realm. On other hand, the presentations worked; they didn't cover anything in depth; but talked little about everything. Based on that, we got today's responses. Some of the comments during the meeting: "[why did you do manual import/export instead of audience targeting plugin?]" or "[how did you do the AngularJS integration?]"; to which there was a technical response; but quite limited due to time constraint (only 90 minutes including lunch.)

David, are there meetups down in SC? If not, would like to virtual you in; that is, setup a cam for your viewing; and put some speakers so you can chime in.

Any topic suggestions are welcome. Currently I'm thinking of few so far:

Authentication through SAML token
Common Access Card (CAC) integration (which I have done but was through SSO; that is, OpenSSO handled that)
Adaptive Display Templates and contest
Audience Targeting and demo of

Thank you for the feedback based on the read!

David H Nebinger, modified 9 Years ago.

RE: Q1 Meet Review and Retrospective

Liferay Legend Posts: 14919 Join Date: 9/2/06 Recent Posts

Bijan Vakili:

It would have been great to have you, David.

Honestly I checked the distance when I saw the notice; almost 8 hours was just a bit farther than I wanted to drive...

We had little idea what folks want; since the conversation was bit muted; this meeting opened up their eyes a bit; and now we got feedback on what they want.

Sounds like a great opening then. I would encourage you to listen to your attendees and try to give them what they want; if you keep them interested, they should keep coming back.

The issue we considered before was: let's say we cover a technical point (e.g. Liferay 7 OSGi); some folks might not care about that at all; since they're quite new to Liferay Portal realm. On other hand, the presentations worked; they didn't cover anything in depth; but talked little about everything. Based on that, we got today's responses. Some of the comments during the meeting: "[why did you do manual import/export instead of audience targeting plugin?]" or "[how did you do the AngularJS integration?]"; to which there was a technical response; but quite limited due to time constraint (only 90 minutes including lunch.)

Just like at the symposium, I think you can get a lot of mileage from letting folks get together and chat about things over food. It gives you the freedom to connect w/ folks you may have questions for and talk things out in an informal situation.

David, are there meetups down in SC? If not, would like to virtual you in; that is, setup a cam for your viewing; and put some speakers so you can chime in.

If there are, I haven't connected with them yet. If I don't find one, virtual attendance is better than none I guess emoticon

Bijan Vakili, modified 9 Years ago.

RE: Q1 Meet Review and Retrospective

Expert Posts: 375 Join Date: 3/10/09 Recent Posts

David H Nebinger:

Honestly I checked the distance when I saw the notice; almost 8 hours was just a bit farther than I wanted to drive...

David H Nebinger:

if you keep them interested, they should keep coming back.

We added a quick email sign sheet; to make sure we heard them, I'll contact them; as a follow up to feedback we got; so they can confirm or update feedback.

David H Nebinger:

Just like at the symposium, I think you can get a lot of mileage from letting folks get together and chat about things over food. It gives you the freedom to connect w/ folks you may have questions for and talk things out in an informal situation.

Agreed; though I'd like some structure as well. I wasn't around at lunchtime this time; since I was upstairs on conflicted call; folks I was with said they networked at lunch; and that's where I think they got ideas; so definitely agree with you there; we need some air for ideas to breathe.

David H Nebinger:

If there are, I haven't connected with them yet. If I don't find one, virtual attendance is better than none I guess

I'll keep this forum updated with news; one more reason why I prefer this site; as opposed to meetup.com or else; especially since this won't expire; whereas meetup.com costs and gets stale (if no update in year, data is gone!) We actually had lots of members; but no one updated meetup.com; since the group admin (Rick Osborn) left group; and I don't think we knew we'd lose data emoticon

Johnnie Stubbs, modified 9 Years ago.

RE: Q1 Meet Review and Retrospective

New Member Posts: 2 Join Date: 4/10/13 Recent Posts

I would like to thank everyone who came to the Liferay Washington DC User's Group meeting. There were 14 people at the meeting in total. I would also like to thank Eastbanc for hosting the meeting in their fabulous location in Georgetown. I really enjoyed Serge Belolipetski's first class presentation on MBO Partners' Customer and Intranet Portal. The presentation itself was well done, and it clearly showcased Eastbanc's capabilities to deliver in the marketplace.

I agree with everything that Bijan said about making the next meeting more technical, and I think that having a section for new comers is a great idea which will address the need for supporting the technical needs of the group, while doing outreach to new people.

As a first meeting for the group in quite some time, I think things went well. And with the feed back from the group, we will make the next meeting even better.

Bijan Vakili, modified 9 Years ago.

RE: Q1 Meet Review and Retrospective

Expert Posts: 375 Join Date: 3/10/09 Recent Posts

Thanks for pics Johnnie; great to see you all!