Community Meeting Anyone?

Tiago Neves

Discussion

Hi everyone,

Next Step 2015 is now gone, but for some it wasn't enough... ;)
This year we didn't have a BarCamp. It seems some R&D people at OutSystems were disappointed with that. But we can have the first OutSystems Community Meeting! What do you think about that?

When I started with OutSystems I felt the lack of a regular meeting between the community and that feeling has been growing stronger. Last week I discussed this with other members at Next Step and it was obvious to me that the feeling is shared between many of us. So I've decided to take the initiative and time to challenge you to take part: this is intended to be made by and made for the OutSystems Community, no matter what your role is or what company you work for.

So what are you waiting for? Do you want to take part? Share what you think, the outcome is in your hands.
I have prepared a survey to gather some information and start planning ahead from the start - follow this link please or post your oppinion: https://pt.surveymonkey.com/s/S7SYP8W

By the way, the great staff at OutSystems have already showed their support for this idea and are prepared to help us out. I would say the meeting will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, but we (community) should get this going with live stream as well.

PS: this is not a one man endeavour. It will only go ahead if you take part!

01 Jun 2015

MVP

Hi,

Well, we used to have a Bits&Bijts session in the Netherlands :)
Not sure if that still exists though.

02 Jun 2015

1 reply

02 Jun 2015

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Remco Dekkinga

MVP

Statler & Waldorf and the amazing flappy tweedles! wrote:

Hi,

Well, we used to have a Bits&Bijts session in the Netherlands :)
Not sure if that still exists though.

I'm missing the bits&bijt sesions too.

02 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

Feedback is starting to flow! That's good.

On the survey mentioned above there are some simple questions like a name for the event, when and where should it take place, what kind of content you would like to get, if you would like to help or present and make a pre-registration.

Please, don't stay there just reading. This event will be whatever the community decides.
I will not give up on this Community! :)

02 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

I have some feedback, not so much as I expected tough.
I don't know how many reads this post has - not enough reach or lack of interest?

Anyway, keep giving feedback. There are already some good ideas.
By the way, it would be nice if we could have groups in this OutSystems Community site to establish easier communication between groups of interests...

Should we create a group outside? A Linkedin group maybe?

If you are someone who hasn't given feedback yet, please say something. Even if it's just "Count me in", "Not going", ...

For those that gave feedback, I will follow up with you.
Thanks.

03 Jun 2015

MVP

How many feedback did you expect then? :(

Perhaps you should create a global post/announcement and that will trigger more feedback?

I know that 90% of my co-workers never or rarely visit the forums, let alone read them.

03 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

So far, there were 6 people filling the survey. (including myself)

Joost, I experience the same, meaning a vast majority of my co-workers, and others I know, rarely visit the forums. But this doesn't mean they lack the will to get together to dive into OutSystems content...

We are taking baby steps on this journey to build a strong community. It seems, to start with, that there is no effective way of getting a message through to everyone. Imho, there should be an independent (not OutSystems controlled) way of communicating within the community - to push messages to everyone (or those that show interest).

The people I know at OutSystems are willing to help, but at the same time, this is something that has to come from within the community to grow strong. OutSystems cannot be pushing for the community just by itself.

So, what is a good way to establish communication between members? Create a group elsewhere, where those communication tools are available?

03 Jun 2015

MVP

I prefer to keep it here where the magic happens :)

03 Jun 2015

Matthias Preuter

MVP

Maybe this is a good starting point for a Community? It's a OutSystem Application and it's open, with all communication tools available....

03 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

@statler: I also believe that would be best.
Maybe some kind of forum community moderator role, with different permissions? I don't know how this forum is built and how easy that could be.

We will have to jump several hurdles, but we are moving now... ;)

03 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

Simply put, I would say that:

"OutSystems Community" is an independent initiative, with the single goal of sharing knowledge in the field of architecture and software development on the OutSystems platform in an attempt to spread the different knowledge of each one of its members.

Tiago Neves

03 Jun 2015

Davide Marquês

Hi Tiago,

Your post is now sticky and I'll start promoting it across OutSystems!

Cheers and congrats for the initiative!
Davide

05 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

Great!
Thanks Davide.

I will also be reaching out to members who have given feedback (answered the survey) so that, together, we can address next steps. Expect my contact until monday.

Cheers

05 Jun 2015

André Vieira

Staff

Tiago,

I'm interested in participating and helping out as I can.

05 Jun 2015

André Vieira

Staff

Tiago,

Perhaps using something like https://www.meetup.com would help....

05 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

Indeed André. That might be the best (I thought about EventBrite also).

In the meantime, I have a tip from Davide - thanks ;) - about a tool (doodle) to help decide on which day to hold the event.

I will wrap up on all the feedback before moving on. Everyone is invited to keep giving feedback/ideas.

Thank you all for helping. I start to get the real feeling of Community!

Tiago Neves

05 Jun 2015

Ricardo Silva

I'd be willing to go and perhaps talk a bit about stuff :)

05 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

Hi,
Thank you all for the feedback. I have requested permission from the 10 participants of the survey to share the answers here in the forum. I will do so when I get that permission.

In the meantime, we should decide on a date to hold the meeting. So, I have sent a link to the participants with a Doodle poll and I share it here also: https://doodle.com/ytnzw8m6gavizmmn. Should it be in July? On a business day or a Saturday morning? I personally prefer a Saturday morning, but my availability is total.

From the feedback it is certain that this first meeting will occur in Lisbon. I hope we can create a basis that can be replicated elsewhere.

08 Jun 2015

MVP

Done,

Not sure if I can convince my boss to join you lot in Portugal :)

Streaming would be very mandatory to include the whole wide world of course!

08 Jun 2015

Remco Dekkinga

MVP

I filled in the doodle poll too and I've to agree with Statler & Waldorf, because I could probably only join in Portugal when the meeting is online / using a livestream.

08 Jun 2015

Matthias Preuter

MVP

i'am in for a livestream or Hangout

08 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

Hi everyone,

The result of the survey is now available: https://surveymonkey.com/results/SM-G9HZ2KWD/
I will not comment yet. Go ahead and take an unbiased view first.

A clear picture of the event is now taking form. For sure livestream is a must - I actually mentioned it from the beginning.

Possible dates are also narrowing: it seems the community prefers a Saturday morning in August (poll is still on, cast your vote if you haven't done it yet: https://doodle.com/ytnzw8m6gavizmmn).
It's time also to start thinking about the place to hold the event (I will work on that).

08 Jun 2015

Rebecca Hall

It would be nice to have a regular Outsystems User Group online so all can participate without traveling.

10 Jun 2015

1 reply

11 Jun 2015

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Tiago Neves

Rebecca Hall wrote:

It would be nice to have a regular Outsystems User Group online so all can participate without traveling.

That reinforces other feedback, that the community wants this to become a regular event and that it should take an online form as well. The event is taking shape!

Anyone else reading this: It's never late to give feedback. The first event will probably occur in about 2/3 months. As far as I know (afaik) OutSystems staff are keeping an eye on this brainstorm and survey.

11 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

Hello again,

I just want to give an update.
This event is for sure going to happen and hopefully more will follow. :) There are some behind the scenes steps being taken, meaning plan is moving forward.
You'd better make space in your agenda for possibly the end of August (22nd) or beginning of September (5th)... it's not yet closed.

I will be giving feedback and asking for your help also. Remember? Most of you said you would help ;)

Cheers

16 Jun 2015

Eric Oud Ammerveld

I think it's good if the Outsystems Community would get going but I'm kind of positive this will only go if this will be mutual benificial.
For now I have only seen the community "give" and no actual Outsystems response to that.

Most communities can grow because they are open and unrestricted and with that can and will get community support.
For now it doesn't seem that the Outsystems Community really has either one of both characteristics.
Which is why the community isn't

IBM started out with Rational; opened Rational up with Eclipse and now has one of the largest communities online.
VMWare started out as an open tool and now has a free Hypervisor (with reasonable startup level functionality) and supports the Enterprise with huge cluster environments.

Isn't that the "Next step" to go for?
As Outsystems make as sure your consumer (and community) base will grow by creating a low-barrier; maybe even Open start-up platform with pretty good functionality having a structure that Outsystems can grow along with that base and support it as the company grows?
I wouldn't know a start-up developer that -from a hobby perspective- would be using Outsystems because of it's current constraints.

17 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

Hi Eric,

An interesting view. It reminds me also of the idea, already discussed in these forums, about an OutSystems App Marketplace - but this would mean also having some sort of Developer License/Version.

At the same time, imho, these are only indirectly correlated. We can have a strong community even if there isn't that sort of "open tech" environment. Besides, OutSystems is still growing as an organization, e.g. some issues are popping up related with this community meeting.

I have had good support and a very positive reaction from OutSystems staff about this topic. Maybe it will take a bit more time but we are all building a community.

18 Jun 2015

1 reply

18 Jun 2015

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Eric Oud Ammerveld

Hi Tiago,

I partly agree with you.
Given what Outsystems can offer it would have been at least 10 times as big.
Ofcourse that growth can work against you as a company.

I've opted the Marketplace idea about 5 years ago when I was getting into Outsystems as a rookie developer and saw growth potential for my private company.
I did this together with the request to "adopt and support" extensions which Outsystems kind of added to their list of functionalities and which were great but during that period weren't an integral part of the Outsystems Platform meaning NO FORMAL SUPPORT.
The latter is a real pain for large enterprise companies; they expect and desire support.

An example of one of those extensions is XMLRecords provided by Gonçalo Boregga; he then was already a -in the community- well know member of the Outsystems internal devteam.

The approach to the support that Outsystems chose was the kind you provide in open platforms (the developer that created the module is also responsible for it's support)
The approach to encourage smaller companies to start-up with Outsystems only got slimmer when the number of software units decreased in the community so the community was kind of "cut" by that action.
This was the same period I decided not to continue using the Outsystems platform to deploy it at smaller to medium companies.

Obviously Outsystems is (still) targetting larger business only and with that discouraging the open community.
Which is OK since I know the platform and am using it with a lot of fun but it's again discouringing the community to spend a lot of time of their own (outside of the business hours) in extensions / code.

A word of respect to everyone that has and still is feeding the Forge since I think they are doing a great job.

18 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

Hi again everyone,

Here is an update on the community event.

Since we need a place for easy communication between the community (noticed the similarity of the words?) and that online meetings (hangouts) will be a must, there is now a new "Community" in Google+ to help us on that.
It was decided, after getting this submitted to OutSystems Marketing, to call it:
OutSystems Technology User Group (OTUG)

The inspiration comes from Google Technology User Group (GTUG).
Within that same Community there is now an event called MeetOut (since these will promote meet-ups of the OutSystems community members). Although still subject to confirmation, it is scheduled for 5th of September - you can add it to your agenda/calendar and invite your co-workers and friends.

It is still Work in Progress - About this Community:
OutSystems Technology User Group (OTUG) is an independent initiative, with the single goal of sharing technical content in the field of architecture and software development on the OutSystems platform in an attempt to spread the different knowledge of each one of its members.

A OTUG event can take many forms -- from just a few people getting together to watch a video, to large gatherings with demos and tech talks, to events like code sprints and hackathons. However, at the core, OTUG events are focused on developers and technical content, and the core audience should be developers.

OTUG is:

Run by passionate individuals in the OutSystems community
A place to learn about OutSystems Technologies and Tools for developers
A place to see what local companies and developers are doing with these technologies
Focused on developers and educational technical content
Open to the public
A place to meet cool and smart people in tech :)

A detailed model on how the event will be organized is in the works to be proposed.
In the meantime, you can already think and share about which specific topics you would like to be addressed and/or present yourself.

Cheers

18 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

Hi,
The coming week (22 to 26 of June) will bring us more details.
It looks like there is room for discussion on broader issues, that influence the environment surrounding our path as OutSystems Developers, besides technical topics...

Is there any brave developer out there who wants to lead the platoon and volunteer to present stuff?
@Ricardo Silva - were you thinking of a specific topic when you thought of talking about stuff?

Cheers

21 Jun 2015

Ricardo Silva

Hey, Tiago.

Sorry for the late reply. From my part my idea was to talk about ardoPostgreSQL my PostgreSQL connector and how OutSystems is now moving into open APIs so it's more extensible and not everything has to be included in the core product.

23 Jun 2015

1 reply

24 Jun 2015

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Tiago Neves

Ricardo Silva wrote:

Hi Ricardo,

I would say: Great stuff! But I am just one more member...
I'm really just trying to facilitate the process of getting this going. I will get in touch with everyone (either email or pm) still this week to push for next steps.

24 Jun 2015

Tiago Neves

Hi everyone,

I am sending this message to 15 community members (either email or pm) and posting in the forums.

As of today:

We have a MeetOut - our community meeting - scheduled for 5th of September (link:https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/c0iqg51n97p415jg47iftqisl9o). That event page is also the way for you to follow it online, with Google Hangouts.
We have an OutSystems Technology User Group (OTUG) community created on Google+ that holds the event, with 15 members. (link:https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115626647759692240911)
We have the same group on LinkedIn with also 15 members. (link:https://www.linkedin.com/grp/home?gid=8326308)

These are just 2 ways of establishing communication and sharing value info between the community. Anyone is free to join and you are welcome to be a moderator - just let me know. Please join and I would say: share between interested co-workers.

MeetOut is scheduled to take 4 hours between 9am and 1pm (WEST - Lisbon Time). We are now building the Agenda.

We already have a volunteer to make a presentation. Ricardo Silva will talk about ardoPostgreSQL and how OutSystems is now moving into open APIs.

I volunteer myself also to make an open and closing keynotes and probably will invite someone to join me on that.

My idea was to have 2 Main Topics. Does anyone want to extend on Ricardo's APIs topic?

Or maybe take one of these for second topic:

How to make this Advanced Query with Visual Aggregates? Various examples
How to handle NULLs throuhgout the platform. (queries, extensions, ...)
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