IRC/Gathering-2013-07-10

Attendees: Skud, sabreuse, MissKat, jledbetter, Transcendancing, ryanclark

Topics of discussion: CSS mentoring, design/branding/logo, promoting Growstuff and getting more members, lining up pairing sessions

 00:05 < Skud> morning! 00:05 < Skud> sabreuse: yes, irc gathering! 00:06 I think this is the first one i've been around for in months. 00:07 < Skud> :) 00:07 < Skud> i've missed a lot too. the shape of my weekends changed. 00:07 < Skud> who else is around? 00:08 < Skud> looks like yena was here, briefly 00:08 < Skud> is there something wrong with the announcement emails' timezones for the US? 00:10 < Skud> bucketm0use jledbetter paulproteus and other USians, there's an IRC gathering happening if you'd like to join us 00:11 < Skud> emilyst_ jekle MissKat you too :) 00:11 Well, I got the one saying "we'll start in a few minutes" an hour ago -- but since that was a "now" it shouldn't be region-specific. 00:11 < MissKat> Hi! 00:11 the one = the email 00:11 < Skud> um. 00:11 hi MissKat! 00:12 < Skud> oh maybe it's me who has it wrong. hang on. 00:12 < Skud> no, i don't. midnight UTC is definitely 10am here. 00:12 < Skud> these are the advertised times: 00:12 < Skud> 1am BST/UK time 00:12 < Skud> 10am AEST/Melbourne time 00:12 < Skud> 8pm Saturday EST 00:12 < Skud> 5pm Saturday PST 00:13 < Skud> however, the summer times are wrong i think 00:13 < Skud> EST is +7 and PST +4 at present 00:14 -!- Transcencdancing [~Mynxiii@203-219-208-78.static.tpgi.com.au] has joined #growstuff 00:14 < Transcencdancing> Morning all :) 00:14 < Skud> hi ju! 00:14 Howdy :) 00:15 < Transcencdancing> Although late (my laptop is *crawling* this morning, I finally made it! 00:15 < Skud> hey! it's a party 00:15 all these people! 00:15 < Skud> ok, we have sabreuse MissKat jledbetter Transcencdancing and me (so far) which is about 3 more people than any recent gathering. thank you all! 00:16 < Skud> well it's been a while, so i might just go through the usual procedure of how gatherings work 00:16 < Skud> it's not a formal meeting by any means, but if anyone has any questions/topics they'd like to discuss, you can say so now and we'll try and make sure to get to them in the next hour 00:17 < Skud> if you do have any feedback or want to know anything about the project, now is a good time to let us know :) 00:17 < Skud> but apart from that, we just kinda hang out. 00:17 < Transcencdancing> i have a small query re css and mentoring if anyone here is interested in helping me out? 00:17 < Skud> sure, go ahead! 00:18 < Transcencdancing> is anyone here available to do some mentoring around css? I'm getting there figuring stuff out on my own but I'm losing *many* hours to tiny things that shouldn't be so hard? 00:18 < Transcencdancing> I'm also using the w3 tutorials and that resource has been awesome 00:19 css is evil that way. grab me any time you have questions, although my schedule is hell for formal pairing this month. 00:19 < Skud> ditto. i'm happy to answer questions on here or wherever. 00:19 < Skud> i'm not great at css but i know the basics pretty well. 00:20 I'm good at css but haven't gotten a chance to get into the project quite yet :) 00:21 < Transcencdancing> i've been practicing on my own site (since posterous closed and it was kind of necessary and all) and i can find things i want to fix, sometimes I can figure out how to tweak them, but yeah, think some formal pairing on stuff would be both useful and fun - no rush to do it though so happy to work with others schedules 00:24 < Transcencdancing> I'm also going to be playing with wireframing stuff over the next few days-weeks if anyone wants to play along (i'll be posting to the mailing list with stuff in any case) 00:24 < Skud> Transcencdancing: do you have skype/teamviewer installed? 00:24 < Skud> ooh i'm looking forward to the wireframing 00:24 < Skud> for context: Transcencdancing and i met up last week and talked about layout for the growstuff site, and how it's currently inconsistent 00:25 < Skud> we talked about standardising a layout for "detail" pages, eg. member profiles, crops, plantings... at least at the basic level, eg. wide "main" column on left, narrow column on right for metadata etc 00:25 < Transcencdancing> Yes to skype, though it's fiddly with external cam. Teamviewer, not yet but I'll make that a priority for this week 00:25 < Skud> Transcencdancing: we mostly only use audio for skype, not video 00:26 < Transcencdancing> oh cool, that makes life easier :) 00:26 < Skud> you can screenshare via skype too, though it's really laggy 00:26 I'm looking forward to having all those pages more uniform! 00:26 < Skud> oh also! 00:26 < Skud> this week i have also contracted a local branding/design person to make a logo and related stuff for GS 00:27 \o/ 00:27 < Skud> this is the designer: http://www.subgreendesign.com.au/ ... she does lots of work for local sustainability-oriented businesses 00:27 < Skud> she also works closely with a really awesome green printer for when we want business cards, flyers, etc 00:28 < MissKat> whooooo 00:28 < Skud> i'm getting 2 business card designs, one for me personally and one for the project... i'll be happy to send out project ones to anyone who wants to keep some in their wallets 00:28 < Transcencdancing> so exciting!!! 00:28 < Skud> the flyer will be a design that anyone can print and put up at their local community places etc 00:29 I like her style 00:29 < Skud> and the postcards i'll get printed to hand out at events etc (though the actual printing may have to wait til we're a bit more flush with cash) 00:29 < Skud> but again, i'll be happy to send them to people who need them for events 00:30 < Skud> we're getting all the artwork in its source form under CC-BY-SA as well so people can eg. make their own growstuff flyers if they have a local event or whatever 00:31 < Transcencdancing> i like her style too - looks great 00:31 < Skud> tomorrow i should be getting 3 design concepts from her, to discuss and choose one 00:31 < Skud> i mentioned the "tree of life" idea that we had earlier on, so that will probably be one of them 00:33 < Skud> i like http://www.subgreendesign.com.au/#!projects/branding/aultivating-community/description best 00:35 < Skud> my main concern now, though, is getting more members 00:35 < Skud> uptake's been pretty slow 00:38 < Transcencdancing> maybe it could be an idea to find places to interview you about the project online? 00:38 < Skud> yes, i am trying to do that 00:38 < Skud> got any ideas? 00:38 < Transcencdancing> I'll do some searching and hunting around 00:38 < Transcencdancing> I'll also ask a friend of mine and also get her to pass the word around - she was overseas until fairly recently 00:39 < Skud> my friend leigh/@hypatiadotca introduced me to a podcaster who's interested, and maciej from pinboard's meant to be doing something, and paulproteus offered to introduce me to a couple of places 00:39 < Transcencdancing> she will possibly know some good places in the australiasian region that might be worth targetting 00:39 < Skud> i should ping them all by email 00:39 < Transcencdancing> very good idea :) 00:39 < Skud> i don't really want to go for mainstream media (magazines, etc) until we have logo/branding in place 00:39 < Skud> but i'm very interested in blogs and the like 00:39 < Transcencdancing> I also have a friend who blogs on related stuff, and i'm not sure how big it is, but I'll talk to her too 00:40 < Skud> i've been emailing a lot of community groups telling them about GS, got some traffic through that but not a lot of signups 00:40 < Transcencdancing> yeah i'm thinking blogs are actually the better vehicle atm - possibly indefinitely because it's word of mouth based 00:40 < Skud> you know, small is fine. 00:40 -!- ryanclark [~ryanclark@c-67-180-80-202.hsd1.ca.comcast.net] has joined #growstuff 00:40 < Skud> oh incidentally we have a bunch of new features that need testing. i need to send an email about that. 00:40 hi all 00:40 < Skud> there's also some outstanding tests from the other day, if anyone has time to look at them 00:40 < Skud> hi ryan! 00:40 Is this still going on? 00:41 Hey! 00:41 < Transcencdancing> morning! 00:41 Long time no pair! 00:42 < Transcencdancing> this is a bit left field but i'll also talk to my author friend and see if it fits with any of her projects/stuff - she does interviews and book reviews and geeky things and maybe it might fit under geeky things 00:42 < Transcencdancing> i'll talk to her in any cas 00:42 < Transcencdancing> e 00:42 What are we talking about? 00:43 < Skud> ryanclark: promoting growstuff and getting more members 00:43 got it 00:43 -!- cinnamyn77 [~cinnamyn7@69-165-252-109.cable.teksavvy.com] has joined #growstuff 00:44 -!- cinnamyn77 [~cinnamyn7@69-165-252-109.cable.teksavvy.com] has quit [Remote host closed the connection] 00:45 Was there a conversation about pairing this week? I don't want to take up time if it's already been discussed, but I'd like to set up a time or times to pair if anyone is available 00:45 < Skud> ryanclark: i'm really busy this week but cathy was available at times compatible with yours 00:45 Is she still around? 00:46 I can ping her off-list as well 00:46 < Skud> ryanclark: she's a fairly experienced programmer but newish at rails. between you you could certainly do any of the several 2-pointers in PT. 00:46 < Skud> ryanclark: she's not on IRC, best to email her 00:46 Cool, I'll reach out 00:46 < Skud> ryanclark: "mark plantings as finished" would be an awesome story for you to do with her 00:47 < Skud> it's a nice clean railsy one (migration, model, views, etc) so good to get her back up to speed with rails 00:47 -!- cinnamyn77 [~cinnamyn7@69-165-252-109.cable.teksavvy.com] has joined #growstuff 00:47 < Skud> Transcencdancing: i would love to talk to your author friend! 00:48 < Transcencdancing> i have remembered that i have a network of potentially interested people 00:48 < Transcencdancing> i will send some emails and ping some people on chat 00:48 < Transcencdancing> i don't know why i always forget this 00:48 < Transcencdancing> but i do 00:48 I'll get in touch and we'll work on that if we can get together 00:49 < Skud> Transcencdancing: most excellent :) feel free to cc me (skud@growstuff.org) and i can follow up from there. 00:49 Also I'm sure there are a ton of people in SF that would be interested in growstuff.  I'll see if I can get the word out here 00:51 < Skud> ryanclark: that would be excellent. again, feel free to cc me on any emails, or point them at @growstufforg on twitter 00:52 < Transcencdancing> My friend Alisha who runs Hermeneutica (http://www.hermeneutica.com.au/) is very well connected in the local Fremantle area and with Australian and various international sustainability groups - her specialty is disaster recovery, capacity building and community stuff but i think this fits in well with her stuff, and she might know of several organisations or community groups that'd be 00:52 < Transcencdancing> interested - she's going to ping me on chat later today 00:52 < Skud> sweet! 00:53 < Transcencdancing> she doesn't blog though so she's more likely to be someone who can connect you with other people 00:55 < Skud> all good :) 00:56 < Transcencdancing> my basic tendency for these kinds of things is to chat first and see if there's interest and follow up with connecty emails 00:56 < Skud> ok i just posted a 'please test' on the mailing list... lots of stuff, but i *really* want to do a production push soon. 00:58 Sorry to pop in, then leave but I just had a few minutes to check in. I've emailed Cathy and I'll see what I can do to get the word out. 00:58 < Skud> Transcencdancing: you signed up as a customer didn't you? do you think you'll have time to look at them? 00:58 < Skud> ryanclark: thank you! 00:58 Thank you! 00:58 -!- ryanclark [~ryanclark@c-67-180-80-202.hsd1.ca.comcast.net] has left #growstuff [] 01:02 < Transcencdancing> yes i can take a look in a little bit 01:03 < Skud> Transcencdancing: most excellent :) 01:03 < Skud> i'm sorry we missed yena here today 01:03 < Transcencdancing> need more coffee and to close some tabs 01:04 < Transcencdancing> that cultivating community design *is awesome* 01:05 < Skud> ok, well, i haven't had breakfast and i have emilly/celuran coming round for lunch in an hour 01:05 < Skud> so i should probably go shower and stuff 01:06 < Transcencdancing> possibly a good idea, i should eat breakfast or something like it soon too 01:06 < Transcencdancing> also do stuff! stuff for everyone! *productive happy feelings* 01:07 < Skud> i am going to customer-interview emilly while she's here. i bribed her with soup :) 01:08 < Skud> ok, well, shall we say the gathering is closed? 01:08 < Skud> i can post a transcript on the wiki and to the mailing list 01:08 < Skud> at least, i hope i can... i hav a new IRC client so i'll have to figure out how :) 01:09 -!- randomling is now known as randomling|afk 01:11 < Skud> ok, later all! 01:11 later! Thanks1 01:11 ! 