Community Leadership Summit

You are invited to the Community Leadership Summit. Our goal is to gather together anyone who is rabid about the community: all of the community leaders, speakers, and contributors. We want to get together and share best practices, and learn from each other. This is OPEN. We aren’t just talking about .NET user groups. We are talking Ruby, PHP, Python, OSS, Linux, ALM, and anything else you can think of. It doesn’t have to be a big formal user group; your community might be the small group of folks that crack code at a coffee shop at 7am. Whatever it is, come on over. This summit is held twice a year, once in the summer, and once in the winter.

The event will be held at Jack’s Bar-B-Que,  from noon until 4pm on August 12^th, 2009. The address is 416 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203. Their website is http://jacksbarbque.com.

Register Here: http://tr.im/uKDt

We are holding the summit the day before devLink because we know many leaders will already be in one place, making it easier on people to travel. The winter edition will be held the day before CodeMash in January, in Sandusky, Ohio. If you need a place to stay, or help driving down, please reach out. There are plenty of people going, and who would love to share a ride.

One thing we have learned over the past few years is that the community doesn’t have boundaries, and we don’t want any either. But pants, of some sort, are required. We want there to be open sharing amongst all of the groups, so that we can learn from each other’s successes and failures. We want to discuss how you grow the group, should you want to grow the group, how do you reach out to people that don’t know the community exists, how do you groom new speakers and leaders, and if or how you get sponsors for your meetings. You will also be able to share how you put on an event like a bar camp and learn from other organizers.

The day will start with lunch at noon, where you can mingle, chat, and catch up with the people you know, and maybe spill some BBQ sauce on someone you don’t know. The spill creates an opportunity to chat with the person. That’s a little networking tip from us to you for free.

We will then move into some opening comments and some lightening talks on some cross cutting topics we think would be useful in getting the discussions going from there. The rest of the day will be about you and the community. We expect an ‘open spaces’ like event where we have some topics of discussion, and a freewheeling time flittering around from one group to another.

While Microsoft might be sponsoring the food, this has nothing to do with us. So what is our evil plan? Well, glad you asked. Our jobs are to help the community and the easiest way to help you is to help you help us help you. We also know that a strong community is an important aspect to having a healthy industry, which serves us all. Plus, it’s a great way to get the boss to pay for a meal out of our budget. Wink Wink.

Get this. There will be no projectors, no screens, no laptops, no wifi. Only scratch pads, you, and a giant mess of the best Bar-B-Que* in town. The audience is wide open. If you know someone who fits the description above, please forward it to them. Twitter it, blog it, sky write it, we don’t care. We also don’t care where they are from; Cincinnati, Grand Rapids, Boise, or Miami. And we don’t care what role they play in the community; leader, helper, speaker, attendee, muffin eater; doesn’t matter.

We do have a limit on space and food, so please register quickly, and before you share the link with other people. We would hate for you to miss out because you’re THAT selfless. Being an attendee of devLink is not a requirement, but there are tickets left if you are interested.

* We will have food for people who have alternative diet needs. Please check the box on the registration form.