It's the secondary goals that make a Perl event memorable
15/06/12 15:51 by Salve J. Nilsen (sjn)
Oslo.pm is a tiny organization, and we can't boast of much. At best we can say we manage to "keep up appearances" by drinking enough beer to make everything look awesome. :)
We do have some ambitions though, of which the latest big one (especially promoted by the group's Kirk^H^H^H^Hleader, sjn), is to do more fun stuff.
- Do something cool
- Tell someone about it
From the organization side, the Moving to Moose hackathon definitely has a secondary goal - to show to the world that even tiny Perl Monger groups like Oslo.pm can do cool stuff. Thanks to our sponsors, we'll be spending quite the healthy amount of funds on this trip. We do this not only to hack on awesome stuff, but also to take pictures, create good stories to tell at home and - if all goes well - have something we can look back at years from now, and proudly say "we were there, and we had fun".
I think the "we were there"-ambition is good to have for any event, and I would love to see more organizers in the Perl community think this way. Whether or not your local .pm group has a Picard, a Kirk or someone else making stuff happen, doing something fun now and then is crucial for the health of the community. This "fun stuff" might not have anything to do with Perl, and should therefore be considered secondary as raison d’être. Perl is #1, but without a little fun we're just a bunch of geeks at the pub.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of both pubs, beer and geekery, and very much in favour of combining these. There are plenty of good reasons these three are common for many technical meetup groups - especially since these groups exist so it's members can learn to know new stuff and new people. I think it's bad to tone down the importance of a good brew and some idle chatter about interesting stuff.
But sometimes, it would be nice to do something extraordinary. So let's agree we also have secondary goals in the Perl community, and they're all are about making Perl events memorable and fun.
I'd love to see more attention being spent on secondary goals.
This is why Oslo.pm is trying something new. We want to hack on stuff we care about while actually getting to know the world we're trying to improve, and if this also leads to some great stories and memories worth telling to your friends, I'll gladly deem the project successful.
So please imagine how much we're looking forward to the Moving to Moose hackathon, and consider how much fun you could have if you could be there too!
Are you coming? :)
Tags: perl p5-mop moose hackathon oslo.pm preikestolen community organizing