The next Refactor meeting is this Wednesday, June 25. No one has offered to give a talk or demo or anything, and I don’t particularly want to have to whip up yet another talk, so there will be nothing formal that night.
The last time there was no particular presentation it ended up being me and five other people. Two of those others never (that I could tell) came back for another Refactor. Hooray for casual conversation.
It is, of course, disappointing to think that the only way to get deveopers together after work is to offer up some pre-planned “edutainment.” It’s even more disappointing to think that maintaining a reliable stream of worthwhile presentations will be tedious monthly chore of either goading people into giving a talk or assembling one myself.
I can assure you that the latter just ain’t gonna to happen, and I’m not fond of pestering people, either.
An interesting related phenomenon is the turn out for the Tempe Nerds lunches. Clearly folks are up for socializing, just not so much when it’s after work. (Side note: As best I can tell, Refresh Phoenix still gets a good crowd. I’ve stopped going since it become overly focused on Break Out Of Your Cube! and How To Be Entrepreneur 2.0! I have a completely unproven conjecture about the different social needs of Web designers and marketeers vs. developers and hackers.)
A primary goal of Refactor was the social element. I was really hoping to get together people who would otherwise not meet. A second goal was to get people introduced to technical topics that might be a bit outside their day-to-day endeavors. I think I’ve failed on that one, while Tempe Nerds appears to fulfill the first goal (though the mix seems more Refresh-y than hacker; however, there were actual developers at the lunches). So, all in all, the cost/benefit ratio for Refactor is questionable.
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