Where is the OCFUG (ock-fug)?

Brian LeGros | June 6th, 2007 | programming  

So I was on Adobe’s site tonight and decided to search for a ColdFusion User Group in Central Florida. To my dismay, there isn’t one in the Central Florida area except for Tampa which I consider the West Coast of FL and too far of a drive from Melbourne. I expected to at least see a presence in Orlando, after all I know of tons of shops in Orlando that use CF pretty religiously (CFI, FCE Corp, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Blue Tangerine, Harris, Orange County, Osceola County, etc.). I did a search on Google and came up with these guys: ArcIMS and ColdFusion User Group. Does anyone know if this group is active? I see job postings from pretty recent, but the meeting dates are long over and the site doesn’t seem to be too active.

Out of curiosity, I read the info on what it would take to create an OCFUG. Wow, that could potentially be a lot of work and go against my goal of decreasing my responsibility in life. That being said, would anyone else be interested in participating in an Orlando CF User Group? If there was enough of a demand, I’d be up for helping out. I know the ORUG and OJUG work pretty closely together, maybe they could give some tips on location and such. I could even see the inclusion of Flex into the topic list for the UG meetings. Do any current user group leaders in other areas have any suggestions on getting people interested in creating an Orlando ColdFusion User Group and me being motivated ;) ?



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Discussion

  1. AdamFortuna Says:
    June 6th, 2007 at 10:19 pm

    I’d definitely be up for helping out as you know. I think one of the newer guys at FCE used to work for the company that last ran one of the Orlando CF UGs — it might’ve been that one — but it faded away as interest wanned. The guys at Caxiam were really interested in an Orlando CFUG as well as a few from FCE, so I don’t think there will be any trouble finding support. Lots of people will say they’re interested at the start though, just a matter of getting a location, a date and seeing who will come. That info on creating an OCFUG makes it look a lot harder, but at least it doesn’t all need to be in it’s polished form before the first meeting.

  2. Daniel Roop Says:
    June 7th, 2007 at 5:06 am

    Sounds like a good Idea. I would like to see more support for the technology arena in Central Florida. I know the OJUG and ORUG currently meet at Devry in Millenia. The ORUG started out in a Panera Breads group room. I am sure with all the colleges around Central Florida it is just a matter of finding what is closest to the bulk of the audience.

    As for the meetings I am sure initially we could get some of the bigger players to sponsor food and such, like CFI, Blue Tangerine, or even some of the local head hunters.

    If you are serious about doing this, I am sure we could get in touch with the ORUG guys and see if they have any pointers on getting locations and such. They are really nice guys, and we could have a DDR competition with them cause Greg is supposedly as mad ad Adam ;-).

  3. Shoeman Says:
    June 7th, 2007 at 6:01 am

    I would be up for helping out with this. I always like getting in on the ground floor of things. And, for the record, nobody is as mad as Adam at DDR.

  4. David Schwarz Says:
    June 7th, 2007 at 8:05 am

    I’m all for helping to set up and get things moving in the right direction.

    I do wonder how much interest there will be in the group though. It seems that there wasn’t much interest in previous CF groups in Central Florida. I don’t know if that’s because there wasn’t enough support or advertisement or because people simply don’t really care about Coldfusion in Orlando.

    It might be a good idea to try and hit some of the local schools what have Computer Science programs. It might be a good way to get some members while simultaneously spreading information about Coldfusion and also getting CFi networked with soon-to-be college grads.

    Is anyone planning on stepping up and taking a leadership role in this endeavor? Would it be a good idea for someone to get the ball rolling and then pass the torch to someone who might be a more influential leader?

    All in all, it sounds like a good idea, and if nothing else, a decent excuse to hang out and eat together.

  5. Mario Talavera Says:
    June 7th, 2007 at 2:54 pm

    Hey guys, a colleague of mine and I at FCE belonged to the ‘original’ orlando cfug back in 99 or thereabouts. Back then, we had pretty good turnouts and Allaire sponsored raffles and aided group. They were held in research park (UCF) thou this may not be best area for meets nowadays.

    Anyways, I am up for anything related to coming up with an Orlando UG focused mainly on coldfusion, rias and current development practices be them Adobe related or not. I can contact old colleagues, etc and ask them to chime in on this post if you like.

    Do let know if you need a thing or what type of help you can use on this…

  6. Joe Zack Says:
    June 7th, 2007 at 3:02 pm

    I’m definitely interested in getting a CFUG going! I know a couple other developers in the area that might be interested as well!

    (I’m work @ Caxaim as referenced by Adam =)

  7. Joe Zack Says:
    June 7th, 2007 at 3:04 pm

    In fact, I said something about this just yesterday : http://cfhow.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/6/6/Rails-Envy

    It must be a sign!

  8. Ethan Pitsch Says:
    June 7th, 2007 at 5:11 pm

    I own several good domains for an Orlando CFUG that could be used to help promote it. I’d also be very interested in lending a hand toward the setup of an Orlando CFUG.

    coldfusionorlando.com
    orlandocoldfusion.com
    orlandocfug.com
    orlandocfug.net
    orlandocfug.org

  9. Randy Drisgill Says:
    June 7th, 2007 at 7:30 pm

    I co-ran one of the CFUG’s and the last MMUG that was in otown. The CFUG (before the ucf one) petered out for various reasons. The MMUG was focused on all macromedia tech (not just cf) and the gatherings were large. I was often bored out of my mind though, because most people looked at me like I was from mars when I talked about actionscript or cf (they were there for dreamweaver tips and the like). We met at the Orlando Sentinel building and it was cool because they catered it too. We had that hook up because one of the founders worked there. When he left his job the group fell apart quickly. I was not involved in the UCF one at all.

    If you do get one fired up… I can certainly provide some advice, and if I can find my old membership contact list… I can provide that as well.

    CF in Orlando 4 ever! ;)

  10. me Says:
    June 7th, 2007 at 8:00 pm

    @Adam, Dan, David, Shoeman, Mario, and Joe

    Thanks for the support, please tell your CF colleagues about the potential for this group and have them leave a comment. I’d like to show Adobe that we have the audience if we decide to proceed.

    @Ethan

    Thanks for the offer. I think there is definitely an audience for the group and the domains could definitely help. I’ll definitely be in touch if this pans out.

    @Randy

    Thanks for the feedback. I definitely think the group has potential. If I do help to put it together I could use all of the help I could get. I personally would like to see the focus of the group more on programming (e.g. - CFML, Actionscript, Flex, etc). I’ll definitely be in touch if everything pans out.

  11. Kristin Says:
    June 8th, 2007 at 9:48 am

    Sounds like good times. I’d certainly be interested in such a group.

  12. me Says:
    June 8th, 2007 at 12:31 pm

    @Kristin

    Thanks for the support. I’ll add your name to the list.

  13. Maxim Porges Says:
    June 9th, 2007 at 7:25 pm

    If we’re going to do it, let’s just bite the buller and make it an Adobe server technology user group. That way we can do Flex, Apollo, and anything else cool that pops up.

    The other Orlando UGs at DeVry get the space for free, you just have to talk to the school. Worst case, I can get us some space at Valencia or at the CFI offices. I’d prefer to use one of the schools since they have better meeting areas.

    I’m in. Let’s chat about it on Monday and get everybody on this thread engaged.

    - max

  14. Brian LeGros Says:
    June 9th, 2007 at 11:25 pm

    @Max

    Sounds good and I agree. I think we can come up with a good balance of topics across all of the technologies. I was thinking of having a monthly meeting with a primer released on the UG’s website 2 weeks into every month. This was anyone who wanted to attend a meeting could have the basis for what the talk would be about down. If we were able to stay 1-2 months ahead in terms of planning, we could have a really good program.

    Talk to you on Monday.

  15. Joe Zack Says:
    June 11th, 2007 at 1:16 pm

    Opening it up for Flex/Apollo etc sounds really great, I’m personally very interested in both of those topics!

    You guys have probably all seen this but jic: Starting an Adobe User Group. I think that getting a website/mailing list together would be a good first step. I’m certainly willing to chip in time/money to help get the ball rolling ASAP!

    Maybe some sort of informal preliminary meet-up would be in order?

  16. AdamFortuna Says:
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:00 pm

    Very cool. Looking forward to the meeting tomorrow.

  17. Mario Talavera Says:
    June 13th, 2007 at 1:34 pm

    Sweet, I’ll be there!

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