what do I know

After weeks of planning and months of picking a name, a few of us have finally put together a user group for the Brevard area. The group is called RAnDOM, Rich ApplicatioN Developers Of Melbourne. Our blog is located @ http://itsrandom.info. If you’re interested, you can see the cool layout that Sebastian put together for us.

My hope is that by bringing this group to Brevard we can begin to really grow the developer community in the area. We have an active .NET user group and Florida Creatives is getting started, but as far as coding goes, there aren’t that many opportunities to learn in a hands on way. At the Adogo, I really enjoyed our code camps these past few months, so I think that since we’re likely to start small, we can establish a great group by just hacking away. The area also seems to have a lot of web consulting companies, so maybe we can even a few of them to come out.

I really want a place to get together with fellow developers to code and discuss whatever may come over a cool beer and some wifi. If this is what does it, right on; if not, at least I still got a cold beer.

Well, this week I’ve gotten one step close to organizing a Brevard RIA/web developer user group. I hope to have our first meeting on August 21, 2008. I’d like to have the meetings every 3rd Thursday of the month starting @ 8:00 PM, lasting for about 1 to 2 hours based on the topic. Short of finding a place beachside or near 95 that is open in the evenings and has wifi, we’re going to stick with House of Joe for now on 192, next to the Melbourne Mall. Initially it looks like it’ll be a small group of us, so I’m not too worried about space being available. The new Florida Creatives group for Brevard looks like they are going to meeting on the 3rd Tuesday of the month, so that may cause some conflicts initially, but since I have little visibility for the group as of yet, we’ll see how it goes.

Now we need to just work on a name/acronym so I can get a domain and blog up. Here are some of the suggestions we have thus far:

• Brevard Area Developer of Rich Internet Applications (BADORIA)
• Brevard Network of Developers and Enthusiasts (BNODE)
• Brevard Developer Web Group (BDWG)
• Brevard Area Rich Internet Application UG (BARIA)
• Brevard Rich Internet Application UG (BRIA)
• Brevard Rich Internet Application Developers (BRIAD)
• Rich Internet Application Techies (RIAT)
• Web Brevard User Group (WEBBUG)
• Brevard Area Web Developers (BAWD)
• Beachside Developers (BSDEV)
• Rich Internet Application Brevard User Group (RIABUG)

I’d like to have Brevard and something like Web or RIA in the name, but I’m still undecided. Does anyone has any suggestions? I’m open to ideas.