• Open Workshop Project
  • How to Organize a Workshop
    • If you would like to organize a workshop, you are in the right place
  • How can I help?
• Upcoming Workshops for 2012
• Venues
• Past Workshops
• Writeups
• Feedback from attendees

Open Workshop Project¶

Mission: Enabling Rails developers everywhere to organize and present high-quality introductory Rails workshops.

Lead: Sarah Mei, sarah mei at gmail dot com.

Team

• Rachel Myers
  • Director of Women's Outreach, Rachel also helps coordinate venues, organizers and mentors
  • rachel.marie.myers at gmail (dot) com
• Carmen Díaz Echauri
  • Director of Spanish Language Outreach, Carmen is organizing the first Spanish language workshop for August
  • carmen.diaz.echauri at gmail (dot) com
• Ilen Zazueta-Hall
  • Director of Leadership Development.
  • Ilen has been generally helping out since workshop #2. Right now she's working on revising this wiki with more information on how to start your own Railsbridge Workshop. Please send her your feedback.
  • ilen at ilen (dot) org
• Austin Putman is the RailsBridge treasurer and can hook you up when it comes to workshop expenses. You do need to talk to him about your workshop and what you plan to spend in advance, but then he can get you paid back or find someone else to pick up the bill.
  • austinfromboston at gmail (dot) com
• Kevin Fujinami is the Workshop Fundraising Lead and can help hook you up with sponsors
  • kfujinami at earthlink (dot) net
• Sarah Allen is the President of RailsBridge and can help you find the right person if you have a need or question, lately she's been working on PR, and non-profit org stuff
  • sarah at ultrasaurus (dot) com

Summary: Railsbridge runs introductory Rails workshops in San Francisco. We are releasing all our topic outlines, slides, logistics notes, etc., and inviting the community to use and modify them.

Mailing list: for workshop organizers, volunteers and teachers: http://groups.google.com/group/railsbridge-workshops

The initial workshops were aimed at getting more women in the SF Ruby community, but the workshop materials are suitable for a general audience. We hope that by releasing them, they'll find a wider audience than just the people we can personally reach.

How to Organize a Workshop¶

There are a few places to look for things right now; we're working on consolidating. Meanwhile:

If you would like to organize a workshop, you are in the right place¶

• Workshop Recipes: lists of things to do when you are organizing a workshop
• Workshop sponsor info
• Workshop timeline

How can I help?¶

Please join the organizer Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/railsbridge-workshops. There is plenty to do, including writing up a list of things to do!

Upcoming Workshops for 2012¶

• April 27-28 2012:
  • Twitter
  • Amy Lightholder, Carina, Tina
• May ? 2012:
  • (unconfirmed)
• June ? 2012:
  • Pivotal
• July ? 2012:
  • Get Satisfaction
• August ? 2012:
  • Engine Yard
  • Ines Sombra
• September ? 2012:
  • Pivotal
• October ? 2012
• November ? 2012
• December ? 2012

Venues¶

San Francisco

• Med Help HQ, 929 Market St, SF (2 wings w/ 5 sm-to-med conf rooms, sofas, desks, max 130 ppl)
• IGN, 625 2nd St, SF (large space & lots of conf rooms)
• Miso, 5th & Mission (large space + lots of conf rooms)
• Quid, Front & Pacific (large space + 3 conf rooms)
• Microsoft, above Westlake mall (large space + lots of conf rooms)
• Pivotal Labs, happy to host/sponsor every 3-4 months
• Engine Yard, 500 3rd St, Suite 510, SF (large space + several conference rooms)
• Scribd, 539 Bryant St., Suite 200, SF

Venues - South Bay

• Hacker Dojo (Mountain View)
• CMU (Mountain View)
• Foothill College?

Venues - North Bay

• Enphase Energy (Petaluma)
• O'Reilly (Sebastopol)

Venues - East Bay

• Berkeley/Jon Seidel?
• Beeswax?
• TechLiminal?
• CouchOne?
• 6050 Lowell St?

Past Workshops¶

1. June 12-13 2009 at OrangeLabs in South San Francisco ( Meetup pages for Friday and Saturday )
2. July 31- Aug 1 2009 at Pivotal Labs in San Francisco ( Meetup pages for Friday and Saturday )
3. Sept 26- Sept 27 2009 at sfCube in San Francisco
4. Oct 3-4 2009 at Aloha on Rails
5. Oct 16-17 2009 at Berkman Center, Harvard University in the Boston, MA area ( "details": http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/genderandtech/ruby-on-rails-workshop-for-women/ )
6. Feb 26-27 2010 at Microsoft in San Francisco ( Meetup pages )
7. May 20-21, 2010 at Pace University in New York City ( http://nycrubyworkshop.com/, @nycrubyworkshop )
8. May 21-22, 2010 at Pivotal Labs in San Francisco (Meetup page )
9. Sept 10-11, 2010 at Pivotal Labs in San Francisco (Meetup page )
10. Oct 5-6, 2010 Rails Quickstart Charity Workshop at Mountainrb Conference in Boulder, CO
11. October 22-23, 2010 at Engine Yard in San Francisco ( Meetup page )
12. Dec 10-11, 2010 at IGN in San Francisco ( Meetup page )
13. Feb 4-5, 2011 SF/Twitter, Amy Chen,
14. Feb 4-5, 2011 Chicago/Hashrocket, Desi McAdam
15. March 11-12, 2011 Enphase Energy, Petaluma, Brenda Strech & Ilen Zazueta-Hall
16. March 25-26, 2011 Pivotal Labs, SF, Amy Lightholder
17. April 8-9, 2011 SF/ModCloth, Megan Guering
18. April 22-23, 2011 Seattle, Founder's Co-op Elise Worthy (sign up here)
19. May 6-7, 2011 SF/Pivotal, Raphael Lee, Andrea Angquist
20. May 6-7, 2011 NYC/Harvest, Mimi Hui
21. June 3-4, 2011 Chicago, Ginny Hendry, Hashrocket
22. Aug 5-6, 2011 Kapor Foundation, Carmen Díaz Eschauri, en Español
23. August 13-14, 2011 Square, Andrea Angquist, Walter Yu
24. August 17-18, 2011 @ Madison Ruby Conference Mad-Rails
25. September 9-10 @ Pivotal Labs - Kelly Dunn, Sara Richardson
26. September 16-17, 2011 @ Substantial, Seattle
27. October 21-22 @ Engine Yard - 500 3rd St, Suite 510 - Andrea Ängquist, Ines Sombra
28. November 18-19, 2011, Google Ventures, Greg Tomei and Reneé Chu
29. December 2-3, 2011, Pivotal, Sean Durham and Renee Chu
30. January 13-14, 2012, Scribd, Walter Yu & Andrea Angquist
31. February 25, 2012, ModCloth, Rachel Myers & ??, "Learn the Front End" - http://www.sfruby.info/events/52502132/
32. March 30-31, 2012: Pivotal, Lillie Chilen & Jessie Young

Writeups¶

• General
  • Story about how this started
  • Moving the Needle: How SF Ruby Got to 18%
  • the Sarahs: be the change you want to see
• June 2009 SF workshop
  • My drop in the bucket
  • Creating a self-organizing environment
  • The First Rails Workshop
  • Open Source Workshop
  • Post-Workshop Hack Session July 1st
• August 2009 SF workshop
  • Psychology of Abundance
• September 2009 SF Workshop
• October 2009 SF Workshop
  • Post Workshop News
  • Teaching at the Ruby on Rails Workshop for Women
  • Stone Soup Workshop
• May 2010
  • Recognizing Leadership

Feedback from attendees¶

"In addition to learning way more than I expected, I enjoyed the tone of the entire weekend. It was the only attitude-free, newbie-safe and mama-friendly tech event I have ever attended"

"It was wonderful to be surrounded by such motivated expert women programmers. It was a new experience for me. I liked it."

"A friendly and supportive environment. I was surprised at how much personal attention and care was given--really a wonderful, wonderful event from a great team!"

Read more attendee feedback! (6/13, 8/1)