Notes from a lightning talk given at OSCON 2008: http://en.oreilly.com/oscon2008/public/schedule/detail/2327
My favorite anarchy is the Portland Ruby Brigade, a local Ruby user group.
Started in 2002 with a handful of Ruby hobbyists - informal meetings made sense
In 2005, the Ruby world changed - Rails brought more people to Ruby from a professional angle
When I joined pdx.rb in 2006, about 20 attendees at meetings, still strong hobbyist influence, but shifting noticeably over the following year. Newer members sometimes have different expectations for how the group will work.
Self organizing meetings are now harder. I recently arrived to one 10 min. late, and everyone was sitting around waiting for someone "official" to start.
What have I learned?
Step up. If you want something to happen, start doing it, and recruit others to help.
Don't try to impose structure for the sake of structure. Add it when that's the most productive choice. A little chaos is ok.
Retain tribal knowledge. Record what you're doing as you do it. If older members move on, there won't be any way to know things like "we always do introductions at the start of meetings" or "Company X is happy to sponsor beer".
And have fun! Anything is possible.
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