#Pentaho Meetups Galore..

So; A few weeks ago a new meetup came on the scene, and it was briefly a bit confusing. This seemed to be an official Pentaho meetup group in London. OK, err thats odd I thought. However a bit of digging and it soon becomes clear this is a different kettle of fish.

Now; It just so happened we had actually scheduled (albeit not published) The next PLUG in January, and as it turned out they moved Challenge big data so as not to clash with #PCM15.  So partly this was my fault for not promoting the January booking.

Anyway the big question is – can these two groups co-exist?  Well yes I think so. Should they have both been done under the “plug” banner, probably yes.  I think if you’re looking for a meetup group then having 2 in the same area will be confusing.  However as long as we’re clear with content, target audience and dates I don’t see a problem here.  And that’s the key thing – the target audience between PLUG and challenge big data is different. Sure there may be some cannibalisation, but lets see.

I shall be at the challenge event, promoting PLUG 🙂 And I fully expect that cross promotion to go both ways. I’m not sure I’ll attend every challenge event – I guess I’ll be a content tart!

In the mean time, we’re still after content for the next PLUG which now moves into February – Skillsmatter have shown in the past that the sooner content is locked down the more signups and ultimately the more people attend – so this isn’t crazy to be asking for talks now. If anyone has either content requests, or a talk they wish to do then please let me know.

 

Oh, and by the way don’t forget to support the first Kickstarter project in #Pentaho land – Saiku Reporting – this is a very worthy project! Details here

Skillsmatter are soon going to be crowdfunding themselves – they’re after £1/2 million to further the business. Given their stunning new venue and their frankly unique business model I’m pretty sure this is going to be a great success for them.  Details on crowdcube

Last nights Pentaho London Usergroup, and upcoming labs session

Last night we held our Q2 Pentaho London usergroup at the ever excellent skillsmatter.  Actually that may be the last time we go there as they are moving to a stunning new venue in the next few weeks, yay!

Anyway we had a great night, you can see the talks here:

https://skillsmatter.com/meetups/7220-pentaho-london-2015-q2-meetup#overview

And as discussed details about PCM London can be found here:

https://github.com/PentahoCommunityMeetup2015/info/blob/master/README.md

As well as meeting a guy from Cern there was another guy interested in PDI, Spark and R. It was a pleasure to meet all the regulars as well as quite a few new faces.  The discussion continued down the pub as ever (and ahem – started in the pub too) and we then got to wait many many hours for our food at Pizza “express”. Pfft.

The next event is not scheduled yet – however we do have a plan. We won’t be doing talks, instead we’ll be doing labs.  So how will this work?

Well there will be tickets available for you to bring your problem/solution to a Pentaho expert to discuss, review and resolve the issue.  You’ll be expected to show your issue, and then we’ll have a tech discussion and possibly even build a solution.

At the same time, you’ll be expected to share your experience with others.  So you’ll probably need to make sure there’s no personal data on display!

There’ll probably just be 2 sessions for each pillar of the stack and the sessions will run in parallel. The pillars covered will be Mondrian, PDI, Reporting and cTools.  We may do a Weka session too if there is interest.

So; If people think this is a good idea, we’ll setup a ticket system which:

a) allows you to get a ticket to present to an expert

b) allows you to get a ticket to watch a particular session.

Feedback please…  Would this work at PLUG?

2015 Q1 Pentaho London Meetup

Happy new year everyone!  With 2015 being the year that #BigData delivers you can guarantee it’s going to be a spectacular year for #Pentaho

We’ve set a date for the next Pentaho London meetup.  It’s a while off, but we’re already seeing some good signups, despite not yet having an agenda! Well that makes it easier!  Anyway register here:

http://www.meetup.com/Pentaho-London-User-Group/events/219291515/

So why come along to PLUG?  Well..

1. Networking
2. Networking
3. Networking
4. Content
5. Beer
6. Sometimes Pizza depending on Sponsor

See you all at Skillsmatter, and of course down the Slaughtered Lamb afterwards. It’s a charming place.. really.  As always if you have anything you’d like to present then shout now and we’ll get that agenda tied down.

Dan

Pentaho London Usergroup – October 2013 meetup

On 16th October we held our quarterly meetup at the ever excellent Skillsmatter.  I gave a quick overview of the Lisbon community meetup which was tricky to fit more than a days worth of information into 20 minutes! Here is a pic from Tom: https://twitter.com/magicaltrout/status/390533798552543232/photo/1

Alistair talked about the various column store databases available in Amazon aws.  

And Harris talked about Sparkl

You can see the podcasts here: http://skillsmatter.com/event/java-jee/pentaho-community-catchup

The next meetup will be in January some time. Please let me know if you’d like to talk or if you have any requests for specific topics.  Lots of things could be discussed – Saiku, CDE and we could do either tutorial sessions or some sort of hackathon if people are up for it.

It was a great shame however to see the curry house nearby has turned into a Pizza Express. Bah!