# BlockchainYVR Meeting August 16, 2018

Who: Boris, Chelsea, Arman, Alex, Bob
What: Sync up on future directions

# Discussion

Recapping, we put Blockchain for Product Developers aka blockchainyvr on hold over the summer. Prior to that, we had a discussion with RightMesh about wanting them as a participant rather than sponsor, but didn't take any next steps.

No one stepped up to do anything while we weren't organizing.

Now, what do we actually want to do?

## What is Blockchain for Product Developers?

It's a blockchain / DLT agnostic meetup that is focused on people developing projects. Roughly this means "developers", or at least people aware & experienced with technical product building. So designers, product people, and so on.

What are the goals?
* opportunity for the people building blockchains, dapps, and decentralized tech to share and learn from each other
* ???

What is it not?
* Blockchain 101
* A Lecture series
* *

## What do the organizers want / what do they get out of it?

### Boris

Unclear. Would love to have other experienced builders to talk to, but currently just seem to be engaging with people that are new. Currently, would just meet with a smaller, more curated group and that would be more valuable.

Generally feel it would be good for Vancouver to have a high quality developer-focused meetup. Want to convert developers to contributing to open source, to building dapps, to experimenting and sharing experiences together.

### Chelsea

Codify and document systems and processes for communities to learn this stuff together, for free, and actually follow through. Open source all of it.

## Tools

Boris currently pays for Meetup. It's a centralized service that has distribution / promotion / discoverability built into it. We switched to it from Picatic and paid tickets thinking that we would get more attendees.
Doesn't feel like more, and maybe less engaged?

We have a Github repo at ```frontierfoundry/blockchainyvr```. Boris/Chelsea/Arman have maintainer access.

We kind of use a Trello and some Google Forms. Amber and Dana from RightMesh on there.

There is the Slack channel that doesn't really get used.

### Boris Tools Thoughts

I don't feel like continuing to pay for Meetup or use it. I also want to think more about the information and tools we use for what purpose for what audience.

I would propose that we use the Github repo for everything -- we can use kanban style project boards for speaker / event management as needed, and we can both internally use issues and invite others to use issues (non devs) or pull requests to work with us.

[HackMD](https://hackmd.io) can be used for real time notes, and then copied into the Github wiki or checked in.

We might use the Github wiki as meeting / event pages. We need to look at a registration system.

[BlockParty](http://www.noblockno.party/) is an ethereum deposit / event staking system that I'm interested in exploring.

### Chelsea Tooling Thoughts

Wiki site implementation idea-- we can fork this setup as a greatly needed resource for www.dctrl.ca (ex wiki.bmann.ca)

EventChain in lieu of Meetup (bcash lol)? We need something that takes crypto and I healed troubled waters with their team at Dogecon.

"Lean in" to existing dctrl slack community, cryptotwitter, medium for targeted outreach

* open conversation about these questions -- call for organizers
* tooling - more discoverable than maillist (vancouvertech.com) self-sign-up forums interface preferable

# Discussion

Arman
* Participants Not really aligned with what we are thinking.
* Technical participants, it's not Blockchain 101.
* "I want to build an ICO" -- falls into our category
* Talking to Ed at 7Gate -- why are we talking about price
* At DogeCon, not price, about utility
* How do we signal no ICOs?

Chelsea
* not finance, design, strategy
* want devs working for shitty ICOs to learn more
* your goal is to learn more about how this technically works
* bringing in more people -- get RightMesh back in, Pablo Dubouie, Alexandra Moxin, Mahroo, Axiom Zen

Boris
* people are pursuing things that are indeed technical challenges, but slippery slope for just "throwing a blockchain on it"
* Boris is personally blockchain agnostic, but not interested in working too much outside of ETH ecosystem and to lesser degree BTC

Chelsea
* Long discussion about Solidity meetup
* Agree with leaving Meetup
* Slack -- don't need our own, can post to Slacks that already exist
* Already get what she needs from DCTRL -- what I'm missing, from a different brand and interested from blockchainYVR -- a greater formality in gathering
* hands on hacking session, show up with objectives

Bob
* need a forum for all these people locally to ping
* there is Vancouver shit happening

Chelsea
* in favour of under the vancouvertech --> ask for a Discourse group + forum there to run blockchainYVR

Boris
* what do we do outside of physical meetings?

Chelsea
* Cat Power, welcome to town from lots of the events in town
* Just like DCTRL intro to 7Gate graduates

## Open Source Summit

Bob send out email. Victoria was talking about unconference?

Doors open at DCTRL for hangout Aug 29th -- 31st.

Thursday Aug30th mixer? Yes, _cryptobeers_ from 6pm.

How to broadcast? Tweet etc. Don't worry about it

## Bob Hyperledger

Bob is running for the Hyperledger Technical Standards Committee! Go Bob!

## Blockchain Calendar

Paid for by Boris. Chelsea is still onboarding people. UBC is using it.

Should this be a BlockchainYVR "main" project?

Maybe we add the super-basic resources page here? For those just looking for their first info sessions about blockchain, they can arrive prepared.

## Solidity Meetup

Chelsea is in charge, it is a project / affiliated event next to blockchainYVR.

Replicable curriculum for 8-week self-directed education. Filmed and documented as an experiment.

## Meetup Space

Mahroo at 7Gate - monthly 68 Water St #401, Vancouver, BC V6B 1A4

7Gate is running evening courseware

Do we want to keep using SFU VentureLabs?

Lighthouse Labs has new DevHub space -- on W Georgia

## Meetups / Dev Events

Takes so long to get productive.

* Demos / Lightning Talks -- 5 min + 5 min Q&A
* Lectures -- 20min + 10 min Q&A -- shouldn't be in a row, mix up content formats (discourage this -- will consider it if someone submits it)
* Co-working / co-hack
* Guided talk / discussion / facilitation

Other content:
* community announcements
* jobs / hiring
* bring your questions

Takes a lot of time to get people being productive.

Topic based co-hacking.

Agenda
- intro / welcome / agenda review
- lightning talk / demos
- topic presentation -- need someone to sign up to present / lead a topic
- wrap up / closing / call for community announcements / other

Cadence? Monthly? Every two months?

Chelsea: loved monthly diagram review

# Next Steps

* experiment with FF as forum
* migrate blockchainYVR operations from trello etc to github repo
* meetup shutdown (which may not actually be possible)
* open up this next steps so other people can contribute
* pick the date / venue for next

***When we are "done", put it in the Github wiki https://github.com/FrontierFoundry/blockchainYVR/wiki/Meeting-2018-08-16-future-directions***

###### tags: `blockchainyvr`