Philadelphia

Philadephia Local Chapter
The Philadelphia chapter of OSGeo is based on the user group around metropolitan Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia chapter is a proposed chapter of OSGeo, seeking out a critical mass of users prior to formal Chapter incorporation.

History
Started: November, 2008 at Chapter House coffee shop.

Mission
The OSGeo Philadelphia Chapter strives to provide support for local users of Open Source Geospatial software, and to promote the goals and projects of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. The Chapter is focused on the Philadelphia metropolitan region of the United States. The group plans to host meetings providing networking, support and educational opportunities to the local members.

Events
OSGeo Philadelphia Event calendar: HTML ICAL

Continuing Goals

 * Advocate for the use of Open Source GIS at regional and state levels
 * Help act as a breeding ground for new projects
 * Serve as starting point/meetup resource for geospatial software discussions.

In a perfect world, we would like to see OSGeo-PHL as:
 * A meeting place for Software Developers to gather and discuss FOSS4G technologies.
 * Meetings could be facilitated by members who are interested in specific OS Geo projects/goals.
 * Meetings could be opportunities for members to participate in code sprints.

Notes on meetings: they should be presented as opportunities for both learners and doers. Learning a technology can be 1/2 the meeting time, and coding can be the remainder. Meetings should be advertised as 2-in-1, for example: Today we are listening to a presentation on OpenLayers for an hour. Following that, we will be coding on member projects or OSGeo projects for about an hour. Following that will be socialization at a nearby pub. Come for the learning, come for the coding, come for the beer, or come for all of them.

Near Term Goals

 * Set up mailing list
 * IRC room, meeting time
 * Set up OSGeo PHL event calendar
 * Identify mailing list audience and get to them
 * Come up with list of goals for group? Maybe a basic context for user list (list of topics/guidelines).

Strategic Objective
Setup a class/training in association with a local hacker space to get people interested in mapping, and start advertising the local OSGeo-PHL name/chapter idea.

Initial User Base
Commercial:
 * http://www.wwwcomm.com/

Software User Groups:
 * Java UG
 * .NET UP
 * Python UG
 * Flex UG
 * Pearlmongers
 * Php UG
 * Php Meetup
 * Ubuntu UG
 * Philadelphia XML Users' Group

Other OS Users:
 * Drupal Philadelphia DrupalCamp, Philadelphia
 * DotNetNuke UG
 * Plone not in philly

Other Professional Organizations:
 * Urban Planning -- in Philly? Who are they?
 * Architecture
 * Geography
 * Open Data
 * Conservation
 * Environmental
 * Recreation
 * Campaigning

Social Networks:
 * LinkedIn
 * Facebook
 * Meetup.com?

Other Lists:
 * PANMA
 * Make:Philly
 * Hacktory

Membership
2 total.

Contact Information
LinkedIn:
 * Unofficial OSGeo Philadelphia Group

Facebook: Mailing list:
 * Unofficial OSGeo Philadelphia Group
 * [mailto:philadelphia@lists.osgeo.org philadelphia@lists.osgeo.org]

IRC:
 * #osgeo-phl (irc://irc.freenode.net/osgeo-phl)

Founders:
 * Michael McLarnon: mmclar [at] gmail [dot] com
 * David Zwarg