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The 2011 RallyOn Agile Conference is coming up May 10th and 11th in Boulder, CO. We're partnering with Rally on this great (and invite only) event and as part of that, want to sponsor one member from the PM.SE community.

We're looking for a community member who can go to the conference (the whole time) to represent PM.SE. You'll need to:

  • Promote the community
  • Answer questions from other attendees
  • Help the audience make use of Stack Exchange throughout the conference

We'll also be putting you in touch with the conference organizers so you can coordinate your efforts with them (since they are asking us to send folks to help with these things).

If you're interested, let know (just submit your name and why you should go as an answer to this question). If you can't go (or think that someone else would make a great ambassador) go ahead and vote them up.

The ideal ambassador should have a strong history on PM.SE and be a prominent member of the community.

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  • Should this be interpreted to mean that the site has a long term future? Apr 22, 2011 at 15:25
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    @Mark - My instincts tell me the beta will be extended. However, if we continue to focus on organic growth by sharing links to questions on blogs, forums, and social networks, we'll eventually build up enough referring links to hit the tipping point. We have continued to grow, and as long as we make progress, I believe the community coordinators will allow this site to continue it's existence.
    – jmort253
    Apr 23, 2011 at 3:03
  • Have you found anyone yet or should we still keep looking?
    – jmort253
    May 1, 2011 at 19:15
  • Yep, we have (Mark Davis) - appreciate all the help! May 1, 2011 at 21:03

4 Answers 4

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Ashes999 is another user on the PMSE network who has made significant contributions to the growth of this site. Although he resides in Canada, due to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, business travelers coming from Canada into the United States do not require a visa.

Ashes999 made a very interesting discovery! Those who have earned PMP certifications can claim PDUs for time spent on the site! He also posted a blog article to help spread the word that PMSE is an easy, free way to earn credit towards maintaining the PMP certification.

I believe Ashes999 is another fine example of a PMSE community member who would represent the Stack Exchange network with professionalism at this event. He has done research that will help him persuade other professional project managers and PMP holders to participate in the Stack Exchange network.

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    This seems a great option.
    – M0N4K0
    Apr 24, 2011 at 14:43
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    I support Ashes as an attendee (disclaimer: i'm with Rally) Apr 27, 2011 at 22:34
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    I bet he'd also get PDU credits for this, since we're a REP for the PMI Apr 27, 2011 at 22:35
  • Unfortunately, due to personal circumstances, I won't be able to attend. But thanks for the nomination!
    – ashes999
    Apr 29, 2011 at 15:54
  • @ashes999 - Perhaps you can suggest someone else on here who would be a good ambassador?
    – jmort253
    Apr 30, 2011 at 1:31
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Pawel Brodzinski is our #1 user here hands down and would make a great ambassador for this event. This guy has a well-written, detailed, thoughful answer for just about every question, and he would represent the community with honor, wisdom, and detailed knowledge of how PMSE works. People who attend the conference would leave with a good impression of this community if you send Pawel Brodzinski.

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  • As much as I like the idea I can't make it. Besides I believe it would be easier to have someone from US anyway - traveling is much easier and you don't need visa to get there ;) Also among top 10 users vast majority are Americans so it shouldn't be a problem to find someone willing to join the event. Btw: with such a short notice maybe we should find someone who is able to make it and if there are more people we could vote for candidates. Apr 21, 2011 at 8:31
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    @pawel - I understand. All the politics that go with international travel can be a pain in the neck. You would be an excellent candidate for this though. Too bad we can't send a mobile robot with a video screen for a face and you connected through Skype :) You wouldn't need a visa then! geeksyndicate.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/…
    – jmort253
    Apr 23, 2011 at 2:26
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    At some point we could think of an European version of this event, it could be a great opportunity for other users. I would be honoured having Pawel representing PMSE in Europe.
    – M0N4K0
    Apr 24, 2011 at 14:47
  • @pawel - Is there anyone else on this site whom you think would represent the community well? Thanks!
    – jmort253
    Apr 30, 2011 at 1:32
  • you, Mark Phillips and Stephan. May 3, 2011 at 16:27
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A request from Rally, and some background on how we see our event interacting with PMSE.

Our Requests

First, I'd like the community's perspective on us adding a tag "RallyOn11" to PMSE that our attendees can use to easily identify and browse topics arising from the conference. After some period (90 days? 180 days?) we'd be happy to delete the tag as it would no longer contribute to the meaningful taxonomy of the content.

Second, I suspect (hope!) we'll be driving an influx of new members during that period, who will all be practicing members of project leadership. I know you'll continue as a group to be your awesome, supportive selves, and I wanted you to know we at Rally strongly appreciate the PMSE community.

I've attached a draft of what we've shared internally about PMSE for you to see in addition to what @Alex shared above.

Here’s our thinking...

The customers attending RallyOn are among our most energetic agile champions, and the questions they are willing to voice will be ones held in silence by many others. Equally valuable, posting the questions in an open, online forum allows our many users that are not attending RallyOn to share in and contribute to the experience by providing their perspectives and knowledge. We desire that the important and interesting questions raised by our attendees live on as questions in Stack Exchange, and for our entire team to provide answers, seeding the community in both directions.

The leadership of Stack Exchange is providing support by sending two community champions to join RallyOn and guide us as we try and share the knowledge we are creating during the conference. As such, please welcome Anna Lear (@aalear) and TBD (@TBD) to RallyOn!

We will rely on our participants in the roles of scribes, room facilitators, speakers, and members of the audience to keep an ear open for interesting and appropriate questions during the sessions. We need to help these questions find their way on to the appropriate Stack Exchange, likely either https://pm.stackexchange.com/ or https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/. It’s our responsibility to ensure that attendees have as little friction as possible in the process. However, it is very important that we strive to help our customers join the site rather than posting the questions ourselves.

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  • Eric, these thoughts are helpful. Is there already a Twitter hashtag for the conference? Apr 28, 2011 at 1:40
  • Yes, we'll be using #RallyOn11 as our tag, and there will also be a twitter list of Rally's people that are tweeting about it (Currently best collection is @kclyne/rallycoaches list) Apr 28, 2011 at 19:33
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    I see no problem with using the RallyOn11 tag to identify questions from the conference. As you suggested, we can always remove them later if we deem it necessary.
    – jmort253
    Apr 29, 2011 at 6:17
  • Based on feedback I see here, I'm going to assume the community will support it, at least for the duration of the conference. I'm going to pre-tag the two conference related questions I put on here earlier. Apr 29, 2011 at 16:34
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I am honored to be representing the community at the RallyOn11 conference.

What would you like to see accomplished at the conference to help promote and enrich the PM.SE community?

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    Mark - We are thrilled to have you come and help us with the conference. I want to figure out how get PMSE out of beta and I want to see how make a physical conference great virtually, in the moment and after the moment. May 3, 2011 at 19:03
  • Thanks, Ryan. I like your vision. May 3, 2011 at 19:08
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    You know, has anyone thought about utilizing the yet-to-be-used chat room for Project Management SE? It's had zero activity so far, and I think it would be a great way to unify the RallyOn attendees with the rest of the active PMSE community!
    – jmort253
    May 4, 2011 at 3:07
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    Mark I honoured that you can represent us. I also agree with jmort253 with regards to the chat usage and finding a way to use this conference to increase the activity. Moreover, it would be grateful to convey the message that this is not just a technical site and all kind of Project Management is useful to us and the community. Hopefully this will help to increase the interest of the site in different areas. Hope you have a fab time :)
    – M0N4K0
    May 4, 2011 at 15:51
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    Here is a blog post on the Rally site, co-authored by the SE reps (Anna and myself) about the vision for the interaction at the conference rallydev.com/agileblog/2011/05/… May 5, 2011 at 0:57
  • Lots of activity going on at the RallyOn11 Conference in Boulder. Good way to get a glimpse of the action by going to Twitter and searching on #RallyOn11. May 11, 2011 at 16:55

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