Dutch Magento usergroups
Tuesday, 15 March 2011After a slow start, the local Magento usergroups in The Netherlands are becoming more popular. While other open-source projects have a huge community base, the community-feeling of Magento is lacking a bit - perhaps due to the commercial nature of Magento? But slowly, usergroup meetings are gaining popularity.
Magento User Group meetings in Amsterdam
Based in the Magento Competence Center in Amsterdam Centre, every month meetings are organized for the Magento users by the Magento users. The Magento Competence Center is a joint venture of various Dutch Magento-oriented companies, trying to build a common ground for both companies as individuals with a shared enthousiasm for Magento. While the Magento Competence Center already hosts trainings, seminars and bootcamps, the concept of usergroups is new in the Magento community.
About the meetings
While the first usergroup-meeting had only a small number of attendees, the second meeting hosted around 20 people - it is showing that there is a need to socialize among Magento users: Not only to exchange business cards, but also to share opinions and/or ideas. Every meeting is unplanned, with the exception that an interesting subject is suggested (performance, mobile, closed vs open source, etcetera).
While it seems that letting go of the meeting, and making the attendees responsible themselves for the program, sounds experimental, it actually works. With the right effort from Dutchento (official Magento community in the Netherlands) and Magento Competence Center, we are happy to tweet that the Magento community becomes more and more active.