Central Arkansas Refresh Group

This is just a follow up post to two earlier posts (here and here) that I made earlier this month regarding the possible formation of a Refresh style group that would be open to Developers, Designers, Bloggers, and anyone else who makes their living from the web.

This group idea is still in it’s early stages right now and I would love some suggestions as to how it could be organized, how often we should get together, where we should meet, and what times are best for everyone, etc.  The focus of the group is still open for suggestions as well.

Some of the topics that people have expressed an interest in are:

• WordPress CMS: Plugins, Templates, and Publishing
• Other CMS Solutions: Joomla, Drupal, MODx, etc.
• PHP/MySQL: General Programming, Tools, and Resources
• ASP/.NET/SQL: General Programming, Tools, and Resources
• Web Standards & Usability: CSS, XHTML, etc.
• Tools: Software Applications (Desktop & Web)
• Web Hosting & Security: Apache, XSS Exploits, PCI, Security, etc.
• Search: Monetization, Optimization, Pay Per Clicks, etc.
• Social Networking: Facebooking, Twitter, MySpace, etc.

A couple of people that I have talked to that have expressed an interest in being a part of this group include:

• Cotton Rohrscheib, Pleth Networks
• Nick Brewer, Freelance Developer
• David Kincade, The Arkansas Project
• Butch Renfroe, KTHV
• Joseph Rodgers
• Jonathan Barket
• Joel Kunert, Snap-On / Utility Media
• Clayton Caveness, Select Shots
• Anthony Valley, Acxiom

If you are interested in attending, please leave a comment below and we will get your name added to the invite list.  I would like to have about 10-15 folks committed on the front-end. We will probably start off with some type of small gathering at Starbucks or somewhere similar that will be geared toward our organization, etc. and from there hopefully we can pick up some sponsorships that will pick up our lunch tabs once a month or something.

I think that this group will be a lot of fun and an excellent networking opportunity for those of us who spend the vast majority of their days sitting behind a row of computer monitors.  I also envision us having someone speak on a particular topic each week that would be of interest to the group.

Again, if you are interested, just post a comment below and pass the word to all of your friends that might be interested as well.