We decided to create the group in August last year with the idea of getting together our local developer talent to talk about varying aspects of development and share ideas. The first meet-up was held at Hull University in early December and we had over 30 attendees. The really interesting part was the cross-section of people who attended:

• business owners
• account handlers
• designers
• front-end web developers
• back-end developers
• students and lecturers from Hull University

For the first meet-up we had two talks. One on the Ruby on Rails ecosystem and the other on the challenges of launching, and growing products on an International level from an office in the pioneering city of Hull. Both talks went down very well with the attendees.

Since then we’ve had two further meet-ups which have proven nearly as popular as the first meet-up and again the cross section of those that attended was similar to the first meet-up.

For details of all the meet-ups so far see the Hull Digital meet-up page.

Hull University Involvement

One really great aspect of the group has been the involvement of the University and its students. It’s been really interesting to see how well prepared the students are for when they leave and start searching for work. They are very much up to speed on the latest developments within the industry. If you are looking for new development talent then I would look no further than some of the students graduating from Hull University.

Why should you attend?

The developer group offers companies and individuals a great opportunity to enhance their knowledge, and meet like minded people.

To quote a tweet from an attendee to one meet-up

“Run a team of devs in Yorks/Humber? Give the team a morning off & send to a #hulldigital dev evening meet for top (free!) teaching.”

Still need a reason, then keep reading.

• Students – gain practical insight into how your academic experience can be applied in the commercial world.

• Freelancers / Agency workers – improve your knowledge and develop collaborative partnerships with other talented developers.

• Business Owners – opportunity to network, find talented freelancers and seek out the best graduates.

The next meet-up

The next meet-up will be held on 24th June at Fudge Cafe in Hull. We have lined up two excellent and highly respected speakers in Peter Cooper and James Gregory. To find out more about the meet-up, the speakers and their talks go to the Hull Digital meet-up site.

The Future – Keeping the momentum rolling

As with all groups we are reliant on the involvement of local businesses and individuals. We are always looking for suggestions on topics, speakers and even sponsorship. If you can help with any of these, please let us know.

Finally, we’d like to you to take a few moments and complete the Hull Digital Developer group questionnaire to help us keep improving the group. Your feedback will be greatly appreciated, it’s only short I promise!

The format of the next meetup will different to the first as there are not going to be any speakers this time around.  Instead we are hoping to make it a discussion evening, with everyone participating. This should hopefully be  a good way for all the attendees to learn more about each other.

To make the discussions relevant to the majority of developers what we hope to do over the next couple of weeks is gather suggested topics from yourselves, and then ask attendees to vote on the list of topics.  The most popular topics will then be discussed at the meetup.

To get the ball rolling there is a list of topics below.  This list has been created based upon comments from previous blog posts, so thanks to the community for those ideas.

1. Document-oriented Databases (e.g. MongoDB and CouchDB)
2. Testing Techniques and Tooling
3. Continuous Integration
4. The Agile Manifesto
5. The principles of SOLID
6. Outside-in Development

Clearly there are many, many more topics that could be suggested, so please let us know what is relevant to yourselves.  Whether it’s front-end web development techniques, or object oriented programming techniques, please let us know.  Remember you don’t have to be an expert on the topics you suggest, it may well be you know very little and want to talk to other developers to gain a better understanding.

We’d like to invite you to the first Hull Digital MeetUp of 2010!

A big thanks to Rosie at Fudge Cafe Restaurant on Princess Avenue for hosting the event. She has kindly laid on the upstairs room and lounge so we have a great little area to chat and catch up.

Food and drink will be available to buy on the evening.

Thursday January 28th 2010
Arrive from 6.30pm onwards

As it is the start of the year, it’s going to be a social event, but we will be running a “speed networking” session, so bring those business cards! It will be a perfect opportunity to make some new contacts and meet some new people.

Just head on over to the MeetUp site and RSVP now!

We look forward to seeing you all there!

One of the not so nice things, is that we rarely get to meet everyone, learn what they do, and get to see their blogs or websites.

So, we thought it would be a bit of fun, to see if we can get a really good number of comments on this post, highlighting, who you are, what you do, and links to your blog / website!

Please do retweet this and spread the word!!

** We also have a little prize which is the HDLive / howies t-shirt! **

Everyone who posts a comment will be entered into the draw and a name selected randomly. So what are you waiting for, get commenting! (We’ll let this run until January 8th).

The group is open to anyone wanting to learn and discuss development technologies and techniques. Whether you are a back-end or front-end developer, run a development shop, are a student, or simply a development enthusiast, this group will be for you.

Developers involved in the group should be open minded and not be closed to non-mainstream ideas. The group will not be dedicated to one language, but open to all, as every language can learn ideas and principles from others.

Who will be talking?

Andrew Chalkley is the RIA Community Leader at Skills Matter and RIA Lead at Cake Solutions limited. Andrew’s background in web development and internet marketing makes him an expert in creating accessible and search engine optimised mark-up with all the flare of CSS and unobtrusive JavaScript.

Andrew works on a variety of projects ranging from JavaEE apps to full Ruby on Rails applications. Andrew is advocate of jQuery and has been using it since its initial release.

Talk synopsis: Ruby on Rails Ecosystem

Andrew Chalkley takes you on a brief history of Ruby and Ruby on Rails and shows you the current state of the Ruby and Rails communities and ecosystem, showing you how fast your ideas can be shown off to the world.

We can now announce that Craig Albeck will be doing the second talk.

Craig has 5 years experience of the games industry having worked throughout each level of the value-chain.

Craig was responsible for heading up a trade body, Game Republic which put the Yorkshire games development community on the world map. Whilst at Game Republic, Craig helped generate over £1 million in private equity, championed a dedicated funding programme to enable local games development companies to self-finance their own game IP and set up the UK’s first dedicated Academy for Games.

Craig launched the first dedicated prepaid card for online gaming into UK retail, Wallie card.

Craig is currently involved with a number of companies providing services within the online games section. These include a very successful online games publisher, Omerta Game, a growing online games publication, Thirteen1 and a unique internet payment solution, FasterPay.

Craig was identified as one the UK games industries ‘Bright Lights’ (Source: 30Under30, 2006 – 2007).

Craig will be talking about the challenges of launching, and growing products on an International level from an office in the pioneering city of Hull

Location and Parking

The meetupwill be taking place in the Robert Blackburn building at Hull University (F7 on the pdf map below).

http://www2.hull.ac.u…

(The only problem is that the map at the above link does not reflect recent changes to the roads on campus. If you have visited the University in the past you will find that the layout is now different. If you enter from the Cottingham Road side you will have to round the back of the East Campus, as the through route on the map no longer exists.)

We will be on the top floor of the part of the building that backs on to the car park in E7. If you can find your way to that car park you just have to enter the building from there. There will be someone down in the building to let people in. The University are planning on sorting out some signage to help us all.

With respect to parking there are a number of car parks around the Robert Blackburn building that you can use. Please refer to the above map.

- 6:30pm – Networking time
- 7:00pm – Talks to begin

John Polling is running this group and you can follow him on Twitter here. You can follow Hull Digital here

If you are going to attend, please do join Hull Digital – it only takes a couple of minutes, and it means you will get to hear about future events!

Today and tomorrow, there is an opportunity for us to get involved and see how the plans are progressing (thanks to @duncmc for letting us know about this, and apologies for not letting you know sooner as it is the first we heard about this!).

“Don’t forget to pop into Arc tomorrow or Friday to see the public exhibition being hosted by Arc on behalf of Hull Forward, of the Fruit Market revised development brief. The exhibition is in the Arc building’s main space on Thursday 19th & Friday 20th November and is open between 10am – 4pm.

Representatives from Hull Forward and Yorkshire Forward will be staffing the exhibition from 2.30 – 3.30pm to answer any questions that the you may have about the brief, and Hull Forward are also producing evaluation materials for you to complete if you would like to have your say.

You are also invited to our third ever public Design Review Panel, which takes place from 12.30-2.30pm tomorrow (Thursday) here at Arc. 
Hull Forward and Yorkshire Forward will be represented at the Design Review Panel”.

Who / what is Arc?

Arc is working with people to make great places. They are the architecture centre for Hull and the Humber sub-region, and they’re part of a national network of architecture centres across the UK.

If you can get along, we hope to see you there – it is important that we help shape the future of Fruit Market to meet the needs of the digital community.

Please do add your comments and thoughts here, or on the original post.

I ‘m growing a moustache for Movember this year and am looking for Mo Bro’s and Mo Sistas to join the Hull Digital team.

Movember is about having fun, growing a moustache and raising much needed funds and awareness for men’s health – specifically prostate cancer. What many people don’t appreciate is that one man dies every hour of prostate cancer in the UK, more than 35,000 men will be diagnosed this year and that prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK.

The more that join us, the more we can “change the face of men’s health” through raising awareness and the money that will be raised. Let’s do this – register and grow a moustache as a Mo Bro, or sign on as a Mo Sista.

To join this Movember team go to http://uk.movember.com/register/10101 and follow the steps. Once registered you’ll be sent all the information you need to get growing.

2009 is Movember’s third year in the UK. If you are interested in learning more about the work that is being carried out as a result of Movember funds, check out the details at http://uk.movemberfoundation.com/research-and-programs.

Let’s “Change the Face of Mens Health.”

So what are you waiting for!? Please join up, and I’m sure we can grow some awesome mos!

Best wishes,

Jon

The purpose of the event is to assess the level of potential demand from local businesses and highlight the opportunities for meanwhile uses such as studios, exhibition space and workspace following the relocation of the Wholesale Fruit Market to Priory Park on the outskirts of the city later this year.

You are invited to attend a briefing session about opportunities for creative and media businesses at the Fruit Market, Hull to be held at 62-63 Humber Street (Hull Fruit Market) from 5.30 – 7.30 pm on Thursday 24th September.

Toby Hyam from Yorkshire based Creative Space Management has been commissioned to help Hull Forward to explore the reuse of these properties as quickly as possible pending the long term regeneration of the area. Toby and his colleague Paul Fallon will facilitate the event on the 24th September, providing information about the opportunity and how its supports the delivery of the long term plans for the Fruit Market.

Hull Forward is working closely with Hull City Council and a range of key public and private sector partners to regenerate the area. The partners involved have identified the potential for artists, creative business and social enterprises to get involved and be a major part of the regeneration proposals.

If you are interested in the Fruit Market, either as a location for your business, as a place to try out a new business idea or retail concept or to experiment with performance or installations (storage and passive uses will not be encouraged), please contact Liz King to register your interest and to obtain a place at the event. Email: liz.king@hullforward.co.uk Tel: 01482 387420.

Here at Hull Digital, we fully support this project. In many cities around the country, there are thriving, successful quarters where the new media and creative industries congregate. It provides a rich crossover of working opportunities, a vibrant atmosphere, as well as attracting businesses like coffee shops and restaurants / cafes.

The response from people has been overwhelming – about the design, the downloads and most importantly, the line up of speakers.

There is still a lot of planning, organisation and promotion to do, and we would be very grateful if you would spread the word! If you head over to the downloads section, scroll down, and you can grab a conference banner to place on your website or blog. If you let us know where this is, we will enter you in a draw to get a free ticket or a refund on one you’ve already bought.

We are also looking for a few more sponsors. We have a number of packages available to give you maximum value, exposure, a stand at the event and get your company name / brand out in front of receptive prospects. Please email us if you would like to get involved – remember, the event will be getting a lot of regional and national exposure and will be promoted on the radio, newspapers and possibly on the television

Thanks again for your support – it is going to be a great day, and we hope you will be there.

A huge thanks to them for doing this and also putting in their time and effort to do the excellent editing. They were great to work with and the results speak for themselves, so if you need any sort of video / media / film work, they get a big recommendation. You can speak to either Jon or Joe on 01482 667490.

The video looks at why Hull Digital was set up, and gets feedback from members on what they get out of it, and what they think about the local digital scene.

You can watch a superb HD version here.