As the PHP community grows however, it becomes harder and harder for people to come together from the various corners of the community. [...] That being said, maybe there is still something we could change for the better? PHP contributor Lukas Smith has formulated his vision for such an effort in the form of an organization that would serve as a mediator and catalyst between all the members of the PHP community under the code name emPHPower.

The session will be happening on Monday the 21st from 7-8pm.

In this case the opportunity is that I am (or the community) is forced to find someone else to step up and spread the word. So I am hereby calling out to the community and speakers at North American conferences to try and integrate emPHPower discussions as "official" birds of feather or lightning talks.

As mentioned, his call also includes a suggestion for all PHP user groups out there:

Actually lets make this call a big larger, I call out to all the PHP UGs in the world to talk about emPHPower and blog about their views, concerns, ideas. If you are a member of a large PHP project, also consider to get feedback from its user community.

If you're wondering what the emPHPower movement is all about, check out the group's main site for full details.

Ok, it's been a few days since I've given a ZendCon update so let's burn a few bytes and talk about what is being planned.

The updates concerning the keynotes are the topics the two speakers will be presenting - Cory Doctorow on "copy machines" and Joel Spolsky with his "Great Software" talk. The sessions for the conference are still mostly the same, but the "after hours" activities have exploded.

Things on the list include a ZCE party on Monday, Happy Hour 2.0 on Tuesday and on Wednesday an all-out karaoke party poolside at the hotel.

There's still plenty of time to register for the event and to get more details on the conference and the whens and wheres, check out the main conference site.

This year's wiki for attendees. You can see who is coming, register in one of the affiliated groups who are planning events, and take a look at the Birds of a Feather sessions that are being proposed.

Pages created so far include a list of the ZCEs attending, members of the #phpc channel (PHP community) on the Freenode IRC network and a page for phpwomen.org members who will be attending.

Whether you have a group you want to add a page for or just want to add your name to one of the lists already made, head over to the ZendCon wiki and make some updates.