In this new post to the Pehapkari.cz site they take a look at the PHP user groups all around the world and share some interesting statistics.

In April 2018 I started a side project to list meetups in Europe near Prague. PHP meetups are so much fun and I didn't find any single-page with a map that would list them. In the start, this site had a small table, with 10 meetups a month, very modern black/white Times New Roman design and advanced human-manual updating.

Since then I got feedback from dozens friends and users with this WTFs and ideas - they helped me to add feature now and then, polish a design with emoji and Bootstrap, automate everything and even crawl over 150 urls. I bought friendsofphp.org domain and the project became a standalone single page.

Based on the results shared in the post, there's over 1000 PHP-specific meetups all around the world! It also highlights the most active region (most meetups for the area): the area around Belgium. There's also a list of several cool features of the friendsofphp.orgsite and a more technical description of how the site works and gathers its data.

If you've ever been interested in starting a technology-centric meetup in your area but haven't known where to start, Jef Claes has some helpful hints to help you get started.

I've organized a few DDDBE meetups in the past, and always succeed in forgetting something. Either someone points it out well in advance, or I end up stressing last minute. This post partly serves as a checklist for myself, but it would be a welcome side effect to also see it encourage others to help out organizing future meetups. Organizing a meetup is not rocket science, having a list of what to take care of is a good start.

He breaks down the recommendations into a list of ten things to do to make a successful meetup happen:

• Contacting a speaker
• Gathering speaker requirements
• Selecting a location sponsor
• Contacting a location sponsor
• Meetup.com
• Speaker gift
• Recordings
• Day of the meetup
• Give thanks

While ten steps sounds like a lot, some of these are optional (like the speaker gift) but they can help to build a good reputation for the group and make it easier to find future speakers.

Joe Ferguson has posted an interesting idea to help build more community around the various PHP user groups all around the world: a sticker exchange.

I started a thread on the PHP UG Admins email list of doing a User Group sticker exchange and the idea took off pretty quickly. The idea is that user groups that want to participate send stickers to a central location. Stickers are then broken up into packets where every group that sent stickers will receive a packet of stickers from all the other user groups. The goal would be for every user group to send ~50 stickers (Some are sending much more).

Different people in different regions are working on handling the distribution to other local user groups (like Michelangelo Van Dam and Francesco Fullone). If you're a user group, have some stickers and would like to participate, you can sign up using this form and one of the organizers of the exchange will be in touch with you shortly.

If you've been thinking about starting a local technology user group in your area but have been looking for some guidance, you should definitely check out this recent post from Joe Ferguson with some good "dos" and "don'ts" around groups and organization.

When I introduce myself before I give a talk at a conference or a user group I mention I am a user group leader and very passionate about community. I happily receive questions from people starting new user groups or reviving old groups.

I wanted to share a recent response I sent to someone today who was asking for advice about their meetup group: Congrats on jumping into the world of running a UG. A lot of this is “in my experience” so your milage may vary

He starts with the "dos" (like keeping it small to start and making meetings consistent) and "don'ts" (not to worry about sponsors and making the talks "conference level" every month). He also includes an interesting section about "protecting" your user group, preventing things like over-zealous recruiters from coming in and giving people a bad impression of the group. He also links to lots of other resources you can read and participate in to make you a more effective user group leader.

The Voices of the ElePHPant podcast has posted their latest episode in their "It's the Booze Talking" series of rountable discussions. In this latest episode host Cal Evans talks with many members of the PHP community all about user groups.

Guests for this episode are:

• Samantha Quiñones
• Larry Garfield
• Ben Ramsey
• Eli White
• Beth Tucker Long
• Aaron Piotrowski
• Alena Holligan
• Jonathan Sundquist
• Bill Condo
• Chris Tankersly

Other topics mentioned in the episode include Sculpin, Icicle, HelpMeAbstract.com and the PHP User Group site. You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page audio player or by downloading the mp3. If you enjoy the episode and want to hear more like it (and other interviews with PHP community members) be sure to subscribe to their feed or follow them on Twitter.

Chris Hartjes has a post on his site sharing a video from a presentation he gave about "metatesting" to a local PHP user group:

Yesterday I gave a short talk at GPUG about a topic I've dubbed "metatesting". Borrowing the phrase from a children's card game I wanted to talk about the state of testing and associated tools.

You can watch the presentation through the in-page video player including both the slides and Chris' presentation of them. In it he talks about mature testing tools (and extending them rather than creating new ones), open source projects and their tests or lack thereof, how testing reduces the cost of bugfixing and much more. Check out the full presentation for some great tips and updates on where software (and PHP) testing is today.

The CloudWays blog has posted their latest interview with a member of the PHP community. In this latest post they talk with Rafael Dohms, originally from Brazil but now in the Netherlands and founder of several PHP User Groups.

Rafael Dohms is a very active person in PHP Community. He has more than 15 years of experience in PHP web development. This Brazilian guy moved to Netherlands to explore new horizons in development and user groups, as he believes in power of user groups. He has created 3 PHP user groups including AmsterdamPHP, PHPDF and PHPSP.

Rafael has contributed in various projects including Symfony, Doctrine, and has helped in both support and documentation. He also believes in sharing of knowledge and for that reason, he is a passionate teacher who believes in empowering new developers. He has been a speaker at different conferences of PHP in all over the world.

In the interview Rafael answers questions about:

• how he got started with PHP
• what role he plays at his job with Symbid
• some about the user groups he helped to start
• his Composer book

...and more. They also talk about Rafael's views on the future of PHP, frameworks, other members of the PHP open source community and PHP 7. Check out the full interview for his answers to these and more interesting questions.

The PHP Roundtable podcast has posted their latest episode today and it's all about user groups - Episode #32: "Running A Rockin' PHP User Group". In this episode host Sammy Kaye Powers is joined by several PHP community members: Joshua Copeland, Nigel Rowe, Joe Ferguson, Rafael Dohms, Shawn Barratt and Adam Culp, to talk about all things user group.

User groups are core to the strength of the PHP community. We discuss what it takes to run a solid user group in your area; finding food & venue sponsors, finding speakers, dealing with money & expenses, and all the details that go into making a rockin' user group.

And if you don't have a user group in your area, hopefully this episode will inspire you to take Cal Evans' advice and start one!

You can watch this latest episode through the in-page video player (recorded as a live Google Hangout) or directly on YouTube. If you enjoy the show, be sure to subscribe to their feed and follow them on Twitter to get the latest on new episodes as they're released (and being recorded).

In his latest video interview Thijs Feryn interviews the organizers of the PHP West-Vlaanderen, Tom Van Herreweghe & Jachim Coudenys, while attending the PHP North West conference this year.

My guests for this episode are Tom Van Herreweghe & Jachim Coudenys. They’re fellow Belgians who run a local user group called PHP West-Vlaanderen. This PHP user group is located in the West of the country which is the region I live in. So I run into these guys quite a lot. The irony is that we recorded this episode in the UK whereas we could have just recorded it back home.

The interview primarily focuses on their user group and how it fits into to larger PHP community.

You can catch this latest interview either through the in-page video player, directly on YouTube or you can go audio-only over on Soundcloud.

The Full Stack Radio podcast has posted their latest episode today, episode #17, hosted by Adam Wathan and featuring guest Adam Culp. Adam and Adam talk about ways you can maximize your conference experience.

n this episode, Adam talks to Adam Culp, organizer of Sunshine PHP and ZendCon. They talk about how to get into conference speaking, how to make the most of a conference as an attendee, as well as tips for running a great local user group.

You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page audio player or by downloading the mp3 for the show. If you enjoy it, be sure to subscribe to their feed for more great episodes as they're released.