PHUG has been re-born!
Were back baby!
We have been promising a new PHUG for a very long time and we are very exited to re-launch PHUG with a new vision in mind.
A bit of history
When PHUG initially launched back in 2006 we were a small group of Seneca College students and faculty. The idea was simple, let’s get together once a week after class and geek out. Originally we wanted to start a PHP user group in Toronto, but soon realized we could, and wanted to, do more. So began PHUG, an open source community whose focus was to bring students and professionals together through free workshops on all things open source.
Success soon followed. Our workshops went from 10 people a week to 70 in a few months! Membership on the on the blog went from 50 users to over 4000 in less than a year! PHUG became known in Toronto as one of the hottest open source meetups to attend.
We eventually began organizing large events like WordCamp Toronto 2009, where we doubled numbers from the previous year.
With all this success why did we stop? Unfortunately, like most open source communities and projects, we ran out of money and those involved in organizing events and meetups had less and less time to devote.
That’s the past.
New design, new features, and a new vision
I felt it was time to bring PHUG back from the dead. So I connected with some ex-phug’ers, colleagues, and community organizers to see how we could re-invent PHUG. This time around our focus is to bring you the most current information on all things open source from events, workshops, communities, projects, tutorials, and more on our new site. Based on years of user feedback and ton of great advice from seasoned community leaders we have decided to completely revamp the site into what you seen now.
We have decided to go with a forum instead of a blog, but not just any forum. We are using Vanilla Forums, a powerful and sexy open source technology that meets all our needs.
With a forum every PHUG member has a voice! Feel free to start discussion, share your thoughts, connect with other members. Post an event, a tutorial, useful links, and more.
Together we can build a strong community and a better PHUG!
So, let’s get PHUG’in!