Next week, there will be an OWASP Mini-Conference right here in the Twin Cities. I am sorry that I will have to miss it, but the lineup is great - Brian Chess, Jeff WIlliams, RIchard Stallman and a number of others. Brian and Jeff are both very engaging presenters. I am curious to hear what Stallman says, I am not sure I have heard of him being associated with OWASP or security work in general before, and I have read any number of his comments that seem to directly oppose security mechanisms. In any case it promises to be worth the price of admission.
I have spoken at a number of local OWASP conferences, and you can always see that the good ones are the result of a lot of hard work by a small group of people. Bob Sullivan really brought the Minnesota chapter through its adolescence very nicely, building a good base, and now Kuai Hinojosa is doing some phenomenal work growing the chapter. Kuai has serious networking skills, I would love to see Kuai, James McGovern and other successful OWASP leaders put together a Top 10 list for how grow a chapter. These are things I don't know the first thing how to do, but you can sure see the results. I am pretty sure a lot of other OWASP leaders could benefit from these guys' insights.
You should send your comment regarding growing a chapter to the OWASP PR Project.
The funny thing is that I haven't figured out what is transportable to others. For example, being in the right position in a Fortune enterprise helps attract vendors which helps build chapters. This isn't necessarily repeatable in other parts of the planet.
Posted by: James | October 18, 2008 at 05:26 PM
I created a new page here: https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Chapter_Promotion
It is now up to you to get others to expand upon it...
Posted by: James | October 21, 2008 at 07:46 PM