I gave a talk today at the February meeting of the Vancouver Island Java User Group (VIJug) on integrating Search into web applications using Solr (and Drupal). Actually, I'd planned to give the talk almost a year and a half ago, but due to a timing mishap, this wound up being postponed until now. No matter - both Solr and Drupal have made great progress since then, and it was a pleasure to show them off.
I'm always impressed with the energy and depth of knowledge of the VIJug crowd when I visit Victoria. Maybe it's just the folks that Manfred Moser manages to wrangle together, but it always makes for a very stimulating event, and I always end up learning a lot. Manfred has just started a consulting venture Simpligility, so if you have projects looking for a Java/Maven/Android/Jasper/ Docbook guru, drop him a line.
One of the things we talked about following the talk was the effect of having a single huge driver like government in an economy the size of Victoria, BC. This has many consequences, both positive and negative, for a tech community. The consensus seemed to be that there is a dampening effect on fluidity, which makes it difficult for individuals and small companies to take the risk of working on a self-funded project of 3-6 months or more, not knowing how difficult it might be to find the next job or contract.
Another topic was the perceived distance between Vancouver and Victoria. This seems to me much more of a mental gulf than an actual one - I'm hoping that a few more connections between people on either side will take us over some threshold in the social network and activate some fruitful discussions and projects/collaborations.
We need some cross-straight meetups/camps/conferences - maybe opengov would be a natural starting place. Let's see where all this goes.
By the way, I'm attaching slides for my presentation. Please get in touch if you would like to suggest improvements or additions.