Author Archives: Andy McIlwain

Andy McIlwain 1:37 pm on October 28, 2019
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Grow Your Meetup survey results for #WCUS

Thanks to all the WordPress meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. organizers who responded to our recent survey. We received 23 submissions from around North America and abroad.

Many of the responses were very detailed and thorough. They’re too long to include here verbatim, so we’ve curated some common themes.

We added a bit of commentary in this post, and we’ll discuss these topics in more depth during our Grow Your Meetup! workshop at WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US. You’ll find us in the Community Room, Room 274.

Tell us a bit about your group

  • Many Meetup groups are established vs new, at least a few years, some 10+ years
  • Covering a range of topics: beginners, advanced users, development
  • Active members are a small subset of overall membership

Comment: There’s an oft-cited model of community participation: 90/9/1. Out of your entire community group, 90% will be passive (lurkers); 9% will be active; and 1% will be very engaged regulars.

How big is your group?

  • Ranges from 100’s to 1000’s of total members
  • Average turnout ranges from 20-50 depending on the topic
  • Presentations attract more people than socials

Comment: 30 seems to be the sweet spot for a reasonably-sized meetup group, regardless of the total number of members registered in the meetup, nor those who RSVP for each event.

How often do you meet?

  • 65% meet once a month
  • 35% meet more than once a month
  • No respondents said less than once a month

Comment: Consistent, routine events are a must if you want to build a strong meetup group. An active meetup group should meet at least once a month. This consistency builds momentum that helps make future meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. more likely to happen.

How do you promote your group?

  • Meetup.com is the primary method
  • Social media (Facebook & Twitter) and word-of-mouth
  • WordPress Dashboard, if part of the Chapter program

Comment: In general, it seems like meetup organizers don’t do a lot of outreach or promotion — we rely on Meetup.com to bring members to us, as well as word-of-mouth referrals through existing group members. This could be a big opportunity for us to find new members.

What’s worked?

  • Consistency – same day of the month, every month
  • Mixing it up – different locations, times, appeals to different people
  • Involve the group – planning, choosing topics, online groups
  • Setting topics in advance; focusing on peer/user support

Comment: Two things here. First, consistency leads to routine which leads to habit. But what works for some people won’t work for others. That’s where options come into play: different days, different times, different formats, different topics, different locations.

Issues?

  • Finding locations/venues
  • Finding speakers/presenters
  • No-shows, low turnout vs RSVPs

Comment: Totally consistent with our experiences as organizers, and an ideal topic for our group brainstorming session on Friday morning.

Advice for new meetup organizers?

  • It takes time. Start small, persist, keep showing up
  • Don’t overthink/overcomplicate; have a structure/template
  • Plan in advance, get experts in as speakers
  • Have a team of committed co-organizers

Other advice?

  • Don’t try to do everything yourself; you’ll burn out
  • Recognize other leaders, invite others to step up
  • Diversity and inclusion takes effort, but it’s worth it
  • You’re growing a community, not just hosting a meetup

…

That’s just an overview of what we’ve heard through the survey. We’ll address all of these points, and much more, during the Grow Your Meetup! workshop at WordCamp US in the Community Room, Room 274.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the survey!

#wcus, #meetups-2

Andy McIlwain 7:53 pm on October 8, 2019
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Meetup organizer survey for WordCamp US

Hello! We’re hosting the Grow Your Meetup workshop at WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. US 2019.

To prepare for the workshop, we’re looking for insights and advice from other WordPress meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. organizers. What’s worked for you? What hasn’t worked for you?

Take the survey and share your experiences with us.

Note: You don’t need to be attending the workshop to submit a response.

Submissions are anonymous, but you’re welcome to identify yourself for kudos (!), follow-up questions, or to stay in the loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. about the workshop.

Take the survey – the more people we hear from, the better we’ll do.

Thanks in advance…!

#wcus

Andy McIlwain 5:09 pm on April 2, 2014
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Working around split audiences for local meetups.

Many WordPress meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. around the world are facilitated through Meetup.com, especially in larger cities. Meetup.com is also how we’re handling the chapter program.

But other sites, like Eventbrite and Facebook, are also used for arranging and managing local events.

So, how do we bring a local WP community together when folks don’t want to depart from the service they’re already using, or who don’t want to sign up for another site? e.g. they’re interested in attending WordPress meetups, but they don’t want to sign up for Meetup.com to do it?

#meetups-2

Andy McIlwain 1:59 am on March 11, 2014  

Proposal re: mentoring new meetup organizers.

Here’s my first pass at how we could tackle mentorship in the Meetup.com chapter program.

Please beat it up. 😛

Audiences

IMO there are two major groups that we can help through the mentorEvent Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues. program:

  1. Primary audience = Completely New Organizers. They’re pumped up and excited to get goin’, but they don’t know where to start.
  2. Secondary audience = Existing Organizers: They’ve run some meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. before, but still stand to gain from the opinions/experiences of others. e.g. ideas for different meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. group activities.

Mentor/Mentee Google Hangouts

The first big piece is similar to what Andrea’s been doing with WordCamps. We’ll provide new Meetup organizers with a series of orientation sessions spread over four weeks. Topics to cover:

1. Meetup.com 101 (Ninja Edit: Focus on the tools in this step, friendly reminders about the Spirit of WP + level of commitment.)

  • Representing WordPress: Embrace the spirit of WP!
  • Commitments: Friendly reminder that Meetups take a lot of effort.
  • Using Meetup.com: The tools at your disposal.
  • Organizer Levels: Co-organizers, event hosts, assistants, etc…

2. Planning & Preparation

  • Selecting a Venue: Transit, parking, capacity, directions, accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), et al.
  • Content & Activities: Presentations? Social? Workshops? What’re you doing?
  • Setting RSVP Limits: The delicate balancing act.
  • Supplies & Equipment: Making a list and checking it twice.
  • Handling Expenses: Saving Cami from going insane with receipts.
  • Communication: Keeping your members in the loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop..

3. Day-Of

  • Signage & Access: Where’s the door, and how do I open it?
  • Registration/Signing In: Identifying the no-shows.
  • Welcoming Attendees: e.g. Tell them where the washrooms are.
  • Recording/Streaming (if possible): More good stuff for WordPress.tv.
  • Follow-Up House Cleaning: e.g. post video, send out slides, contact the no-shows.

4. Ongoing

  • Growing & Adapting to Your Local Community
  • Diversifying Activities: Something for everyone.
  • Bringing In Other Organizers: Share the load!
  • Larger Initiatives: Getting involved with the WordPress project.

Support Material/Documentation

Think of this next piece as a “Starter Kit” for organizing meetups.

These are assets that we’d create. They should be short n’ actionable. Some ideas to start:

  • Organizer’s Checklist: A “cheat sheet” that helps you prep for a meetup.
  • Templates: For Meetup groups & individual event pages. Could include:
    • Image Templates (headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. art, group image, images for event pages)
    • Boilerplate text (for harassment policies and other such things)
    • Project spreadsheets (similar to the budget template for WordCamps)
  • Organizer Tips: Advice from other organizers, clean n’ simple. (Inspiration)

…

There’s more that we can do, but this list seems long enough for now. 🙂 (I once joked with a friend about preparing Meetup.com tote boxes, but the shipping costs might make that a bit unreasonable.)

Thanks!

/am

Andy McIlwain 7:52 pm on February 26, 2014
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Expanding WordCamp.org Data Fields

We collect a lot of information when organizing WordCamps, and it’s often saved to a 3rd party service like Google Drive, Dropbox, TrelloTrello Project management system using the concepts of boards and cards to organize tasks in a sane way. This is what the make.wordpress.com/marketing team uses for example: https://trello.com/b/8UGHVBu8/wp-marketing., Basecamp, etc.

It’d be great if we could store this information on WordCamp.org sites instead.

What we’re proposing here is an expansion of data fields on WordCamp.org user profiles and post types. Some of the data will be public, while some of it — like contact information — will be private.

There’s a few benefits to taking this approach:

  • We’ll reduce dependency on 3rd party services.
  • It makes WordCamp.org sites more “turn-key”. No fussing with other apps.
  • Data can be pulled into WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ user profiles.

The fields proposed below are a starting point. They’re based on what we’ve used in spreadsheets at WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Toronto over the last few years.

Let’s beat this up and make it better. 🙂

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#wordcamps