2018 Meetup Survey

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Here is where we have policy debates, project announcements, and assist community members in organizing events.

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The 2018 Annual 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. Survey results for each chapter meetup group are being sent to organizers directly, but we’d also like to share some statistics about the program, as well as interesting findings from the survey with everyone!

WordPress Meetup Chapter Statistics in 2018

As of 31 December, 2018…

Total WordPress chapter meetup groups: 691
Total countries with chapter 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.: 99
New meetup groups joined the chapter: 166
New members joined: 106,409
Total members: 385,250
Total number of organizers: 2,061
Total number of events: 5,675

2018 Meetup Survey Participation

Total member respondents: 912
Total organizer respondents: 112
Total countries participated: 70

Interesting Findings from the Survey

Overall most people are pleased with the meetup program, but there is a desire for more variety both in topics/difficulty and in the scheduled time of events. See the post of Organizer Best Practices for some tips that you can use in your community!
Member location: 54% of respondents live in the city that their meetup group is hosted in. Only 3% of attendees travel far to attend a meetup event.
Factors that affect the decision to attend events: 19% of attendees said the posted topic is the most important aspect. Whether an event has food/refreshments is important to only 1% of respondents.
Days/times that would make it easier for members to attend: 24% of respondents said they prefer meetup events on weekdays, and 34% prefer evenings.
Types of events: 16% of respondents prefer formal presentations with a speaker followed by Q&A, 15% of respondents prefer workshops or trainings, and 12% of respondents prefer discussion groups.
38% of respondents have never contributed to the open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project! Perhaps this is your opportunity to host a contributor dayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. for your meetup group. 🙂

Read on for more detailed results!

Below are the results of some of the questions:

How local are you?

I live in this city	495
I live in a city within driving distance	201
I live in a suburb of this city	180
I live far away but sometimes travel to this city	28
I used to live here, but I have moved away	7
I have not been to this city, I just follow the group	1
I visited this city once	0

How long have you been a member of this group?

Longer than a year	483
3 months – 1 year	301
I joined within the last 3 months	128

How often do you participate in these events?

I attend every month	348
I attend a couple of times per year	214
I attend every couple of months	211
I never attend	85
Our first event is coming up, so I haven’t participated yet	22
I used to attend regularly, but I’ve moved away and no longer attend	18
I attended during a trip to this city, but no longer attend	14

So far, what has your involvement in the group included?

I have attended events	740
I have suggested a topic for a meetup event	250
I have spoken or presented at an event	213
I have volunteered on a 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. team	179
I have not been involved except for joining the group	142
I have organized a meetup event	115
I have helped find a venue	93
I have helped line up speakers	87
I have provided refreshments	70
Other	58
I have provided A/V or other equipment	49
I have posted videos from the meetup to wordpress.tv	16

What factors affect whether you attend or not?

The posted topic	492
Work schedule	416
Day of week	383
Time of day	334
Location/venue	263
The posted speaker	130
Transportation/Parking	114
Format (presentation/discussion/social/etc)	99
Other	85
Cost	63
Childcare	42
Number of people at event	37
Waitlist/didn’t RSVP fast enough	29
Who else has RSVPed	28
Refreshments/food	24

Are there specific days/times that would make it easier for you to attend?

Evenings	400
Weekdays	283
Weekends	245
Afternoons	146
Mornings	80
Other	40

Which types of events sound appealing to you?

Formal presentation with a speaker followed by Q&A	730
Workshop/training	698
Discussion groups	554
Show & tell of what people are doing with WordPress in the community	500
WordPress help desk (either as a volunteer or seeking help)	441
Working on your WordPress sites/projects at a coffeeshop with others	416
Happy hour/purely social gatherings	277
Lightning talks	224
Hackathon	207
Watch videos from WordCamps on wordpress.tv and discuss with group	189
Get together and watch livestream of a WordCamp somewhere else in the world	188
Brown bag lunch	125
Other	24

Would you be interested in organizing an event within your WordPress group?

Maybe	338
No	330
Yes	244

Do your group organizers ask members to suggest or organize events, and/or would you feel comfortable contacting them with requests or suggestions?

Yes, I feel comfortable approaching all our organizers	663
I’m not sure	166
Yes, I feel comfortable with one or some of the organizers, but not all of them	49
No	34

How do you feel about refreshments at the meetup?

Nice to have	550
Not necessary	242
Necessary	120

How would you describe yourself?

Small Business Owner	422
Developer	404
Site Admin	377
Advanced User	307
Designer	299
Consultant	296
Blogger	263
Beginning User	244
Other	61

Have you ever contributed or participated in the WordPress open source project?

I have not contributed to the open source project before	544
I’ve answered questions in the 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/ support forums	206
I’ve organized or volunteered at a WordCamp	176
I’ve organized meetups	109
I’ve betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. tested new versions of WordPress	86
Other	81
I’ve contributed plugins to the wordpress.org free pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party directory	69
I’ve helped with the Codex, Handbooks, or other wordpress.org documentation	49
I’ve submitted patches to coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.	24
I’ve posted videos on wordpress.tv	19
I’ve contributed themes to the wordpress.org free theme directory	18
I have reviewed themes with the wordpress.org theme review team	18
I’ve subtitled videos on wordpress.tv	11
I’ve contributed design to core	5
I’ve contributed to one of the official mobile apps	2

Would you be interested in participating in a contribution drive for any of the areas you selected above?

No	445
Yes	400

Looking Forward to the 2019 Annual Survey

For the next annual survey (which will be sent at the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020), let’s brainstorm some ideas on how we can improve it!

Are there any questions that you would like to see asked of your meetup members?
Are there any questions in the current survey that are not useful, and could be removed from the survey?
How can we engage more members to participate?

Ulrich 8:46 am on April 20, 2019

Do we have any stats on how many of the respondents attend 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. in English speaking countries?

Our 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. only had 2 respondents from 400 Meetup members. I wonder if we could improve this by having the survey in German.

I seemed to have also missed the survey as it would be good to encourage people during the meetup to fill it out.
Alex Sirota 12:57 pm on April 25, 2019
At WordPress Toronto we have over 2,500 members and only 6 responded (including me one of the co-organisers). That is a less than 1% response rate. Can I suggest that the survey:
1. Is marketed more widely with help from organisers
2. Organisers can translate the survey into their local language (or use a translation system?)
3. Is held over a much longer duration and marketed actively at 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..
4. Can I suggest an NPS score be employed in the future to evaluate the results? This would be really useful when you have a much larger response from the member audience.
5. A survey should be run for co-organisers separately from members (or maybe a few extra questions for organisers should be added). Questions such as : is there good support from community on running the meetups, what items do you need to run successful meetups, do you run sponsored meetups
The overall response from organisers was 5% but there was much less than 1% response rate from members (over 300,000) so to be honest i am not sure how representative the survey result is in terms of member sentiment. It’s a terrific idea, but the execution needs some work.
robin_wp 2:19 pm on April 25, 2019

Alex is to be commended for his diplomatic and thoughtful response. My initial take was somewhat harsher but I’ll follow his lead.

Is it helpful to publish survey results that are unlikely to be representative given the very low response rates? In the case of Toronto, I don’t see any value. Unfortunately.

In a WPTO 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. last night, I asked if anyone was aware of the survey and none were including the event’s organizer and myself. I agree with Alex that the organizers of a Meetup are the ones who have to promote a survey of this kind in order to get the response up to something respectable. Would the annual survey not be a good time for a promotional campaign to a broad audience for the WordPress project, the 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. and WordCamps collectively?

Finally, I noticed in last year’s survey the unfortunate length of the first question and the resulting set of empty pages that it produces. It certainly starts you off wrong-footed.
- Andrea Middleton 4:48 pm on April 25, 2019
  
  Thanks for your feedback, Ulrich, Robin, and Alex! I agree, there are probably lots of ways to get better dividends on the incredible amount of time and effort we put into sharing out the results of this survey.
  
  With a limited number of people with time to work on it and a seemingly unlimited number of other things to work on (many of which carry a high degree of urgency, like vetting applications, mentoring organizers, responding to incident reports, etc), it’s been a struggle to find something the global community teamGlobal Community Team A group of community organizers and contributors who collaborate on local events about WordPress — monthly WordPress meetups and/or annual conferences called WordCamps. should stop doing, in order to renovate the 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. survey process.
  
  If anyone finds themselves impassioned by the idea of working on improvements to the survey process in 2019 — coordinating a global translation effort, drawing up/executing a marketing campaign, etc — please comment here so we can gather a list of interested volunteers!

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2018 Meetup Survey