Tag Archives: community

WordPress in Wisconsin

Someone once asked me about the WordCamps and meetups that are going on around Wisconsin and I was only too eager to reply “It's crazy! There are so many going on” and then there was laughing. This person couldn't fathom any real IT talent outside of Silicon Valley and that's a shame. Both for that person and for the innovators here that are doing great work and not being recognized.

I'm probably not the best Wiconsinite since I don't love the Packers. But I do want to give WI the credit is deserves. We have a lot of innovators, and a lot of activity both in meetups and other events. Here's some of the amazing talent in Wisconsin. (Apologies in advance if I forgot you there are so many awesome people!)

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Tips for Starting Your Own Meetup

I got an interesting email today from someone who wanted to start their own meetup looking for some advice. There's actually a lot of things you have to think about when you're trying to build a community.

  • How often do you want to meet? How long do you stay?
  • Do you want to have a soft starting or soft ending time (to give people time to chat)? Or should it be very focused?
  • How many users will we expect? How many developers? Can we have one without the other?
  • What style of presentations do we want? Round table? Lectures? Tutorials? Presentations? Panel?

There's a million questions that you have to figure out if you really want to build a community. Having helped out at the local Web920, running my own Appleton WordPress, and speaking at a couple meetups in California I have definitely learned a few lessons.

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WooCommerce Community in San Francisco

One of the things we're trying to do at WooThemes is to engage with the WordPress community. We're definitely planning the yearly WooTrip around a WordCamp, we have incentives to encourage ninjas to attend & speak at WordCamps, and we're even trying to send ninjas to nearby meetups and share the WooThemes & WordPress love. The past couple days I was lucky enough to visit San Francisco, attend a couple meetups, meet local developers, and take in the culture.

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Tips for Starting a Community

  1. Blogging for Benjamin Competition
  2. Why I'm Grateful to Work on the Web
  3. 24 Pull Requests
  4. Update Downloadable Product's Expiration Date in WooCommere
  5. Get Lost in the Flow and Work for More Than a Salary
  6. Why A Plugin's Popularity Matters
  7. Why You Should (Or Shouldn't) Use Premium Plugins
  8. WooCommerce Terms & Conditions
  9. Only Ship to Continental United States with WooCommerce
  10. Just Talk
  11. Why I Love Jetpack
  12. Making Jetpack Better
  13. Remove Billing Address for Free Virtual Orders in WooCommerce
  14. Notify Admin of Customer Address Change in WooCommerce
  15. Open Your Self Up To New Possibilities
  16. 2013 Resolutions Review
  17. Create a Community
  18. Tips for Starting a Community
  19. The Intent of Goals
  20. Create The Ultimate Invoicing System Using WooCommerce
  21. Change From Address in Ninja Forms
  22. Work With People Who Inspire You
  23. Contact Form 7 & MailPoet Integration
  24. Monotasking
  25. Giving Back to The Community
  26. Adding Fuctionality to Lean Plugins
  27. Choose Stripe For a Payment Gateway
  28. A Dip Into Entrepreneurship
  29. Reward Yourself
  30. Blogging for Benjamin Plugin
  31. Blogging for Benjamin Wrap Up

I've been running the Appleton WordPress Meetup group for over a year and I've seen so many great presentations. Just refer back to my previous post about why I love running the meetup so much. In this post I just wanted to share some of my tips for creating a community. These are things that have worked well for this community but every community is different so take these tips with a grain of salt.

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Create a Community

Rubber Ducks
  1. Blogging for Benjamin Competition
  2. Why I'm Grateful to Work on the Web
  3. 24 Pull Requests
  4. Update Downloadable Product's Expiration Date in WooCommere
  5. Get Lost in the Flow and Work for More Than a Salary
  6. Why A Plugin's Popularity Matters
  7. Why You Should (Or Shouldn't) Use Premium Plugins
  8. WooCommerce Terms & Conditions
  9. Only Ship to Continental United States with WooCommerce
  10. Just Talk
  11. Why I Love Jetpack
  12. Making Jetpack Better
  13. Remove Billing Address for Free Virtual Orders in WooCommerce
  14. Notify Admin of Customer Address Change in WooCommerce
  15. Open Your Self Up To New Possibilities
  16. 2013 Resolutions Review
  17. Create a Community
  18. Tips for Starting a Community
  19. The Intent of Goals
  20. Create The Ultimate Invoicing System Using WooCommerce
  21. Change From Address in Ninja Forms
  22. Work With People Who Inspire You
  23. Contact Form 7 & MailPoet Integration
  24. Monotasking
  25. Giving Back to The Community
  26. Adding Fuctionality to Lean Plugins
  27. Choose Stripe For a Payment Gateway
  28. A Dip Into Entrepreneurship
  29. Reward Yourself
  30. Blogging for Benjamin Plugin
  31. Blogging for Benjamin Wrap Up

This past Friday I did a joint presentation at the local meetup that I organize, the Appleton WordPress Meetup. I put a lot of effort into the meetup doing one or two presentations a year my self as well as motivating other members to present. But despite all the work I put into it every month I always leave the meeting energized and excited to be doing what I'm doing.

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