Find them online: Meetup | WordCamp | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Website
Seattle at a glance
- Downtown Seattle – WP Developer Meetup
- South Seattle – WordPress Help Desk Meetup
- North Seattle – WordPress 101
- Central Seattle – DIY User Group for Bloggers
- Central Seattle – WordPress Freelancers Meetup
Since 2010 the Seattle area community has been robust and has evolved through many forms. On the WordCamp side we grew to a maximum size of 750 hosted at the University of Washington in 2013-14. At that size, it was challenging to find venues and to really make connections. So in 2015 we tried hosting two intentionally smaller WordCamps thinking that we’d not have twice the work since most of it would be used for both camps. Sadly for a variety of reasons that experiment was a bust and in 2016 we went back to a single WordCamp. Now held annually in early November at the Washington State Convention Center in downtown Seattle and attracting 500+ each year.
On the Meetup side, we used to have just one “big” Meetup. We’d always have 100+ folks and we had sponsored pizza and soft drinks. Those Meetups started with an all-group gathering with announcements and a 10-15 minute topical presentation. Then we’d break into subgroups for discussion, help and making connections. Initially there were blogger and developer breakouts. Eventually we created a third breakout we called DevSigners (those who don’t write code but build for clients and don’t necessarily blog). That worked until we lost the venue and, again, it was hard to find one large enough for our group. We decided to try having more geographically diverse locations for smaller gatherings (15-30+). That’s pretty much where we are now with 5-6 per month. We face the challenge of being spread out and having urban traffic. Most of our Meetups are held on weeknights. We do offer a couple of Saturday Meetups, which work well. Parking is also always a challenge.
After leading two WordCamps I was a bit frustrated by the inability to communicate well with the full community. The two options were through Meetup, which tends to be an ever growing list where no one unsubscribes, and the other, of course, was WordCamp. However, our understanding has been that we can only communicate to WordCamp subscribers for the year they subscribed to. So each year we’d post in the previous two years’ WordCamps to be sure folks knew they needed to come over to the current year and re-subscribe. This seemed cumbersome to us. That motivated us to create a MailChimp list and we started asking at WordCamp for folks to opt-in to our year-round mailing list.
From there it was a natural jump to bridge the two silos of WP activity, a very successful annual WordCamp and several diverse Meetups. A few of us got together and talked about how we could build a year-round community. We decided to create an umbrella website where we now aggregate all our Meetups and host all our past WordCamp links and videos. We also have Meetup minutes, guidelines for how to apply to speak, and a whole section for our Meetup leaders so that each Meetup is consistent with our community brand, including a post-Meetup feedback form. We have business cards with our website on it and postcards that promote all aspects of the community. Our newest addition is a WordPress Professional business directory.
We have a 3-person Leadership Team with job descriptions, terms, etc. Everything is transparent and posted on the website under About, including our Annual Report, Leadership Responsibilities, etc. We also host quarterly Meetup Host meetings where we talk about the mix of our Meetups, what support and supplies the hosts need to be successful, etc. Becoming a Meetup Host is a funnel to being a WordCamp Wrangler and then from WordCamp to the Leadership Team. Another responsibility of the Leadership Team is to ensure Meetups and WordCamp have leadership in place and to provide mentorship to the leaders. WordCamp is more hands-off than Meetups but that support is still there.
In addition to our Meetups and WordCamp we decided to offer 2-3 additional community events throughout the year. To date, we’ve had a few large events at the downtown public library. We had Rachel Andrew present a session to about 100 folks on CSS Grid, a non-WP topic to attract new folks to the community, Larry Swanson (local WP) presented on Content Design, two WP anniversary events and a Contributor Day event.
Here’s what the intro on our community website says now:
The Seattle WordPress Community is a place for designers, developers, & do-it-yourself publishers throughout the Puget Sound region. Our community includes Meetups all the way from Bellingham to Olympia including Puyallup, Gig Harbor and of course throughout the greater Seattle area and Eastside. Our community is friendly and welcoming and a GREAT way to learn about WordPress, develop a new business, find help with a project and lots more. You can also propose a new Meetup, speak at a Meetup, get involved in organizing WordCamp year-round, or volunteer at WordCamp.
Wanna feature your community? Apply here!