During the years, I’ve conducted many SIGs (Special Interest Groups). Today, we seem to be calling them ‘meetups’.
One thing all them had in common (aside from me) is that attendees with a wide range of experience and knowledge about the meeting topic made it difficult to present information that would keep all of them interested all the time.
I tried to conduct one meeting with beginners’ topics at the start followed up by more advanced topics. Attendees at those meetings wanted their specific information presented first so they could leave when it was no longer interesting to them. Or attendees whose topics were presented second had troubles knowing when to arrive at the meeting. And when they did, the interruptions were significant.
Then I tried to conduct two separate meetings – one for beginners, one for all others. That worked fairly well but was double workload for me. As well as the attendant problems of finding suitable locations and times to the satisfaction of all.
I find myself at that crossroads once again. The WordPress Austin Meetup has been running for awhile and has transitioned from just a social gathering to a pretty informative training opportunity. The problem once again is trying a ‘one size fits all’ solution. I’ve seen comments like ‘After the presenter said “hello”, I was lost.’ to ‘This stuff is too basic. I want some real WordPress solutions.’
Evidently, Pat Ramsey, coordinator of the Austin WordPress Meetup feels the same way. On April 29th, he met with Sandy and Nick and me to discuss possibilities and directions for WordPress information and education. Those ideas will be presented at the May 4th WordPress meetup. You are invited to come help us make the necessary first decisions. This is true whether you are a WordPress novice or a guru.
