Deep Dive Group – Moving Forward

As we do every year, the Austin WordPress Meetup Organizer surveyed our members. Mendel presented the survey results to your intrepid program planners and some community volunteers and we can up with some major changes to how we will structure the 2015 Austin WordPress sessions.

Summary of WordPress Organizer and Deep-Dive discussions of 2015 groups and topics:

The group agreed that the distinction between “beginner”, “intermediate”, and “advanced” was unclear, and not helpful for those trying to decide if they should attend a meetup. Instead, a more useful matrix of Meetup designations was developed:
• Content
• Implementor
• Designer
• Developer
• Bus. Manager
•Beginner

The team also decided that we would encourage our presenters to model the sessions as:
• Best Practices
• Emerging Topics
• Stylistic Shootout
• Development

The operative question for both topic and audience should be “What are you trying to do with WordPress?”

Some topics discussed were specifically for beginners, other targeted toward the developer group, but most were intended to have multiple levels of content that would satisfy a broad range of skills – starting with basic information, and leading into advanced detail.

Beginner

Child Themes
Maintenance / Security / Backup
What to expect from Designers and Developers
Non-profit matchup – an easy way to get involved in the community

Developer Group Topics

Core Contribution
Code Sharing
Remote Experts (Skype / Hangout )
Lightning Talks

General Topics Identified by Member Survey

Privacy Law ( Presenter: Mercer )
“Responsive” is not the same as “Mobile”
Video Content and Video Sales Letters (VSL)
Cool Classroom Work – General Assembly
Setting Up a Development Environment ( Presenter: Eli )
Best Practices
Intro to Social Media ( Colleen / Christina )
Social Media ( Thomas Umstadt )
Social Marketing (Presenter: Mercer )
Design: Print and Web (Presenter: Eli )
Theme Frameworks and Roll-Your-Own
SASS and LESS
How to Make a Plugin
Best Plugin Stack – Round-table of Favorite
Accessibility ( contact: Cousette / Hiram / Carie Dils )
Electronic Digital Downloads (EDD) (contact:Shawn Davis )
Membership Sites
Email Marketing; Choosing and Using
Analytics
Tools Roundup for Designer and Developers
Establishing a Budget for Your Site
Value-Based Pricing
Managing Your Clients
How to Bid a Project
Marketing Funnel – Start to End (Presenter: Mercer )
Showcase – Membership show-off
Speed-dating – Clients / Designers / Developers
Business Skills for WordPress Designers and Developers
Tax Law for Designers and Developers
Emerging Topics in WordPress and the Web

We are in the process of reaching out to our members to have self- identified as presenters, trainers or speakers so we can start scheduling the balance of the 2015 Austin WordPress Meetup Programs.

If you have suggestions, or wish to volunteer to present for a specific topic just message us here on our new FaceBook page.