The Makings of a Web Design Community

The community for web design in Denver is so scattered and isolated (and probably very small) that until last year, I had never met another true web designer in this town. That's when I went to my first Web Design Meetup.

One day while casually surfing I stumbled across an article talking about meetup.com. It was this new site that organized informal, local "meetups" around certain topics. I was intrigued so I clicked through their site to see what they had in Denver, and sure enough there was a meetup for web design! For a long time I had been trying to find other designers in Denver that were passionate about web, so I signed up.

The process is really simple. Sign up, then vote from a list of preselected venues for the meetup. Not too long after that, a mail shows up in your inbox confirming you will attend, and if you and two other people confirm, the meetup is on.

Meetups are scheduled on the same day and hour every month (ours is the second Thursday at 7pm) and people just show up. Its kind of like a live chat room. No agenda, no sponsor, no schmoozing, just talk. And it has been fantastic.

I've been going regularly for over a year now, and the meetup is never the same. While there are a few regulars, new people show up every month and we discuss a wide array of topics, often talking about web standards, business practices, or just looking over someone's Javascript they are having trouble with. And with a variety of expertise, newcomers and hobbyists to practiced professionals, its always a great discussion.

That discussion has me very excited because within it a community is growing. We've setup a private email list so we can continue to share and collaborate between meetups, and we are discussing organizing something similar to Andy Budd's SkillSwap, because so many of us have expertise in fields that can be shared with others and would be valuable to all. Mostly, we have a place to go rant, rave, question, and share our thoughts and opinions on web design with like minded people.

So if you are a web designer in Denver, or just play one on TV and want to crawl out from behind your computer to talk about it, sign up and join the conversation!