Community building, cohesion, and retention for meetups, conferences, and open source communities.
TL;DR: "Go where the people are already talking and seek quality content."
GOALS
- self-sustaining communities
- cohesion in the face of fragmentation
CHALLENGES
- use of proprietary tools within FOSS
- fragmentation of communication channels
- building momentum in order to distribute the burden
TACTICS
- quality content! empowering people, especially newcomers, to get engaged and take ownership, as speakers, volunteers, or organizers
- find the existing channels/watering holes and make them official
- cross promoting channels
- round of introductions or new comers session and greeting to make people feel welcome
- forums for communication ahead of events
- separate channels for noise vs important comms