One of the goals of Geek Week AZ was to get event organizers to work together to benefit each others’ events. The result is more exposure and more attendees for everyone!
If you ask someone if they’re willing to cross-promote, they’ll surely say yes. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always translate to action.
I decided to see which event sites were linking to other events going on during Geek Week AZ. I was looking for a score of 7, which would count as all of the “major” GWAZ events. There are at least 10 “extra credit” events (smaller ones that occur monthly or weekly, but occur during GWAZ).
Ignite Phoenix: Nov 3
Events linked: 0
Honorable mention for linking to Social Media Club Phoenix and PodCamp AZ, but the links are buried on the site in 2 blogs posts that are over a year old.
TEDxPhoenix: Nov 6
Events linked: 6 – AZ Entrepreneurship Conference, Desert Code Camp, Ignite Phoenix, PodCamp AZ, SustainaBIL, and WordCamp Phoenix
Disclaimer: I’m an adviser for TEDxPhoenix.
Desert Code Camp: Nov 7
Events linked: 0
(Note: The organizers of this event are doing a great job of putting together another great DCC, and I’ve even talked to Joe about cross-promoting on the site. He’s totally on-board, but he just recently obtained access to the site from its previous webmaster. This is not intended to “shame” DCC, but perhaps serve as a reminder and maybe even a sense of urgency?)
SustainaBIL: Nov 8
Events linked: 9 – AZ Entrepreneurship Conference, AZIMA, Desert Code Camp, Developer Ignite, Ignite Phoenix, WordCamp Phoenix, PodCamp AZ, Social Media Club Phoenix, and TEDxPhoenix
Disclaimer: I’m the lead organizer for this event, so of course I’m going to be cross-promoting!
Developer Ignite: Nov 11
Events linked: 1 – Ignite Phoenix
AZ Entrepreneurship Conference: Nov 12
Events linked: 3 – Ignite Phoenix, Social Media Club Phoenix, and PodCamp AZ
Honorable mention for linking to TiE AZ which has an event the week before GWAZ. Unfortunately, they linked to a broken version of the site that hasn’t been updated since 2006.
WordCamp Phoenix: Nov 13
Events linked: 0
UPDATE 10/28: Honorable mention for linking to AZ Entrepreneurship Conference and PodCamp AZ in a blog post (there are currently only 4 posts, so it’s relatively easy to stumble upon!).
PodCamp AZ: Nov 14-15
Events linked: 2 – AZEC09 and WordCamp Phoenix
UPDATE 10/28: An awesome email went out today, promoting and linking to Ignite Phoenix, TEDxPhoenix, SustainaBIL, Creative Connect, Gangplank Hacknight, AZEC09, Social Media Club Phoenix, and WordCamp Phoenix.
Disclaimer: I’m a helper / committee member.
All of the events listed here are doing a GREAT job putting together their events. I’m confident each one of them is going to rock! However, I think almost all of them could do a better job of supporting each other.
Hehe, that’s kind of funny, actually. I think I’ll tweet this link as there are a bunch of events here people would be interested in.
I think it would be better to send them to GeekWeekAZ.org, because it has all the same events listed, and more!
Hmmm…are you sure you’re not more concerned that the events that are not yours aren’t linking to ones you’re working with?
Define “working with,” please. While I don’t have an official role with most of the events, but I “work with” almost all of them however I can. I know you don’t know much about me, Tyler, but I try to keep in touch with as many of the organizers and committees as possible and I end up filling in where ever I can find something that needs to be done. I won’t give you the satisfaction of thinking I’m trying to grasp for credit by listing the ways I help out with local events. I don’t do it for the credit. I just want their events to be as awesome as possible.
The satisfaction of what? I have no desire to portray you negatively.
It’s become VERY obvious that some groups aren’t as connected to the local scene as most of us would like them to be. Wouldn’t it be a better use of time and energy to promote only those that don’t have to be called out publicly to give some link love to similar events?
Here’s my logic for wanting to promote them, whether or not they need to be “called out”: I’m probably GOING to all of these events, and if I offer to volunteer, if I promote them, and if I get them to promote each other, there will be more awesome people there. More great conversation. More enthusiasm (there’s usually more energy in a crowd of 50 #phx-ers than 8).
I don’t really get anything out of helping out in the above ways other than a better experience. Everyone has their own view on what “community” is, and I personally think doing what I can to help each of these events succeed is how I can be a productive member of the community.
Makes sense to me Brian. It would be awesome if all the GeekWeekAZ events heavily cross-promoted each other, which would lead to higher attendance at all events and more “community”.
What’s great about the Geek Week events is that their organizers are VERY pro-community. I mean, most of these are run by volunteers who break their backs and lose sleep to put on free events. This blog post isn’t the nicest or most gentile way of urging them to publicly support each other, but I felt on this occasion, a spotlight should be shown to “call out” or to commend.
At the last SMC, I cross-promoted by listing almost all the events by name, explained many of them, and told everyone to check back for Chuck’s post – which I linked to from the SMC blog. I think you missed that meeting.
At the PIF meeting, which most of the event organizers above were at (and you were invited to but didn’t attend) I cross-promoted by asking for logos and information to include in slides during Ignite Phoenix.
There are also tweets and links at InnovatePhoenix (PIF) that aren’t listed here.
So I’ve been been working to promote other events, yet this post “calls me out” like I haven’t. Links are a pretty narrow definition of promotion. Had you sent me an email, I would have been happy to explain and discuss. You could also have just asked about this in the Geek Week Google Group, but I see you haven’t posted in that group since September 14th. A shame, because it would have been a great place to organize something like a common link-roll.
What was the benefit of opening this up in a blog? I’ve been hearing about this all day in email and on Twitter as I’m trying to focus hard on a bunch of final stuff for Ignite. If you are really trying to support the community, might a direct email, checking your assumptions, or using your own Google Group have been a better starting point?
Brian, I don’t doubt at all you really support the local events. You’ve been a supporter of Ignite Phoenix since the start, as well as SMC, PodCampAZ, Gangplank, and a host of others. And cross-promotion is a great thing. But I’m sorry… this was just a really poor and frustrating way to try and make a point.