There’s something unique about the community of people that work with WordPress, and I absolutely love it. When explaining our Meetup to people, I generally say something like “We stand up and give away all of our secrets to our competition, and they stand up and give theirs away too“. We all leave the meeting better off than we were before.
This idea seems to be fairly unique to the WordPress community. There are a few other web agencies not far from our office, and I’ve tried repeatedly to befriend them (lunch, coffee, whatever). They’ve been polite but had no interest, seemingly because we’re their competition — that’s accurate, but that’s not the point of connecting. One of them in particular I feel we could have sent quite a bit of business their way over the past few years, but I’m still not exactly sure what they do so they’re missing out.
COVID
COVID has certainly dampened much of what makes the community so great. Meetups are all virtual for now, and most WordCamps (essentially giant Meetups, where hundreds share their secrets instead of dozens) have been canceled for the foreseeable future, but they’ll be back.
For now, virtual meetings are all we have and we’re making the most of them. Find a Meetup to hang out with for an evening, join the GoWP Happy Hour some Friday afternoon, or just call a colleague and see what’s going on. This wonderful community won’t last forever, so let’s make the most of it right now.
