Miles’ Blog » 2007 » March

Port80 is always looking to start monthly meetings in other parts of this world of ours. Are you keen as well? Read on…

Being involved in a port80 chapter is great! But don’t just take my word for it, check out the online forums and the events happening every month in capital cities around Australia.

So, you’re thinking that it would be great to have a monthly port80 event in your neck of the woods? I would encourage you to spend a few hours getting one up and running - it costs very little or nothing to do and it’s incredibly easy to get started.

We’ll even do our best to help you with organisation, and promote the chapter via our forums and website.

Planning a Port80 chapter can be broken down to four easy steps; plan, invite, launch and maintain.

Plan

Email us and let us know your intentions and ask to be put on the state organisers email mailing list. that way, we can support you as you’re getting up and running.

Find others to help! If you can, coax a co-worker or friend in the industry to help you here - it’s far easier with two heads and sets of hands.

If you can get a few involved, create an email mailing list or Google group to discuss organisation - it’s far easier to organise than real life meetings, and creates a good manual for the future to read through archives.

First, check to see when every other user group or regular meeting in your city of is on. we don’t want to clash with anything else, if possible. I suggest that Monday nights aren’t good because people have just got into the work week, and Fridays are no good because it’s the weekend. Tuesday to Thursdays are the best nights generally.

We meet at nights, typically kicking off straight after work. That way, people don’t go home first and decide not to go back out, and everyone can attend. We also typically hold the events on the same night every month, which makes it easy to remember. We meet here in Perth on the first Wednesday of each month, however you could have it on third Thursdays, second Tuesdays, whatever works best.

Once you’ve set a date, then narrow down venue choices. We find that a licensed venue allows people to buy drinks at the bar, and perhaps snacks, and mingle with everyone.

The ideal venue is near where most of your intended visitors work and also near parking. We typically suggest the CBD or nearby suburbs, where the parking tends to be better.

Ideally, you would have an area reserved for the meet, however if you know the venue would be quiet on the night you’ve chosen, perhaps you’re safe just getting there early and grabbing some tables.

You may want to visit a few venues and check them out - ask if you are able to reserve some space for free - many places are happy to do this for you, especially if it’s on a quieter night of the week.

Consider sponsors. The founding spirit of port80 is that we are totally non commercial and free of sales pitches, however you may consider letting others pay for venue or snacks and drinks. The good thing about port80 events is that you don’t need much money; what you need is enough to just pay for venue hire (if absolutely neccessary) and some platters of food.

Invite

Three to four weeks lead time is ideal for announcing the first meeting - it’s long enough to spread the word around, and make sure peoples diaries aren’t yet full, but not so long that people forget.

Write up an email which clearly states the venue (with link to a map), date and time of the event, as well as some background (adding a link to the port80 website helps) and also suggest that the recipient forwards this email to others they may know. Send this email to all your contacts who are related to the web industry. DON’T SPAM!

Post it on your blog (if you have one) and on any relevant mailing lists which you are a member of (only if the list rules say this is OK).

Post your event on sites such as www.upcoming.org.

Start a thread on the port80 forums, and promote the event there. Ask people to join the thread, so you get an idea of who will be coming.

Let any local or online industry media know about what you’re putting together, and ask them to help promote it.

Search for other web-related events or organisations in your city, and ask their organisers to help spread the word (offer to do the same in turn - collaborate don’t compete!).

Contact all the local bloggers you know, and offer them gratitude or bribes to post details about your event.

If a group of people are announcing it on their blogs, its clever to post at different times and days, rather than all on the same day - this keeps the news out there longer.

If you have access to a fax machine or a stack of envelopes and stamps, search the Yellow Pages and Google for all web companies who may be interested and nearby, and get in touch - it’s a nice touch in this world of email, to send a one page fax or letter, and it’s obviously far better than spamming.

Ask these companies to circulate it to their staff, or pin the page up on any notice board - most companies encourage staff to get involved in their industry.

Send out reminder emails 3-5 days before the event and also the day before the event.

If you’ve got a sponsor, order some snacks - if not, consider buying a platter or two and asking people to pitch in and donate towards costs.

Call the venue the day before, place any food orders (if required) and just ensure they remember you’re coming.

Launch

On the day, get to the venue early. Scope out a good spot, or make sure the staff know if you have reserved some space or a room.

Let the staff know what you’re there for, and ask them kindly to send any web geeks who are lost over to you.

If possible, print some A4 posters up and tape them to the walls to direct people to the right spot. If not, perhaps approach those who look like they are looking for someone.

Make sure you welcome people as they arrive, and ask others to circulate and introduce themselves - if the meet looks like a cliquey in-crowd, you’ll never get newcomers join.

Thank everyone for attending. ask them to email you their details, or for a business card and let them know you’ll email them about future events. Understand if they don’t want to give you their details - that’s fine too.

If you can, give a quick 2 minute speech - it doesn’t need to be long, just thank everyone again for attending, thank the venue and any sponsors or helpers. Mention that you’ll be meeting every month on the same night, and that you expect to be at the same venue. Encourage people to come up and ask you about port80.

Remember: this is supposed to be fun. Keep it that way.

Maintain

It’s very important after the first event to send an email to anyone who you know attended, and send them a quick thanks - it guarantees they know you liked their attendance, and there’s a good chance they’ll be back.

Add all of the attendees who agreed to being added to an email mailing list, into a list so you can notify them prior to the next event.

If there were any sponsors or helpers, ensure you call them and thank them for their money, efforts or contributions - it’s a great thing to have others involved.

If you’ve taken any photos, upload them to flickr, and share the url with everyone involved - make sure to tag them ‘port80’ as well!

Ask everyone for feedback - the group won’t flourish unless you listen to participants, and at the end of the day you hope that it becomes a self perpetuating event, and your organisational time can be reduced over the next few months.

Ask if other attendees are interested in helping organise future events.

Get straight onto organising the next event - soon it becomes instinctive and before you know it, the events will run themselves!

Good luck!

Photo: Perth from Kings Park.

For the last year or so, a number of people have said to me ‘how do you survive with just one monitor?’. I used to laugh, thinking why on earth would you have more than one (one of the guys here has three!) - until now.

That’s right, I’m now a convert to the ‘more pixels on my desk’ cult. Recently upgrading to a new PC, and installing Vista, I decided not only did I need surround sound with sub-woofer, but I also needed at least 2,950 pixels in width.

I mean, who doesn’t need all of those pixels, when reading and replying to emails, writing Word documents and surfing the web? The sound helps too!

Image: new desk arrangement at Bam Creative.

In a similar vein to Myles’ mention of his internet banking experience a while ago, I have a good story too.

Looks like the crazy gang over at my favourite bank have decided to pull an early April Fools Day stunt on the 25% of web surfers using Internet Explorer 7.0 (such as myself at the office), and throw a warning screen if you try to log into their Internet Banking.

They handily offer links for me to download the latest versions of Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer or Firefox and suggest if I don’t upgrade, I ‘may experience decreased performance’. I keep returning to the Microsoft site to look for my ‘upgrade’, however I can’t seem to find it.

In other news, a revamp of the West Coast Bloggers website has just happened. Hope you like it.

Image: nab Internet Banking warning screen.

I love Sculptures by the Sea. Something about this event really attracts people - maybe it’s the informal location, outside of a stuffy gallery and onto one of Western Australia’s joys, a beach.

Maybe it’s the mixture of both sculpture art and surroundings, such as the shot above, featuring a training session by volunteer surf rescue folks, the Cottesloe Beach belltower bobbing in the water and a great big metal sculpture.

Anyway, there’s a few more pictures here, and a review by Meredith over here.

Image: Sculptures by the Sea, Cottesloe Beach 2007.

We’re always hearing about nasty big corporations destroying the earth, and how we as consumers should be doing more to recycle and save the environment, however easily the largest employer in Australia is small business (90% of all Australian businesses have under 20 staff).

So, how can we, as small businesses, save the world? Well, we could start with;

1. Changing the office incandescent light bulbs to more energy efficient ones.
2. Recycling internal paper, by printing on both sides
3. Use email, not couriers
4. Encourage suppliers to invoice you electronically
5. Buy fair trade products (such as the office coffee)
6. Encouraging staff to catch public transport (trains and buses) to work if possible
7. Minimising the use of air conditioners wherever possible, or at least turn the thermostat up a degree.
8. Sponsor a child or family
9. Leaving lights and equipment off when we can
10. Ensuring all monitors are switched off when not in use
11. Organising to have a recycling bin for paper waste to be picked up by council
12. Buy organic fruit for staff snacks
13. Use mulch in the office garden
14. Use waterless urinals and dual flush toilets
15. Read online news instead of print newspapers
16. Printing stationery on recycled paper
17. Use cold water instead of hot
18. Take unwanted, re-usable items to your local charity shop
19. Stick a ‘No Junk Mail’ sign on your letterbox
20. Buy rechargable batteries for all electronic devices
21. Provide a fridge so staff can bring their lunches instead of buying take away
22. Use suppliers who are environment-aware and preferably small businesses themselves
23. Organise to offset carbon emissions through companies such as Elementree.
24. Have a spare change box for your favourite charity on premises.
25. Re-use packing boxes and materials
26. Encourage clients and suppliers to be more aware of their environment (send them this list!)
27. Promote a charity in your company newsletter
28. Donate time to a local charity, doing street collecting or using your professional services
29. Plant water-saving native plants in the office garden.
30. Organise a staff ‘donate blood‘ day
31. Encourage walks or physical exercise at lunch breaks
32. Wash the company cars less frequently
33. Reduce plane flights if possible.
34. Buying recycled paper products
35. Sponsor a local community event
36. Shred your ‘printed on both sides’ paper to use as packaging material
37. Insulate your office
38. Pin up posters to raise environment awareness
39. Embrace ethical investing for any investment strategies
40. Organise a company gym membership or personal trainer
41. Ask your cleaner to use chemical free cleaners around the office
42. Purchase office equipment based on their energy ratings
43. Have casual days and raise money for charity
44. Change your office power over to green power.
45. Encourage the paper free office as much as possible
46. Choose vehicles with great fuel ratings for your fleet, or better still hybrid or electric cars
47. Look at ways of making products which contain less ‘bad stuff’ and more recyclables
48. Have staff discussions about how to save utilities (power, gas, water) in their homes
49. Offer rewards for environment saving ideas
50. Adopt a zoo animal
51. Re-use where you can - envelopes, folders and paperclips
52. Use internal email not paper memos
53. Ask clients and suppliers for their Social Responsibility Charters
54. Recycle computer parts, by giving them to computer recycling groups or donating them to charities
55. Instead of sending presents at Christmas to clients, make donations in their name instead
56. Recycle your mobile phones
57. Use recycled (second hand) office furniture
58. Email a link to this list to everyone at the office

As you’ll have noticed, many of the points above means your business will save money, you’ll all get good karma and it could even help the environment - isn’t it worth doing every bit that you can?

Image: Train crossing sign, Midland.