This is the place to learn about the Write the Docs Quorum pilot program.
The Quorum program brings together various local Write the Docs meetup chapters that are in a common time zone to provide quarterly super meetups over Zoom throughout the year. These are quarterly regional remote meetups, hence the name: QRRM.
Write the Docs is running the Quorum program as a pilot in the U.S. East Coast region and U.S. West Coast regions for 2021. If the pilot program is successful and there is sufficient interest, the program might expand to EMEA and APEC regions later.
The following U.S. East Coast and Central meetups are currently participating in Quorum:
- Austin, TX
- Detroit, MI/Windsor, CAN
- Florida
- New England
- Philadelphia, PA
- Toronto, ON, CAN
- Washington, D.C.
The following U.S. West Coast, Mountain, and Australian meetups are currently participating in Quorum:
Quorum pilot coordinator for 2021: Alyssa Rock - @barbaricyawps on GitHub; feel free to DM her on the Write the Docs Slack workspace any time!
We have a separate parent Meetup for each quorum program. Local chapter organizers will announce upcoming events and direct their members to join the parent Meetup to RSVP for events.
Meetups are held quarterly. On a rotating basis, a different meetup will be responsible for the quarterly super meetup.
If it is safe to do so (coronavirus notwithstanding), individual chapters can still meet in person during the off months for social networking or for their own local educational presentation events. Individual chapters are also welcome to organize in-person events to view the super meetups.
As a general rule, East Coast meetups will occur the first month of the quarter and West Coast meetups will occur in the second month of the quarter. The off months for each quarter can act as a backup for meetings if needed. We'll have a planning meeting the month before each meetup to plan the logistics for the upcoming quarter.
Quorum meetup events will ideally occur during the 3rd week of the month, with the 4th week acting as a backup if needed. We offer speakers Monday through Thursday as the range of acceptable days of the week for presentations. Meetups will be held at:
- 7:00 p.m. Eastern / 6:00p.m. Central for the East Coast
- 7:00 p.m. Pacific / 8:00p.m. Mountain for the West Coast (possibly subject to change)
| Q | Month | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jan | Off (no meetings) |
| 1 | Feb | Off (no meetings) |
| 1 | Mar | East Coast Quorum meetup |
| 2 | Apr | Off (no meetings) |
| 2 | May | WTD Portland conference |
| 2 | June | East Coast Quorum meetup |
| 3 | July | Off (no meetings) |
| 3 | Aug | East Coast Quorum meetup |
| 3 | Sept | WTD Atlantic conference |
| 4 | Oct | Off (no meetings) |
| 4 | Nov | East Coast Quorum meetup |
| 4 | Dec | Off (no meetings) |
| Q | Month | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jan | Off (no meetings) |
| 1 | Feb | West Coast Quorum meetup |
| 1 | Mar | Off (no meetings) |
| 2 | Apr | West Coast Quorum meetup |
| 2 | May | WTD Portland conference |
| 2 | June | Off (no meetings) |
| 3 | July | West Coast Quorum meetup |
| 3 | Aug | Off (no meetings) |
| 3 | Sept | WTD Atlantic conference |
| 4 | Oct | West Coast Quorum meetup |
| 4 | Nov | Off (no meetings) |
| 4 | Dec | Off (no meetings) |
Our meetings will last an hour and will follow this agenda and time structure:
- 7:00 to 7:10 - Icebreakers and announcements - For the first 10 minutes, remote attendees can join and participate in icebreaker activities. Then, the emcee will give announcements and introduce the speaker.
- 7:15 to 8:00 - Presentation and Q&A - The speaker can spend about 30-45 minutes giving a presentation, which includes the Q&A portion. The Q&A can expand to fill the time if the presentation is short.
- 7:45 to 8:30 - Breakout rooms by meetup - Attendance at this portion of the meetup is optional. We'll use Zoom breakout rooms to have people meet with their individual meetup organizers to say hi to other people in their meetup. Organizers can use that time to talk about job openings, talk about future meetups, and socialize.
See Meeting agenda (detailed) more detailed meeting instructions. See also: Emcee script.
Quorum events will be created on the parent Quorum meetup and then the local meetups will publish an announcement that tells their members about that event. These announcements will encourage their local members to register at the Quorum Meetup event. Local meetups will not publish their own version of the event.
We want to ensure that we not only drive traffic from local meetups to Quorum, but that we also drive traffic back to the local meetups. Traffic is hopefully driven back to local meetups by:
- Hosting breakout rooms at the end of the Quorum meetups in which local meetup leaders can connect in smaller groups with people who came to the Quorum meetup that are from a common area.
- Post links to each of the sponsoring local meetup groups in the Quorum meetup event details.
See Quorum meetup publicity (detailed) for more information about publicity.
If you are a local WTD meetup organizer, participating in WTD Quorum has many potential advantages:
- Sharing the workload - Volunteering as a WTD meetup organizer can involve a lot of work depending on how much support you have from the members and other organizers in your chapter. Quorum super meetups can take some of the pressure off by reducing the number of meetups you have to coordinate on your own.
- Attracting high quality speakers - Because remote attendance increases audience sizes, high quality speakers can be better guaranteed they will have a good audience. Remote meetups can also attract high quality speakers by allowing them to present from their preferred location, reducing the burden on their time.
- Expanding access to high quality content - Some meetups have a greater pool of potential high quality presenters to draw on than others simply because of geographic density. Remote meetups allow WTD members from less dense geographic regions to have access to good content without needing to attend in person.
- Reducing the need for venues or sponsors - In-person meetings usually need a venue or sponsor to be successful. Coordinating sponsors and venues is frequently challenging for meetup organizers. Remote meetups don’t have these needs.
Participating local meetup organizers agree to:
- Find a speaker for one approximately one event on a rotating basis.
- Either emcee or find an emcee for their event.
- Help promote each regional event with their meetup members--not just the month that they arranged the speaker.
- Attend as many regional super meetups for your region as possible.
- (Optional): It could help to have 1-2 core team members who can assist in coordinating the Zoom calls and communicating with meetup organizers.
For more information and tips for organizing a successful meetup when it's your turn, see Organizing a meetup.
If you need to act as the Zoom coordinator for the event, see the Zoom coordinator guide.
We can launch a new quorum in a region if we have at least 4 or more local meetups in a given region that are interested in participating.
To join the discussion, join the Write the Docs Slack and add yourself to the #meetup-organizers-quorum.
You can also send a direct message on Slack to Alyssa Rock, the current Quorum coordinator.
We also have a mailing list on wtd-quorum on groups.io. We do our best to cross-post from Slack to the mailing list for archiving purposes.
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The long-term plan is that regional Quorum events will become a permanent part of Write the Docs, assuming it provides value and there is sufficient interest from participants.