meetup - TheWayoftheWeb

Geeks, BBQ food and a bouncy castle…

June 30, 2011 By Dan Thornton 1 Comment

That headline makes more sense when I explain that the first ever Digital People in Peterborough Family BBQ takes place on Saturday. I’m still continually amazed that an off-the-cuff idea to see if any local people involved in mobile and websites fancied a couple of beers has grown into 40+ people in the local area signing up on the DPiP website, the Facebook page or following on Twitter.

Not only that but we’ve even expanded from the monthly pub gathering to include a curry night, and now an attempt to get all of us out into the sunshine and involve our families with a BBQ at Afro-Caribbean restaurant Embe. It’s somewhere I’ve heard good things about, so I’m looking forward to sampling the food – and not only are they providing the BBQ for £5 per adult, but they’ve also very kindly agreed to provide a bouncy castle for those of us bringing children!

How great is that!

Plus, having had a quick look at their menu, I’m already trying to work out when I might be able to come along again to try some of the dishes they have on offer…

We’ve already got 11 or 12 confirmed people, with families, coming along for something a bit different, so if you’re in the Peterborough area, and you’re at all interested or involved with any sort of digital business, consider yourself invited. You can be a blogger, marketeer, developer, systems admin, mobile app creator, collect retro consoles, or write online for a living. We’re all really friendly, and if you want to find out more about us in advance, just take a look at the website, Facebook or Twitter in advance!

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Filed Under: DPiP, events Tagged With: bbq, designers, developers, digital marketing, digital people in peterborough, event, geeks, meetup, mobile apps

Geek curry night in Peterborough…

March 15, 2011 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

The belated arrangements for the fourth meetup for ‘Digital People in Peterborough‘ have now been announced, and in a change from the pub format, it’s going to be a curry night…

I’m still surprised that something I’d mentioned in passing to my good friend @pjeedai and virtual acquintance (at the time) @joffff has turned into a regular meetup which sees 20+ digital people get together for drinks, food and chatting. All from just deciding a time and a place and seeing if people would turn up.

And it’s continuing to grow. We’re getting a reasonable amount of people checking out the site regularly, more and more people are registering and posting in the forum, the Facebook page has got 34 Likes so far, and the Twitter account has 25 followers.

That might be small if you’re used to reading case studies of global brands and millions spent in marketing, but as a group which met for the first time 5 months ago, and which has come together from nothing, I’m pretty amazed. And particularly as it’s revealed how many talented and skilled people are in the area – as a result, it’s led to the founding of digital design and development company Jodanma, of which I’m a co-founder, for example.

With the ease of communication and organisation, if you’ve ever wondered about starting a community around a cause, shared hobby, idea, dream etc, there really is no excuse not to give it a go. Maybe it’ll become massive in terms of size, or value. And maybe it’ll take a bit of time and work. But there’s no excuse for not giving it a try and finding out who else is interested…

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Filed Under: community, Crowdsourcing, Digital Culture, social networks Tagged With: community, curry night, digital people in peterborough, dpip, geeks, meetup, networks, peterborough, techy, uk

The first ever DPiP pub meetup…

October 29, 2010 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

The first meet-up of Digital People in Peterborough took place last night, and seemed to be a resounding success judging by the comments and conversations in the pub, and responses on Twitter (hashtag #DPIP).

Personally, it was much needed. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in freelance work for a number of clients, meeting and chatting to people about some possible permanent roles in the future, and keeping OnlineRaceDriver updated as my main public-facing personal project.

So it was great when around a dozen people showed up last night, with a wide range of talents and interests – designers, developers, marketing, website owners. Everyone huddled round a table and started chatting, and I think that a good few contact details were exchanged and potentially some interesting new ideas were hatched…

It was great to find so many talented people are based in the area, whether they’re working for large companies, small companies or freelancing, and to be able to find out more about what they’re working on.

The plan is to meet up once a month, so I’ll share the details of the next event soon, and possibly introduce some chances to learn more about each other, specific projects and share some know-how…

Incidentally – if you happen to run a pub or suitable venue in Peterborough for 10 – 20 geeks to turn up for an evening (especially if you have plug sockets, wifi and somewhere reasonably quiet to chat), let me know!

And finally, huge thanks to everyone who was able to make it – my fears of sitting alone in the corner of the pub were unfounded! And really big thanks to @joffff for helping to organise and round-up interest, and @pjeedai for his help and buying some food for everyone to share…

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Filed Under: DPiP, events Tagged With: cambridgeshire, coders, collaboration, designers, developers, digital people in peterborough, dpip, geeks, marketing, meetup, networking, peterborough, tweetup

Into digital? In Peterborough? Fancy a pint?

October 20, 2010 By Dan Thornton 2 Comments

Ages ago I started to realise how many people worked in the digital industries in Peterborough, and how cool it might be to get together with some of them. In addition to bigger companies like Bauer Media, or the large number of digital people commuting to that London place everyday, I keep discovering more and more freelancers, entrepreneurs and damn interesting people who call this part of East Anglia home.

So, months after originally suggesting to someone that we should arrange some meetups, I’ve finally put the minimal amount of effort into actually doing something.

So, the first ever Digital People in Peterborough (DPiP) meeting in the pub is set for Thursday October 28th in the Brewery Tap in Peterborough from 7.30pm.

Whether you’re a web developer, designer, blogger, marketer, journalist, database specialist, seo specialist, or entrepreneur you’re welcome to come and have a couple of beers and chat to other people in digital, mobile and general tech geekery.

And you don’t have to be in the city limits to join in – surrounding towns and villages are welcome – the name is more to limit which venues we choose!

If people are interested, I’ll sort out more focused events in the future, but the first one is mainly to see how many people can actually make it to the pub on a school night, put faces to usernames, and see what happens.

I’ve even set up a quick community site for anyone interested, which will have more details on this and future events – it’s at http://dpip.spruz.com/