Ubuntu Wiki

Meetup.com offering for Ubuntu LoCo teams

This proposal discusses offering LoCo teams the ability to use the meetup.com service to organize their physical events (and optionally remote ones) around Ubuntu.

Meetup.com is an online platform based on a monthly organizer subscription to organize events in local areas throughout the world.

Rationale

Continual growth in the number of events and regional participation from our network of LoCo teams is fundamental for the success of the Ubuntu community. While traditionally the LoCo Portal has been the central place to organize and promote such events, we have been observing a declining trend in numbers we need to address.

While there are other factors than the platform itself, and while the LoCo Portal has served us well in the past, it has not been catching up with the times. In recent years, 3rd party online event organization services have flourished and gathered a significant adoption by developer and non-developer communities. This is a proposal to use such an established service -meetup.com- to bring more visibility of Ubuntu events into existing communities which are outside of our traditional Ubuntu outreach sphere, to use metrics and API access to showcase our events in Ubuntu sites, and to facilitate and increase event participation.

Benefits

Up until now, Ubuntu LoCo teams have been using the LoCo Portal (based on Ubuntu infrastructure) or other services to organize their meetings and events.

In recent years we’ve detected a decline in events organized via the portal, along with a growth of online platforms specializing in developer communities.

The use of meetup.com would provide:

• More visibility to LoCo teams and Ubuntu events in general outside of our regular community

• Cross-collaboration with other Open Source communities that make use of the platform and increased discoverability
• Improved metrics on event participation, activity and size of local communities
• Use of an established external service already successful in connecting communities and easing event organization

Meetup plans

Meetup offers several different pricing plans, which are detailed below. Ideally, an organization subscription would offer the most benefits.

Subscription for individual organizers

This option constitutes a somewhat decentralized approach whereby a leadership team would be in charge of organizing the events for each group. This team could be comprised of the Canonical Community team, LoCo Council and individual LoCo leads.

Basic

• Leadership team: up to 4 organizers
• Group members: up to 50 members

Unlimited

• Leadership team: unlimited
• Group members: unlimited

Subscription for organizations

This option constitutes a centralized approach whereby Ubuntu, as an organization, would have a landing page on meetup.com with a map and an overview of current events worldwide. See Docker landing page.

Meetup pro

Note: this is the offer the proposal currently considers

• Central landing page at meetup.com/pro/ubuntu

• API access to integrate data into community.ubuntu.com or LoCo.ubuntu.com

• Data reporting and analytics
• Communication tools

Application process

The offering to use meetup.com would be extended to all LoCo teams at no cost for them. The subscription could be covered either via the Community Donations Program or Canonical. However, to ensure the funds are being spent only on active groups that are willing to make use of the service and organize and run events, sign up would not be automatic.

An application process will need to be put in place to allow those LoCo teams interested to request a group. This could be a new process or the existing verification process could be repurposed for meetup.com sign up.

Opt-in and LoCo Portal integration

While we would like to encourage LoCo teams to use the service, it should not be forced upon them. As such, the service should be opt-in, and where possible, integrated with the LoCo portal by means of the meetup.com API.

CategoryLoCoTeams