Code Cleveland is a collective effort to foster the local tech community by providing support and structure to the people of Northeast Ohio.
We believe that an active and thriving community can play a monumental role in NEO's success by helping to:
- promote the local economy
- create and fill jobs
- connect like-minded individuals
- improve Cleveland's public image
- attract new and prior talent
- provide a natural entry point for beginners
joefiorini: The tech community means more than just programmers; it’s anyone involved in the business of technology (which typically means software, but could mean hardware as well)
Just like verbal communication, there are many different methods of expressing the same idea. We are not tied to any specific technology or language; these are simply the means, not the end.
If you're interested in learning more about a specific language or methodology, we encourage you to dig deeper into the NEO meetups that are tech-specific and can help you grow a particular skillset.
When you get to the tech specific communities, there is a sense of elitism that makes it easy to make new folks feel like they don't belong – even if you don't mean to.
Introduction to GraphQL doesn't do anything for anyone except supernerds.
It's pretty easy to throw around startups and tech in the same conversation, but the truth is, they're two separate beasts and should be treated as such. There's tons of support available for startups in the NEO area (think TechPint, StartMart, FlashStarts, LaunchHouse, etc.) However, not everyone wants to be a part of the Next Big Thing™ or learn how to raise seed money.
We're glad to support NEO's startup culture, but it is important for the community to be cognizant of this distinction up front.
Goal: Establish a set of communal visuals for use in related web, print, and apparel projects.
Goal: Provide an outlet for the tech community to gather around a non-technical social event. Think Cedar Point, camping trip, etc.
Goal: Establish one to two-day sessions based around specific objectives to allow affordable access to some of the most in-demand topics.
Goal: Work with local bootcamps to promote their strategy and provide both the student and the bootcamp an entrypoint for tapping into NEO's dev community.
Objective: Aggregate the most commonly-suggested learning resources to link out to as a courtesy to folks that are interested in getting a primer on a new topic.
Goal: provide a monthly low-pressure event to connect with others that are involved in the local community.
Meetups and organizations cost money. Code Cleveland is always looking for good people with some interest in being close to the Cleveland tech scene who want to help out.
Goal: This is a lot of work. Think you can help out with any of the above or below? Let's talk.
Goal: Keep track of the events in NEO to ensure folks have a centralized location to see what happening.
Goal: Provide a means of listing all of the folks active in the NEO area who wish to be involved as a community member.
Goal: Allow job-seekers free access to a local job board funded by paid job postings by local companies.
Objective: Provide a list of all of the active partner and participating co-working spaces in the area as a resource for those looking for a place to call their office for the day or month. Potentially provide discounts to folks being referred through.
Goal: help meetup groups get off the ground or keep moving by providing a tried-and-true framework to implement.
- Limit driving. It's a harsh requirement, but the longer the drive, the less likely you will attend.
- Centrally located.
joshreedschramm: rotation can work pretty well. clerb, for a while (may still) had normal meetups and hack days and the hack days rotated
anthony: Our current office has a good size space for meetups, and a parking lot (the parking lot thing is a hang up for some people)
if you want the biggest turnout then Independence is usually the smartest plan
problem is finding a space there that isn’t some boring conference room in the basement of a soulless building
Goal: Keep the community up-to-date with the latest events, news, and happenings in the NEO area.
Goal: Learn more about what the Cleveland community is talking about by getting folks together for a discussion on the latest happenings and opinions in NEO.
Goal: Establish a sense of pride to be involved in the Cleveland tech community by providing wearables and stickables that don't look like they were designed by a developer.
No! The last thing Cleveland needs is another meetup (although I am sure we will meetup 🙂) The only structure the cleveland tech scene actually has is this slack team with 85 channels.
Launch League has been attempting to do this for a while in Akron. We now have 5 meetups in Akron that are all under the same umbrella. We actually have the organizers of those meetings meet quarterly just to talk through successes and failures, potential improvements, etc. I think it's been going really well for us in Akron. Our scenario consisted of a lot less traffic of course and less meetups that were competing so it naturally fit.
I always think more organizer conversations are better. I've seen days in this tech Slack where people are advertising different meetups for the same day, those collisions hurt attendance quite a bit in the more broad meetups