Web414… A New Era

Web414, if you are not familiar with it, is a group of “web people” in Milwaukee that has been meeting for (roughly) five years, first gathering at the Milwaukee Web Design Meetup, and eventually branching off into a monthly meetup that’s been going on ever since.

For the first few years there was a core group of people involved, who were at pretty much at every meeting, took turns running the meetings, talking on various topics, and defining what Web414 is… or was.

Around 2009 Gabe and I started running what we called The Web414 Show, which was more of a talk show format than a typical meeting.

We had a good time, but we also worried that we were having a better time than everyone else. Eventually Gabe quit, and by then most of the regulars weren’t as regular, and I ended up hosting the meetings most of the time. Web414 became work, more work than fun, and while I still enjoyed it, I felt like it had changed quite a bit, and I wasn’t quite sure how to recapture the magic.

And through the years, more meetups and groups started appearing, many of them filling a specific niche while Web414 stayed more generalized, not being specific to any one language or technology. It’s true there were a lot of Drupal fans involved in Web414, but we dealt with WordPress, and Joomla, and plenty of other things as well.

I put together a presentation for the June 2011 Web414 Meeting which contains some facts, and a number of outrageous claims (in the name of good natured humor.)

I also made it clear to the small group that were at the May meeting that I’d be stepping down as the meeting organizer and needed someone else (or a group of people) to step up if they wanted the meetings to continue. Well, Dave Brixius stepped up. You can read his post on the topic over at Web414.

I’ll still be involved in Web414, and such things as BarCampMilwaukee, but those monthly meetings, as well as other aspects of Web414, will be handled by Dave and a team he’s putting together.

My hope is that Web414 becomes awesome again, and people get excited about it, and new things happen. My advice to you is, keep an eye on the new crew, and see what they can do. I know I will… :)