I’ve always been in favor of trying to use the PASS tools and web site as much as possible, but it’s hard to argue again the discoverability of Meetup. Certainly we get people joining the list via PASS, but we seem to get more new people that actually attend via Meetup. Meetup isn’t free, but we feel like it’s good for us (while wishing it was better at paid events and cheaper for paid events).

I browsed through the PASS group list and saw a few variations – hosted only on PASS, on PASS plus Meetup, a link that goes direct to Meetup, and some that were blogs or otherwise externally hosted. Which to pick? It matters a little in terms of the effort to keep more than one updated. You have to update the PASS web site a couple times a year to “get credit” for the meetings as far as earning a comp to the Summit. Lacking a better plan, I opted to use both for now, but put minimal time into the PASS group site. Here’s what you see on the site now:

That’s all there is. Right now the process looks like this:

1. Create the meetup with the full agenda. (Except sometimes it’s a placeholder while you figure out the agenda)
2. Create the event on PASS.org as above. Skip entering the topic/speaker for now (you might not know and it might change).
3. Send an email reminder to the PASS list a few days before the event (and keep trying to get them added to the Meetup list)
4. Have the event.
5. Go back to PASS.org, enter the topic/speaker (so the speaker gets credit, helpful for earning their way onto the Summit schedule) and the attendee count.

So you could skip #2 and #3 to save a little time. Worth it either way? Who knows.

You’ll notice no sponsor logo or sponsor tab above. I like sponsors, but I’m not interested in loading/changing logos every month or even every quarter and I’m not sure showing the logos there provides much value at all to members or sponsors. Maybe we’ll do something on an annual basis, or combine it with SQLSaturday sponsorship, or just not worry about it at all. Sponsors will be per event and get to talk to the attendees there (or we will on their behalf) and I think that’s where the value is.