In late 2011, I co-founded the group that was to become known as UX Speakeasy. An old co-worker and good friend of mine Ben King was tired with all of the great UX people leaving San Diego for the Bay Area. We had no sense of community and the existing local groups like SandCHI and IxDA SD were at record low numbers for turnout, or completely dormant.
As of September 2013, roughly 1.5 years later, we have consistent monthly meetups of 90+ UXers with waitlists (up to 40 people) every time. We have put on 3 mini-conferences (all day Saturday) around Advanced UX, Sketching, and Mobile Design.
I have personally spoken at several monthly meetings, was on a panel about how Intuit does UX, and had Intuit Studio host 2 meetups in our space. This played no small part in Intuit SD earning a reputation of the place to be for designers and researchers.
More at http://uxspeakeasy.com
Mob'd UP was in July of 2013. In early 2013, I rekindled the dormant IxDA (Interaction Designers Association) San Diego group and merged it with UX Speakeasy. I am the local rep to the global IxDA org.
SketchcampSD was Oct 6, 2012 with 100 attendees (limited because of our physical space). I helped organize the event based on the Chicago and SF Sketchcamps
Results:
- Full-day mini-conference with 11 speakers, 7 workshops, and networking
- Tickets sold out within 24hrs!
- Intuit was a sponsor and got some great leads on new talent
Results:
- Full-day mini-conference with 11 speakers, 7 workshops, and networking
- Tickets sold out within 24hrs!
- Intuit was a sponsor and got some great leads on new talent
Our first conference was on advanced UX techniques and trends. Over 250 people attended it at the San Diego Zoo, from as far away as North LA and Vegas.