Sydney Meetups and Events: Information Technology / Web Industry / New Media

I often attend the many informal get togethers, discussion forums and social functions held by people interested in Information Technology / Web Industry / New Media etc in Sydney and thought I’d put together a list for other people who are interested in attending these kinds of events.

Silicon Beach Sydney meetup. photo credit: thatgrumguy

PS In case I didn’t make it clear these events are all free or at most have a small nominal cover charge of $5/$10 to pay for the food and drinks supplied by the meetup organisers.

• Web Standards Group (Sydney) – These meetups have involved from initially being about coding W3C standard HTML & CSS to being relevant for anyone interested in all facets of web design : whether JavaScript, Wireframes, XHTML, CSS, SEO, Mobile Web, Online Video, RSS etc.

  You should become a WSG member on their website and RSVP beforehand to the organiser Russ Weakley.

• Friday Social Coffee breakfasts – these are held every Friday morning from around 7am-10am at the Single Origin cafe (60 Reservoir st, Surry Hills) and are usually attended by people in the marketing / advertising / technology consulting fields. There is no particular organiser, just turn up. You can communicate with other people who often attend via Twitter or the Coffee Mornings Facebook group
• Silicon Beach – is held on Friday evenings after work at 5pm, Bar77 upstairs at the Grace Hotel (77 York Street, Sydney) and is usually attended by entrepreneurs in the Australian Information, Communications and Technology sector who work for themselves or in small companies where they don’t get to socialise with other people with similar interests.

  Nominally organised by Elias Bizannes & Mick Liubinskas but you can just turn up – Check Twitter or ask Elias or Mick if you have any questions.

• Fourth Estate Domain (FED) Sydney – Australia’s leading forum for people at the nexus of media & technology. Created by Sally Mills and Mike Walsh they host a monthly interview with one of the top CEO’s, thought leaders or pioneers in the space. Forget powerpoint presentations. The FED is about frank, entertaining and open discussion on the infamous interview couch. Join the FED Mailing list to be told about meetup times & dates.
• Mobile Monday Sydney is the local chapter of Mobile Monday (mobilemonday.net), a global not-for-profit organisation with over 90,000 members worldwide. The Sydney chapter has operated since August 2006 and now has over 1000 newsletter subscribers and approximately 100 attendees per event. As is obvious from the name discussions focus on the mobile phone/telecommunications industry. Join their mailing list and you’ll be told when the next meetup is being held.
• Wiki Wednesdays – are held on a irregular basis and at different locations but the short talks and discussions thereafter are always related to Wikis and they’re always on a Wednesday. Go to their website to RSVP so the organiser James Matheson knows how many people will be attending.
• TEDtalks Sydney – TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an invitation-only event where the world’s leading thinkers and doers gather to find inspiration from some of the smartest and insightful speakers in the world.

  TEDtalks Sydney meetups are at group member’s homes, projecting and debating 3-4 talks downloaded from the TED website around some finger food and good wine. Organised via a Facebook group.

• Sydney Business & Technology User Group (SBTUG) – Meets on the last Wednesday of every month at Microsoft, North Ryde. Refreshingly this doesn’t mean that discussions will be Microsoft dominated – for example the next meetup at time of writing is planning to discuss CMS’s of all kinds: .Net, WordPress, DotNetNuke, Craig Bailey, Drupal, Joomla, Lotus CMS, Moodle, Plone

  Whilst everyone is welcome to attend, the Sydney Business & Technology User Group is designed for senior developers, software managers and small business owners of software companies.

• Open Coffee Sydney – is about creating a regular, informal, meeting place for people involved in, or who want to be involved in, the Startup Industry. There hadn’t been a regular place for all the entrepreneurs, investors, developers, creatives and anyone else with an interest in startups to just hang out until this meetup group started.

  Meetups are on Thursday mornings at 8am in a Coffee shop in the Sydney CBD – RSVP via their Meetup.com group.

• Sydney Online Business Owners, is a group that meets on the 2nd Tuesday of each month – chech their website to RSVP and see the meetup location. It’s made up of people with existing online businesses, people getting startups of the ground and people with ideas trying to work out how to get them started.
• Sydney PHP Group supports PHP developers in the Sydney region through monthly meetings with presentations

  The Sydney PHP Group announcement mailing list is used to notify members of upcoming web development events in the Sydney region

• Socialtech – Any employees or in-house contractors who work in a social change non-profit/NGOs in the tech field are welcome to attend Social Tech meetups on the first Tuesday of every month, 6pm, at The Rose in Chippendale. More details at the Socialtech website and Socialtech facebook group.
• IA-Peers Sydney – If you’re interested in Information Architecture signup to their IA-Peers Linkedin group or email eric.scheid AT ironclad.com.au to find out when the next meetup is on.
• UX Book Club Sydney – seeks to enhance the abilities and knowledge of user experience professionals from information architects and interaction designers to visual designers and usability specialists to augment their understanding for excellence in UX practice, interaction design (IxD) theory while building a passionate local community. They meetup on the first Tuesday of every alternative month. Join the UX Bookclub Sydney google group for more details.
• Barcamp Sydney – is an interesting ad-hoc unconference with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees held once or twice a year and born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment community event.

  Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to participate. The BarCamp motto is: “No spectators, only participants”.

• Twitter is the current communications tool of choice for Geeks around the world so there’s no surprise that plenty of social events are organised by it’s members. @STUB is the main place for the Sydney Twitter community to announce meetups to drink and have a chat (the bar tab is often sponsored by technology companies) but plenty of other more ad-hoc events are held by Sydney Twitter members including Trivia nights, trips to the beach, picnics etc.

IF YOU KNOW OF ANY OTHER REGULAR EVENTS THAT I HAVEN’T LISTED, PLEASE ADD THEM VIA A COMMENT ON THIS BLOG POST