It’s hard to explain exactly what the Tweetups are all about.  Sara gave us an excellent writeup over the summer, so you might want to start there.  Reduced to the simplest possible definition, a Tweetup is a chance for the local online community to come together and meet face to face.  We always have fun, we always meet at least one or two new people, and sometimes — if we’re lucky — we even have working WiFi!

Since we don’t exactly have nametags or t-shirts, we’re not always easy to find.  But odds are good that we’ll be the biggest group of people there, and we’ll probably have the highest laptop-to-person ratio within a ten-block radius.  Our size varies every month from “a handful” to “several dozen”.  I believe our August Tweetup was the largest yet, while October’s was the smallest.

Regardless of size, we’re always a very friendly and unstructured group.  If you don’t know anybody, just walk up, say hi, and introduce yourself.  We usually go by our Twitter handles, for no reason other than simplicity.  If we don’t, there’s a lot of “Hi, I’m Dave” “Dave …  Dave who?” “Dave Sheppard” “I’m sorry, I … I don’t know who you are” “I’m floor9″ “Oh THAT Dave!  Oh ok, your website is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life etc etc” and so on and so forth.

Conversational topics runs the gamut from local politics to sports to web technologies to making fun of my drink order for not being manly enough.  Don’t think that because you just found out what a “blog” is you’re unqualified to hang out; all skill and experience levels are welcomed!  And although there’s no real age requirement (the bar is open to all ages until around 10 or 11), some of our topics may be inappropriate and/or excruciatingly boring for children.

Hope to see you there!

First, I had no polling problems whatsoever.  A handful of McCain supporters were able to circumvent the spirit of Pennsylvania’s election laws, though.  They hung around the end of the line slathering people with McCain “OMG OBAMA IS TEH SEKRIT MUSLIN EVIL TERRIST!!111″ flyers.  Since Pennsylvania’s laws state that political workers (those supporting a candidate or party, not those present to assist in the voting process) must remain 300 feet from the voting booths and 10 feet from the entrance, it was perfectly legal — if not annoying — of them to do so.  In fact, Pennsylvania’s laws regarding the election process are so vague that it would be entirely legal for the McCain camp to set up a booth with a big sign saying “Democratic Voting Station”.  To say that our laws “frown upon” deceptive practices would be a gross overstatement.  Maybe it’s time for reform.

And to those of you thinking “So what?  I’m voting for McCain, what do *I* care?”:  Imagine going to your polling place and seeing Democratic workers doing the same thing.  It’s entirely inappropriate behavior regardless of party.  It completely short-circuits the spirit of what can generously be called our voter protection laws.

Second, there’s been a lot of political talk absent on blogHarrisburg.  This is a good thing, and it’s entirely by design.  The topic comes up from time to time at the meetups, and we all seem to share the same views:  blogHarrisburg is about Central PA, not national politics.  There are approximately 28 billion sites out there covering all sides of the political spectrum; we don’t want to be one of them.  Instead, we’d rather focus on local and, to a lesser extent, state politics.

There are a few exceptions, of course, such as when a presidential candidate comes to the region.  Or when a local candidate’s office does something noteworthy.  They key to inclusion, as with all the other content, is that it needs to uniquely affect us locals somehow.  McCain’s appearance on SNL?  Amusing, but not really what we’re after.  McCain giving a speech to factory workers in Hershey?  Relevant.

So we all take part in an unofficial moratorium on national-level politics.  The beautiful thing about this unspoken rule is that we all do it voluntarily because of our shared opinion.  Nobody on blogHarrisburg is really barred from writing about whatever they want, but we all agree that local news — and local politics — deserves as much coverage as it can get.

Plus, it’s nice to have a politics-free zone once in a while.  We all know that national politics can turn otherwise well-spoken and intelligent people into ranting lunatics through Thanksgiving.  So thanks to everyone who kept focused this year.  There’s been a lot of tempting material, and I’ve had to suppress the urge to blog many times, but as we wind down to the final hours (days?), it was totally worthwhile.

I’ve been pretty much absent from the social media / blogging scene for the past few weeks, so I really didn’t get the chance to hype up this month’s tweetup as much as usual.  I’m working a ridiculous amount of overtime (almost 80 hours per week in total).  What little time I have left is dedicated to sleeping, grocery shopping, and not having a social life (in that order).  On the plus side I’ll have my student / flight training loans paid in full by early next year ( saving me 9 years of monthly payments and compounding interest), but the downside is not having enough time to do much of anything at all.

Nonetheless, tonight’s Tweetup was fun!  I was a little disappointed in my Bear Chili (“made from ground beef (not bear)”, the menu says), officially making this the first time I’ve had un-awesome food at ABC.  Also, the ever-flaky WiFi was completely out, so we were relegated to using cell phones for Twitter access (the horror!).

The fall weather was perfectly crisp for our final deck Tweetup of the year.  Just enough chill to let you know we’re in mid-September, but not unbearably cold (though we did move inside mid-way through).  That’s my kind of weather!  Next month we’ll be indoors (just look for the pile of laptops), and I promise to let everybody know about it further in advance.  See you then!

“Before I met the Harrisburg Tweeters, they weren’t much different from the people I followed [on Twitter] all around the country,” Danielson said. “But once I met some of them in person, an actual relationship formed and it changes the way you interact on Twitter. Now that people have met me, they know I’m the young one, and for me that’s a blast, because a lot of times I feel like everybody’s kid sister.”

The blogHarrisburg tweetups have really made an impact on our local blogging & Tweeting community.  Sure, we all know each other’s screen names and general online personality.  But actually getting together in a casual social setting — where you can put a face to the URL — creates an irreplaceable, special community among us.

After reading the article, it looks like everyone else feels pretty much the same.  When I launched blogHarrisburg back in 2006, this was exactly the kind of community I had hoped to help develop.  So to everyone who’s been coming out to the tweetups, and to anyone who’s planning on coming to a future tweetup, thanks!

One of the issues raised at past meetups is getting to know everyone, and how we identify each other.  September’s tweetup will feature nametags so people can share their URL, real name (if they choose), and Twitter name.  A little geeky?  Perhaps, but aren’t we all?  It will help break the ice for the less-outgoing among us, and it will help anyone new to the group to locate us.

I’ll also have a signup sheet so that we can track participation.  @SaraBozich conducted a sign-in roster at this past meetup; if you didn’t sign in, Tweet her a “hello” and let her know who you are.  I don’t plan on doing anything more dastardly with your information than publishing your Twitter username and/or your URL; your privacy is otherwise assured.

So thanks again to everyone who made it out, wanted to make it out, or even thought about making it out!  If you weren’t there, do consider dropping by in September.  We’ll likely be inside this time (although if the deck is still open and the weather is “fall crisp” and not “winter OMG FREEZING”, I’m all for going outdoors).  Hope to see you then!

We’re getting together this Thursday, 8/21/08, at our usual digs at The Abbey Bar (upstairs at Applachian Brewing Company in Harrisburg).  We get started around 7pm and wrap up around 9, though ABC is open as late as you care to stay.  As always, these meetups are open to the entire blogHarrisburg crew, as well as anyone from / around Central PA with a Twitter account.  If the weather holds — and it looks like it will — we’ll be outside on the deck for what will probably be the last summer-weather meetup of the year.

You don’t have to otherwise know anybody in the group to drop by.  Fresh faces are always welcome — new people show up every month!  In fact, judging by the progressive growth of the past few months, August should be pretty friggin’ huge.

This month we’ll be doing some unofficial roundtable chatting about advertising and revenue generation for blogs.  I don’t consider myself an expert on the matter, but since my site pulls in about 3x its hosting costs from AdSense, I figure I’m at least qualified enough to handle the basics.  And anyone with experience to share is welcome to contribute.  I’ll try to have a simple takeaway prepared with enough information to get new bloggers up and running with ads.

So mark your calendars, tweet your friends (self-appointed “Tweetup cheerleader” @Kathleen_LD, I’m looking at you here), and drop by for an evening of food, drink, and social merriment!  Feel free to post any questions or feedback in the comments.

When:  7-9pm Thursday 08/21/08
Where:  On the deck of The Abbey Bar (upstairs at Applachian Brewing Company Harrisburg)
Who’s Invited:  Anyone from Central PA with a blog* or Twitter account

First off, thanks to everyone who showed up at July’s meetup!  It was great hanging out with the regulars once again, and getting to meet a whole slew of new faces was inspiring to say the least.  It’s really quite impressive to see this big of a community forming in what is arguably a medium-sized city in a very rural state.  Judging by the steady growth of the past meetups, August’s promises to be even bigger.

This meetup’s business end will focus on advertising; specifically, how you can make money from your site.  This will be an open, roundtable discussion and not a formal presentation.  Anyone with experience in the area is welcome and encouraged to drop by and share.

As everyone knows, we do this on the third Thursday of every month.  The meetup is open to everyone from Central PA — not just Harrisburg — who has a blog, podcast, or any other form of self-published content, as well as anyone from the area with a Twitter account.  Whether you’re pulling 10k unique visitors per day or just contemplating launching your first blog, whether you’ve amassed a six-digit follower count on Twitter or just signed up for your account today, you’re cordially invited to attend.

Our meetups are about 60% social event and 40% business.  Typically, most of the shop talk happens towards the beginning of the event.  Typical business topics include promotion, advertising, site design, hosting, and industry trends.  Don’t expect full-fledged Keynote presentations or lengthy lectures — we’re a very casual group that has very casual meetups.  Group participation and roundtable discussions are the norm! 

Socially, the meetups are a great way to get to know your fellow local bloggers & Twitterers.  A profile picture is one thing, but spending a warm summer evening out on the deck discussing everything from regional politics to the local music scene over some of ABC’s specialty brews (or craft sodas, if that’s more your speed) is loads more fun!

* – Incidentally, by “blog” I mean “pretty much any site with original content that is self-published online”.  So if you’ve got an independent news service, photo community, podcast, or anything else in that ballgame, you’re included.  Come join us.

We started these meetups unofficially about a year ago.  Our first meetup ever was at Roxbury News’ Third Street office.  Back then it was just the blogHarrisburg contributors and the discussion was a lot more focused on how we could help develop the local blogging / social communities.  Starting with our third meetup, we decided to open things up to anyone locally who had a blog, and our fourth meetup was also open to our Twitter brothers & sisters.  For the fifth meetup (am I counting right?), which was last night, it was clear that word was really getting out.

Thanks to everyone who came out and joined in the festivities! If you didn’t make it this time, remember that we’re in the same place (The Abbey Bar, upstairs at Appalachian Brewing Company) from 7-9pm on the third Thursday of every month.  Things are very relaxed, and everyone in Central PA with a blog (or podcast, or anything similar) or Twitter account is welcome.

@EdGrohl posted some pictures of the event.  Anyone else?

We have these meetups on the third Thursday of every month.  If you’ve never been to one before, by all means, stop by and say hi!  Part social gathering, part social networking, and part excuse to partake in ABC’s excellent food & drink menus, the meetups are always very laid back and informal.  We’re just as likely to sit around discussing the finer aspects of local politics as we are the latest WordPress patch.  From time to time we’ll even delve into serious topics like advertising and SEO.  Above all else, it’s a great chance to come out and meet the faces behind the domains (and Twitter accounts) you all know and love.

The Abbey Bar has plenty of free WiFi to go around, so bring your laptop, iToy, or other gizmo.  Also, ABC’s food menu is awesome, and their house drafts must not be missed (be aware; a bit stronger than you’re used to).  ABC has been really cool about letting us gather there at absolutely no cost, so feel free to tell them “thanks” by buying a draft or dinner.

There’s no need to register or let anyone know you’re coming.  Depending on the weather and group size, we’ll either be between the bar and the stage, or outside on the deck.  Just walk up and introduce yourself!  Since we don’t know a whole lot of real names, it might be a good idea to let us know your Twitter name or your domain name.  And feel free to bring some friends!