“Ask a person, not a search engine” is our tagline here at Web & Interactive Media Professionals (or, as we say: WIMP) which is a Sonoma County, California unnetworking group with big ambitions.
Founded in 2011 by a freelance designer (Melissa) and developer (me, Josh), our goal was simply to find likeminded folks in a place with much less density than San Francisco or Silicon Valley, but not far from them.
But we’ve since ballooned into a group of over 500 designers, developers, marketers, and other media professionals, and we’re quickly evolving into a full fledged trade group.
Better yet, we’ve found that our approach really is unique - one member captured it well when he said WIMP is “a local LinkedIn that doesn’t suck.” We have a casual approach to professionalism and bring together a variety of skills, creating a rich dialog and solid relationships without the pretense of a networking group.
By combining a diversity of disciplines we become more well rounded craftspeople, help people find their niche, and generate substantial outcomes in terms of job opportunities.
And we’ve hit a tipping point. We’re at a point where we need more than just our co-organizers spare time to really meet our community’s needs.
We have hosted over 70 events and barely any have been recorded, much less live streamed. And we want to roll out premium memberships to help underwrite our transition from meetup to trade group.
But to do that, we need to be a proper business and processes to ensure that we remain accountable to our community as we grow. That’s not cheap.
So we’re asking for your help. We are trying to raise $15,000 by May 10th so we can immediately begin recording and streaming our events as well as begin laying the foundation for our evolution.
Have you learned, earned, or made friends in WIMP? Pay it forward today and come celebrate our campaign’s closure with pizza and good times at our Crowdfunding Countdown.
Already 33 people have put their money where their mouth is, donated, and gained charter member status. Thank you for doing your part and making WIMP what it is today!
Your co-founder,
Josh