Today we had our first ever WBA Christmas Zoom with members reporting in from Austria, the UK, the Eastern US, and Western Canada. I’ll allow AI to give us a concise recap before I share a couple more human-centric insights:
The team discussed their experiences with AI tools in coding and content creation, including Claude for plugin development and GitHub Copilot for writing code, while exploring both benefits and potential risks. Various members shared their projects and initiatives, including a climate data explorer website, a Laravel-based golf booking platform, and a WordPress-based property management application, with discussions around monetization strategies and technical implementations. The conversation ended with updates on new tools and workflows, including a Raycast extension for WHMCS and discussions about ERP systems, while emphasizing the importance of maintaining connections through regular meetings and community projects.
So, the above does a great job of highlighting what we covered, but if you want to really get to the heart of what we do around here, it’s all about forming connections between web developers. We (Nic, Andy, and myself) started this year with the goal of branching out and helping form new WBA Pods*. A couple of podcast episodes and forum posts later, we had enough interest to start Canadian and European pods as well as add a new member to our own.
For the rest of the year, we’ve left it up to everyone to get into a regular habit of meeting. Meanwhile, we’ve all been doing our daily grinds — developing websites, writing code, servicing our clients, and generally running our respective agencies.
Recently, Nic and I posted a checkin on the WBA Community forum. We wanted to see how our new members were doing. How were their Pods? Anything we can do to help?
The above post led to today’s WBA Christmas Party. During the call, we definitely talked tech as noted above, but just as important, we were afforded the opportunity to connect with like-minded web developers in a fashion that stands out across my close to 25 years running my agency.
At this point, perhaps you’re thinking “this guy needs to go to a conference”. True. I love a good conference, and what we’re doing here isn’t that revolutionary. But that’s not the goal. At the WBA, we’re all about making simple, yet valuable connections. Exponential growth isn’t our goal. Instead, we’re taking time to establish good roots within the practical constraints of our workaday careers.
Are you a web developer/agency looking to establish connections with your fellow developers running businesses such as yours? Contact us, and we’ll invite you to a meeting.
*What are WBA Pods? They’re groups of 2-4 web developers who meet regularly via Zoom for the purpose of providing each other backup. The key to these pods is that “meet regularly” part. Nic, Andy, and I have been meeting bi-weekly since late-summer 2023. During that time, we’ve become colleagues and friends. Learn more about the WBA →