Building a Thriving Tech Community: Lessons from 5 Years Leading Ladies that UX Atlanta
When COVID hit in 2020, most tech meetups vanished overnight. Virtual fatigue was real. People craved connection but struggled with Zoom overload. Yet Ladies that UX Atlanta not only survived—we thrived. We became one of the few tech communities to successfully transition online and then rebuild our in-person presence stronger than before.
Over five years of community leadership, I've learned that growing a sustainable professional network isn't about flashy marketing or big-name speakers. It's about intentional relationship-building, strategic content curation, and creating genuine value for every person who shows up.
The Foundation: Personal Connection at Scale
The most powerful growth tool isn't social media or paid promotion—it's personal outreach. I make it a point to personally invite UX leads and managers to every event. Not through mass emails or automated messages, but genuine one-on-one invitations that acknowledge their expertise and explain why their presence would benefit the community.
This approach works because senior professionals want to feel valued, not marketed to. They'll come if they believe the event is worth their time and if they feel personally welcomed.
The takeaway: DMs over mass email invites. It may not scale, but it makes a huge difference to reach out individually.
Content Strategy: Skip the 101s
Here's what I learned early: you'll always get junior designers at UX events. They're hungry to learn and eager to network. But if you want to attract mid-level, senior, and lead-level professionals, you need to elevate your content game.
I focusde on intermediate and unique topics—subjects that haven't been discussed to death. Common struggles that we can tackle as a group. This strategy serves everyone. Juniors get exposure to advanced concepts and meet industry professionals they'd never encounter otherwise. Experienced designers get content that actually challenges them.
One of our most successful events focused on accessibility, but with a twist. I noticed everyone was talking about accessible design, but no events featured actual people with disabilities. So we created a panel with disabled UX professionals discussing their experiences. The attendance was incredible because we addressed a gap in the conversation. A couple years later, we created an interactive, crowdsourced live user research session where we observed a blind user navigate communication, transportation, daily living, entertainment, and leisure through mobile apps.
The takeaway: What questions or challenges remain unanswered? What can your meetups bring your attendees that a simple Google search cannot?
Building Your Speaker Network
I maintain a speaker collection database that makes sourcing talent effortless. The form asks potential speakers to list multiple topics they could present on, making it easy to match them with future event themes or pull together panel discussions.
But I don't stop there. I actively ask for speaker nominations from colleagues, community members, and industry connections. When someone gets nominated, they usually have a built-in audience of people who want to hear from them. It's organic marketing.
Pay attention to industry conversations. What keeps coming up in your feeds? What problems are people struggling with? Design operations was everywhere in my network, so we created a panel around common operational challenges. The topic drove our attendance because it directly addressed what people were dealing with daily.
The takeaway: Jot down ideas from personal conversations and circle back to those folks when their area of passion or expertise pops up as an opportunity.
The Art of Community Facilitation
Every organizer on our team actively engages with attendees and introduces people to each other. This isn't optional—it's core to our strategy. Even during our virtual events, we used networking breakout rooms where organizers would hop in to facilitate connections.
I always watch for people standing alone or seeming disconnected. Pull them into group conversations. Make introductions. Take note of interesting people and follow up with them later via DM. These micro-relationships compound into a strong community foundation.
The takeaway: Talk to the wallflowers. Introduce folks to each other. Be the social lubricant and this creates a much more warm and animated atmosphere.
Creating Momentum
Always announce your next event at the current one. When people are already engaged and excited, they're most likely to commit to future attendance. I make this announcement while the energy is high and the value of the community is top of mind.
Multiple touchpoints matter too. I send reminders seven days before events and again the day before. But I also use my personal social media to talk about why upcoming events matter to me, what I hope to learn, and why I'm excited about our speakers. Personal endorsement carries more weight than organizational promotion.
The takeaway: You are competing for attention and it’s too easy to forget upcoming events. Don’t be shy about promotion!
Energy and Inclusion as Core Values
Events succeed or fail based on the energy you create from moment one. I start with music and icebreakers—simple questions like "Where are you calling in from?" or "What's one good thing that happened this week?" It sounds basic, but it works.
New attendees need special attention. The feedback I hear most often is that people love feeling included from their first event. That welcoming energy drives repeat attendance more than any speaker or topic.
The takeaway: Always have some icebreakers ready to go!
Diversity as Non-Negotiable
Diversifying speakers requires deliberate effort. BIPOC and LGBTQ+ professionals notice homogeneous lineups and often won't attend events that lack representation. Sometimes this means extra work—finding workarounds like virtual formats to increase accessibility, or spending more time on speaker recruitment.
The effort is always worth it. Diverse perspectives create better content and more inclusive communities. Just avoid tokenism and be intentional about creating safe spaces for all panelists.
The takeaway: Can’t find diverse speakers? Look at speaker lists and voices from marginalized groups, diverse conferences, etc. Just reach out! Birds of a feather flock together, so ask for recommendations for speakers too.
The Long Game
Building a sustainable community is about showing up consistently, creating genuine value, and fostering real relationships. It's about understanding that every person who walks through your door—virtual or physical—should leave feeling more connected to their professional community than when they arrived.
Ladies that UX Atlanta survived COVID because we never lost sight of why we existed: to create meaningful professional connections for UX practitioners. The tactics evolved, but the mission stayed constant. That's how you build something that lasts.