In Sydney we have had a great year of building a lively and vibrant social media community. Late last year many individuals decided that they wanted to be more connected with other people who were active in the areas of technology startups, entrepreneurial ventures and social media. As a result a number of initiatives happened throughout the year:

• Friday drinks under many names (FITSBAD, Officially Friday, Silicon Beach, etc) firstly at the Shelbourne Hotel then moved to the Grace Hotel
• Girl Geek Dinners with the kind sponsorship of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Thoughtworks, etc
• Mobile Mondays
• Social Media Roundtable Christmas Party (kudos to Jeremy Lebard & Mick Liubinskas for organising this last night)
• @STUB (aka Sydney Twitter Underground Brigade, and many TUBs in other cities too)
• Several BarCamps
• many other things that I’ve forgotten (feel free to add them in comments)

Twitter has been a key tool in getting these various groups together and building a sense of community. We have also used Google Groups, Facebook, Upcoming and plain old-fashioned email.

How do I know it is a community? The results are there. People have got to know each other in real life. There have been squabbles, there has been cooperation, there have been many ideas shared, there’s been fun and a few drinks along the way.

All in all a good year for the social media community in Sydney.

What really stood out for me is what an amazing bunch of talented, enthusiastic, and motivated people we have around. It has been great to be part of this community building and I’m looking forward to the mayhem we can create next year.

BTW don’t forget the inaugural CupcakeCamp Sydney is on in Feb 2009!