TopekaTweetUp
Twitter Meetups in Topeka, Kansas — #tttu
Around the same time I was part of Think Big Topeka, I also founded and ran TopekaTweetUp — a recurring series of in-person meetups for Topeka's early Twitter community. It ran from 2009 into 2013, and it turned out to be a lot more than just people meeting up over coffee.
What a Tweetup Actually Was
Back then, most of your Twitter network was people you'd never actually met. A tweetup flipped that — an organized event where local Twitter users showed up in person, put a face to the handle, and connected beyond 140 characters. TopekaTweetUp organized these regularly around town, tagged with the hashtag #tttu, with a companion Facebook page to keep everyone connected between events.
The Events
A real, recurring series — not a one-off. A few of the ones on record:
June 2009 — The First One
Brick Oven Courtyard Grille
The very first TopekaTweetUp I organized, reserving half the patio rather than overcommitting on a turnout I couldn't yet predict.
July 2009 — A Real Media Partnership
WIBW-TV Studios Tweetup
Billed as WIBW's first-ever party for Twitter users, held right at the TV studio, with Texas Roadhouse and Turkey Hill sponsoring the food.
August 2009
Topeka Farmers Market
Met up at PT's Coffee inside the downtown Farmers Market, aiming to bring 30+ new people out who hadn't checked out the market before.
October 2009 — The Biggest One
The Arty Party
A full ticketed fundraiser with Arts Connect — live blues, DJs, an art market, and VIP tiers with signed prints from a local artist. This wasn't just coffee anymore; it was a produced event.
November 2009
Hazel Hill Chocolates
A smaller, cozier meetup at a local handmade chocolate shop downtown — the series could scale up or down depending on the spot.
September 2009 — Beyond Topeka
Cross-Promoting the Lawrence Twestival
Used the site to help promote a charity Twestival in nearby Lawrence, KS benefiting the Lawrence Humane Society — supporting a sister community that had been running tweetups even longer than Topeka had.
An Early Alpha Test That Got Noticed
In mid-2009, I was the first alpha tester to run a tool called Tweetboard live on a real website — TopekaTweetUp. It enabled threaded conversations that anyone could join, and not long after, it got picked up by Mashable and even featured on Twitter's own official blog.
It's a small detail, but it's a good one: TopekaTweetUp wasn't just running local events, it was an early, willing testing ground for new tools in a Twitter ecosystem that was still figuring itself out.