I just got back from an exhilarating, week long Automattic company meetup in San Diego. We’ve now done 9 full company meetups over the last 6 years (plus dozens of smaller team ones), and I wanted to write down some tips on how to run a company meetup while it’s fresh in my mind:

1. Focus on connecting people: We call our get-togethers meetups – instead of off-sites or retreats – because our primary goal is to get everyone on the team to meet and to get to know each other better (not to get away or retreat from our office). We’re distributed (mostly working from home), so in-person meetups are especially important for us, but I think it would be beneficial to any company to get everyone together once or twice a year to spend time with each other to deepen personal connections and get to know the “people…