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I used to run a decent size event that would get about 70-80 people. Part of me wants to try an bring it back, but I'm not sure I have the engergy or enthusias

I used to run a decent size event that would get about 70-80 people. Part of me wants to try an bring it back, but I'm not sure I have the engergy or enthusiasm for it, and I'm just not sure there is the demand any more. It feels like there are a couple of factors at play: 1) Working from home has become the norm for many, there are fewer people working in offices in town that would be able to just pop in after work. Suddenly you have to "commute" for the event when you've been at home all day. It's much more of a special effort. 2) It feels like the enthusiasm and excitement has gone out of tech. This may be UK specific, or perhaps it's just me, but being part of the tech industry doesn't feel so shiny as it once did. There doesn't seem to be that excitement about it. There is so much more scepticism/cynisism within the industry. 3) Covid in general just seemed to really change people's habits. It's taken real effort to get back into the habit of seeing old friends in person. I feel like a couple of years of restrictions and lockdowns kind of broke a whole generation of adults and it's taking us a lot longer to rebuild those habits than I ever thought it would.

hugocast 3y ago
Sorry to hear that, but I understand. I host a meetup currently, and #1 is very true. I see myself as competing vs. staying at home, so I want to make sure each event I host is memorable. I re-started hosting in December '21, so I'll say that there is a subset of people that WFH that do crave social interaction and will make the special trip. I get 20-25 folks show up every month, so I know there are people out there. #3 is hard, and I can relate. It took a lot of activation energy to start hosting and attending dinner parties with friends again, specially after just having Zoom meetups for a long time.
seabass-labrax 3y ago
> 2) It feels like the enthusiasm and excitement has gone out of tech. This may be UK specific, or perhaps it's just me, but being part of the tech industry doesn't feel so shiny as it once did. Just conjecture here (from a fellow British person), but I think it might be something to do with tech employment that's changed. Listicles and blogs about Google's workplace culture were being churned out week on week in the mid 2010s, and working at a startup was portrayed as a futuristic, modern type of employment where you published a crowdfunding campaign, arrived at a makerspace to draw sketches of gadgets and GUI mockups with a team of enthusiastic colleagues, then, I don't know, did a TED talk before going out for a drink. The results for searching stock image sites with the term 'startup culture' bears witness to that stereotype! I was never part of that, so I can't tell how accurate that portrayal was. However, since then, the press has now moved to reporting scandal after scandal: fraud in high places with companies like Theranos, well-meaning but naive founders falling victim to hostile takeovers, all punctuated by the routine whack-a-mole of cryptocurrency scams. So perhaps it is not that technologists have become less enthusiastic as a whole, but the enthusiastic ones don't join many startups and FAANG-adjuncts any longer. Without the blank cheque of such an employer, financing a £££+ trip across the country for a meetup isn't so viable. I would certainly go to more conferences and hackathons if money weren't something to consider. And on a personal note; your comment history suggests that we're not so very far away geographically, so make sure to post on HN if you do decide to restart your event :)
- jlengrand 3y ago
  Thanks for your additional comments folks, it's good to hear from other experiences. It still love Tech as much as before, but I also saw the "vibe" change over the past years. I was wondering if it really was a thing, or mostly me growing older :). It seems it might be a combination of both.
- noneeeed 3y ago
  Hah, yeah, I think that's a pretty accurate portrail. There was a real feeling that we were part of the future. Now we just seem to be part of turbocharging the worst aspects of ultra-capitalism. Combined with the endlessly frustrating hype-cycles, it really doesn't surprise me that it's all lost its shine. I was reading some comment last week by someone bemoaning the cynicism around LLMs/GPT etc, and I couldn't really agree with it. Being in my mid-forties, I have been around for at least half a dozen major hype-cycles (including the previous couple of AI based ones), all of which have, at best taken a lot longer to come to fruition, and at worst have had sod all impact on the world. I can understand why people are sceptical that "this time it's different".

hugocast 3y ago

Sorry to hear that, but I understand. I host a meetup currently, and #1 is very true. I see myself as competing vs. staying at home, so I want to make sure each event I host is memorable. I re-started hosting in December '21, so I'll say that there is a subset of people that WFH that do crave social interaction and will make the special trip. I get 20-25 folks show up every month, so I know there are people out there. #3 is hard, and I can relate. It took a lot of activation energy to start hosting and attending dinner parties with friends again, specially after just having Zoom meetups for a long time.

seabass-labrax 3y ago

> 2) It feels like the enthusiasm and excitement has gone out of tech. This may be UK specific, or perhaps it's just me, but being part of the tech industry doesn't feel so shiny as it once did. Just conjecture here (from a fellow British person), but I think it might be something to do with tech employment that's changed. Listicles and blogs about Google's workplace culture were being churned out week on week in the mid 2010s, and working at a startup was portrayed as a futuristic, modern type of employment where you published a crowdfunding campaign, arrived at a makerspace to draw sketches of gadgets and GUI mockups with a team of enthusiastic colleagues, then, I don't know, did a TED talk before going out for a drink. The results for searching stock image sites with the term 'startup culture' bears witness to that stereotype! I was never part of that, so I can't tell how accurate that portrayal was. However, since then, the press has now moved to reporting scandal after scandal: fraud in high places with companies like Theranos, well-meaning but naive founders falling victim to hostile takeovers, all punctuated by the routine whack-a-mole of cryptocurrency scams. So perhaps it is not that technologists have become less enthusiastic as a whole, but the enthusiastic ones don't join many startups and FAANG-adjuncts any longer. Without the blank cheque of such an employer, financing a £££+ trip across the country for a meetup isn't so viable. I would certainly go to more conferences and hackathons if money weren't something to consider. And on a personal note; your comment history suggests that we're not so very far away geographically, so make sure to post on HN if you do decide to restart your event :)

jlengrand 3y ago
Thanks for your additional comments folks, it's good to hear from other experiences. It still love Tech as much as before, but I also saw the "vibe" change over the past years. I was wondering if it really was a thing, or mostly me growing older :). It seems it might be a combination of both.
noneeeed 3y ago
Hah, yeah, I think that's a pretty accurate portrail. There was a real feeling that we were part of the future. Now we just seem to be part of turbocharging the worst aspects of ultra-capitalism. Combined with the endlessly frustrating hype-cycles, it really doesn't surprise me that it's all lost its shine. I was reading some comment last week by someone bemoaning the cynicism around LLMs/GPT etc, and I couldn't really agree with it. Being in my mid-forties, I have been around for at least half a dozen major hype-cycles (including the previous couple of AI based ones), all of which have, at best taken a lot longer to come to fruition, and at worst have had sod all impact on the world. I can understand why people are sceptical that "this time it's different".