3 ms·

What do you think led to the success of your meetup?

by teej 18y ago

tptacek 18y ago
Glad-that-you-asked-let-me-tell-you-what-I-think. * We held it in a public place. Three other cities tried to clone ChiSec, but held it at office buildings. Think about a first-time guest: there's no risk of embarassment walking into a bar and not finding anyone. But knocking on an office door at 6:30PM? None of those meetups lasted more than 2 dates. * No RSVPs. I was going to go to a Chicago Ruby meetup a few months ago. Then I saw the RSVP list. A few mojitos in my living room started to look a lot more attractive. Not to mention: it's 6:15P the night-of; what, you don't want the people that just found out to show up? Every time I've ever had people over, it's always the ones I rope in at the last minute that make the party. * No presentations. Find the best presenter you possibly could, and at most 60% of your regulars are really interested. But next month, you're not going to get the best presenter you possibly can; you'll succumb to the Unix User Group Syndrome and host a talk on "Systems Administration Programming in Awk". * No sponsorships. We get asked. Of course we don't. This probably doesn't even bear explaining. My other suggestion is, go quarterly, not monthly --- at least at first. If you do 4 back to back monthly meetups, and attendance starts at 15, dips to 8, then 10, then 8 again, you've set a bad precedent. If you can build up a quarterly meetup and get 20-30 people in the room... well, if you pick the room right, 20-30 people actually feels like a crowd.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
- nailer 18y ago
  "* No presentations. Find the best presenter you possibly could, and at most 60% of your regulars are really interested. " I really like to learn new stuff, and I like teaching others what I've learnt too. Learning online is cool, but you don't get to ask as many questions. What about, say, 15 minute talks, always with demo code, always task based, no API-walkthrough talks ever? I've been thinking about a London Python group along those lines...
  - tptacek 18y ago
    What I'd like to do about this in Chicago is to arrange free classes. My office has a really excellent conference space, but in a different city you could book the meeting room at the public library (usually also an excellent space). We do a lot of training work, and I'm always interested in ways to test new courseware in a casual setting. That that's what I'd do about wanting to present to local hackers, is book a seperate event for that purpose only. For that event, I'd get RSVPs up front, and I'd use a private space.
- edw519 18y ago
  Thank you, tptacek. Excellent feedback! Bulletin board material in case I ever want to start something.

What do you think led to the success of your meetup?

by teej 18y ago

What do you think led to the success of your meetup?

Glad-that-you-asked-let-me-tell-you-what-I-think. * We held it in a public place. Three other cities tried to clone ChiSec, but held it at office buildings. Think about a first-time guest: there's no risk of embarassment walking into a bar and not finding anyone. But knocking on an office door at 6:30PM? None of those meetups lasted more than 2 dates. * No RSVPs. I was going to go to a Chicago Ruby meetup a few months ago. Then I saw the RSVP list. A few mojitos in my living room started to look a lot more attractive. Not to mention: it's 6:15P the night-of; what, you don't want the people that just found out to show up? Every time I've ever had people over, it's always the ones I rope in at the last minute that make the party. * No presentations. Find the best presenter you possibly could, and at most 60% of your regulars are really interested. But next month, you're not going to get the best presenter you possibly can; you'll succumb to the Unix User Group Syndrome and host a talk on "Systems Administration Programming in Awk". * No sponsorships. We get asked. Of course we don't. This probably doesn't even bear explaining. My other suggestion is, go quarterly, not monthly --- at least at first. If you do 4 back to back monthly meetups, and attendance starts at 15, dips to 8, then 10, then 8 again, you've set a bad precedent. If you can build up a quarterly meetup and get 20-30 people in the room... well, if you pick the room right, 20-30 people actually feels like a crowd.

deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
nailer 18y ago
"* No presentations. Find the best presenter you possibly could, and at most 60% of your regulars are really interested. " I really like to learn new stuff, and I like teaching others what I've learnt too. Learning online is cool, but you don't get to ask as many questions. What about, say, 15 minute talks, always with demo code, always task based, no API-walkthrough talks ever? I've been thinking about a London Python group along those lines...
- tptacek 18y ago
  What I'd like to do about this in Chicago is to arrange free classes. My office has a really excellent conference space, but in a different city you could book the meeting room at the public library (usually also an excellent space). We do a lot of training work, and I'm always interested in ways to test new courseware in a casual setting. That that's what I'd do about wanting to present to local hackers, is book a seperate event for that purpose only. For that event, I'd get RSVPs up front, and I'd use a private space.
edw519 18y ago
Thank you, tptacek. Excellent feedback! Bulletin board material in case I ever want to start something.