A day at JSLovers #Meetup
When I started JSLovers meetup 2 years back in Delhi, very soon I realized that apart from sharing knowledge on tech I need to educate people about meetup. It is a very new concept here back then.
I get a lot of questions that “What you do in a meetup?”, “What exactly meetup is?” and a lot of doubts and questions around it.
Every meetup is different from each other and it totally depends on the organizer how they want to run the meetup. Some do a simple meet & greet meetup, some do at a cafe, some do at a proper conference place.
JSLovers follows a few patterns to make them productive and useful for attendees.
In this post I will be sharing how JSLovers meetup looks like:
Pre Meetup
# Research
I do research to decide what should be the next meetup topic. I always want to keep the topic aligned with the current market trends. Many times I get topic from the community itself. People share their preference on which they want the next meetup
# Voting
Once the research is done and I have a list of topics I go back to my community and discuss with them which topic looks relevant to them and I get informal votes on topics.
# Speakers
Getting a good speaker is always a struggle. For me, most of the time goes here. I spread the message in community, social media, LinkedIn to refer the speakers. Once I get the leads — I set up a call with them to understand what they will bring on board and their vision.
# When and where
This is the most important step to pick the date and venue. JSLovers is Delhi/Gurgaon based and as organizer I have to make sure that venue is accessible from at least one public transport. Date is again a very tricky part, as we do a meetup on Sunday only we have to take care of many factors here too.
# Announcement
Once the topic, date, and venue is finalized. I go and publish the meetup at meetup.com/jslovers with the registration form.
To make sure that meetup will be successful we limit the seats and hence filtration of the audience is important step for us.
On the Meetup Day
#Door opens
The doors will open on a given time for registration and settle down at the venue. We keep the 30 mins free for everyone to settle in.
# Introduction
As an organizer, I prefer to know each and every attendee. Introduction plays a very important role in this. This also helps in breaking the ice and every person will get to know each other very well too.
# Code-labs & Tech Talks
Once the introduction is over we kickoff the code-labs and Tech talks as per the agenda and handover to the speakers
# Breaks
As a developer, I strongly believe — “Devs need a frequent refill of the drinks/snacks” and hence we do 3 breaks — 2 small and 1 lunch break to refuel the speakers and attendees.
We respect the privacy of people hence we don’t encourage any one to share their number as we also don’t share. As well as , we believe in respect of organizers, speakers, venue and audience. We encourage to avoid any conflicts during meetups.
Post meetup
We share the ppts/resources and pics on social media as well as on the meetup page. We start working on the feedback we got in meetups.
Tips:
- Always do RSVP and fill the form. Do not wait for the last day to avoid any chaos.
- RSVP only and only if you ‘will’ come. Meetups have limited space please do not spam the RSVP.
- Do read the agenda as well as pre-requisites before coming to meetup. Only if you are meeting the criteria, then only come.
- Please do not assume that speakers will take care of the things you don’t know. Meetups have time limitation hence covering everything is not possible.
- Respect the organizers, members, venue providers is very important.
- Do not litter the place. Please throw your used glasses/plates etc in trash.
- Always provide the feedback because that helps organizers and speakers to understand what they are doing good and where they should improve.
