Creating high-quality communities
Gerard runs through the key elements in growing a successful tech community around meet-ups and events.
Summary:
Creating a community from scratch
Initially, you will be doing everything :) marketing, sales, design, etc.
Format
Top speakers
Top venue
Prizes
Drinks and Food
Recordings
Recruiters
You need to give boundaries/rules so folks don't abuse the meeting.
Secret formula, how the community is made.
Venue → contact speakers → start promotion → run event
Venue
Location!
Need to make it easy for people
Check-in and security
Are people going to need to wait outside? How will they get in?
Technical set up
Audio/video
Catering details
Space setup and cleaning
Setting chairs up, etc.
Speakers
Book developer advocates
Conference speaker snitcher
contact speakers from local conferences happening at the same time.
Networking
Use your sponsors networks!
Don't compromise the content
Promotion
A lot of people perceive this as annoying, but it's not actually that hard
Speaker update, sponsor updates (we have food, etc.)
Reminder - people will forget, so send a reminder
day-after message - this is important
Event
Pre checks:
RSVP/Security, speakers, catering
Hosting + schedule keeping
Making sure everything stays on track
Socials, etc.
Passion
A talk can be rubbish but if it gets people excited, it's good
Have FUN!
Planning is a lot of work, if you're not having a good time, you might need to change it up.
Scribble:
Unless you have a big team that can support you
You will be doing, like, literally everything.
You will be doing marketing,
You will be doing sales (almost), like closing sponsorships for the long term, so you don’t have to do the research every single meetup.
Goals
Meetups every 2 months
Recordings available
If you're putting in the work, you want to have a recording
Great speakers
Passion shows through
Great atmosphere and hospitality
-Dedicated teams for welcoming guests
Benefits of hiring a 3rd party to do the heavy lifting
You have audio, you have video.
They will record every single meetup.
They will give you people that you can call.
There’s also a desk walk-in that they will hand these name badges.
It’s like a proper meetup.
Of course, you don’t have to go for this level, but that’s something nice when you have been doing community for a few years.
Use your opportunities
There’s a lot of opportunities when you are doing this kind of activity, use every single one.
Driven by passion
You don’t want to be messing around,
You want to share a really strong message, so people when they go to your meetup, they know what they are going to get. And in this meetup, people, we’re going to get awesome.
And why? Well, because in my experience, passion is what makes things succeed. “This sounds, I mean, if I was a salesperson, this would be like, “Oh, my God, what are you saying, Gerard? This is like total BS.” No, I totally believe it, and I stand by it.”
Recruiters
Make sure you draw a line and make sure your organizers understand how you want the meeting to be carried out and things you don’t want.
Set clear goals.
Using RSVPs as a success metric
RSVPs can be very misleading. There’s a lot of people using, like, big numbers of RSVPs. When you go to the vendors, like, 15 people, like, where are the other people? What happened there?
Format
Top speakers
Top venue
Prizes and raffles
Can be used in promotions, you can use them to just share contacts that you have with conference organizers.
Treats and drinks and share them in the meetups
Of course, this is to create some kind of hype.
Recordings
“If you are building your meetup, you want to match your own style. You don’t have to match mine.”
How a community is made? -- Secret Formula
Venue
Location, location, location.
This is obvious. If you want to get people, you need to make it easy for them.
You don’t want to make it, like, in them, I don’t know, in zone 5 in London, you need to do it, like, in City Center, at least.
Check-in on security
Technical setup.
You want to host your event with a third party because they are going to take care of that. Taking care of that takes a lot of effort.
Catering details
Space, setup and cleaning,
Who put the chairs there? Who took the chairs out afterwards? Who cleaned your mess?
Venue basics
Speaker guidelines
Top speakers
Developer advocates
Why? -- They are paid for it. The company’s going to fund the travelling. They usually have, like, really good content.
Conference speaker snitcher
If there’s a conference in your city that you know about, contact these speakers and invite them, and most of the time, they will come.
Network
Of course, use any opportunity. Use the venue, the context that you need to reach for new venues. Use the networks for sponsors.
They have business contacts, reach them. Of course, don’t compromise the quality of the event,
Check about the content that they are planning to show.
Promotion tips
General Announcements
Speaker update
Sponsor update.
Reminders
Day after message
Social media -- Just make a lot of noise.
If you are a developer advocate for a big enterprise company, you need to align with the strategy, etc.
If you are an independent developer, then you're quite free.
Event steps
Pre-checks, RSVPs/security, speakers and catering
There’s a lot of, like, admin work. Maybe you can leave it to someone at the venue. That’s the best option.
Hosting and schedule-keeping.
This is the people saying like, “Okay, one minute, two minutes.” This is important because at ten in the evening they kick you out, and they are very rude, and you don’t want that to fall into your attendees.
Prizes
You want prizes, you want to give away tickets. You want to contact organizers, you want to contact vendors, you want to give discounts. You want to give these to the people that are coming to your events and also anyone.
Socializing and pictures
Part of a promotion.
You need to be sensible about how you decide this and probably, you don’t want to use like stock pictures.
Top ingredients
Ambition
Bigger venue, bigger speakers, silly things happening during the event. Raffles, prizes, conference tickets to GraphQL Europe to GraphQL people. It’s awesome.
Passion
Why it’s important? Why it doesn’t matter if the talk is completely rubbish if it gets the people excited?
Have fun
Of course, this is a lot of work. If you are not enjoying having a good time, maybe there are changes that you need to make.
"Yeah. I mean, this is myself. This is my personality. Just don’t listen to me, I’m a little bit crazy, but totally go and create a community that will benefit everyone in that community" -- Gerad
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