A meetup is a gathering of people with similar interests. This can take the form of a mini-conference, workshop, classroom-style lecture, and public discussion. It can have several names such as study group, reading group, and hacking group among others. My experiences are with technical meetups related to computer science. It is not clear to me how some of my insights may apply to other kinds of gatherings.
### Why host a meetup
It is counter-intuitive to many people as to why a person would undergo the challenging prospect of arranging a technical meetup for free. The benefits are twofold: it helps to increase technical mastery of a subject, as well as improves your networking skills.
There are debunked misconceptions that claim that technical mastery of the subject is a prerequisite for hosting a successful meetup. However, even though the organizer need not be an expert on the specialized subject of the meetup, there is a consensus that the organizers must be dedicated and interested in the subject of the group. There are benefits to having technical mastery on the subject, as it can drive attendance to your meetings.
### Challenges in hosting a meetup
This is not an exhaustive list of the challenges that organizers experience when hosting a meetup. We have highlighted a few issues to drive home the point in this blog post.
- An appropriate topic should be chosen by the organizer. In this way, a healthy discussion can be fostered in the group.
- The organizer should seek out collaborations as co-founders to reduce the burdens of hosting a meetup.
- It takes time to get quality speakers. Begin early and groom the available speakers to fit the needs of the group. Always have a contingency plan if a speaker fails to show up due to unforeseen circumstances.
- The organizer needs to identify a target audience and advertise the group to them. Advertisements can be made on existing meetups or social media. There is a conundrum about the size of the group. An uncontrolled size of the group can harm creativity and reduce the commitment to the technical mastery of its members. However, if the goal of the group is networking, then larger crowds are better.
- Select a location that is accessible by public transportation. The meeting location should be in less-crime-infested neighborhoods, as most meetups hold their gatherings at night (after the participants have finished their day's work). Outdoor events such as beer-drinking sessions where intellectuals freely share ideas should be located close to the meetup venue.
- Each meetup session must follow a preset and advertised agenda to minimize frustrations. Consideration should be given to ensuring the meeting starts and ends on time in order to prevent extensions. The material (research papers and course materials) must be accessible and free from copyright to reduce the risk of litigation.
- Mind your language to prevent issues.
- Maintain a positive attitude and be welcoming. Don’t keep guests waiting too long when they need access to the elevator.
Organizing a meetup can be a daunting task. There is a customer service aspect to it. You will get alerts in the form of an email from people seeking information about your group. Be calm and polite, as most of the questions are things that are already written on the meetup advertisement page. Ensure that all those who are seeking information receive a response as soon as possible so they can plan to attend the meetup sessions.
Based on my experience with organizing meetups, human expectations are very difficult to satisfy. Your best efforts may be misunderstood, and you may even get insulted. It is in your best interest to stay calm, give a smile, and cleverly redirect the insult to the sender while staying respectful and well-mannered. I once met a UBC professor who was happy that the paper discussed at that meetup was based on his Ph.D. thesis. He was excited about the study group and encouraged me to continue the great work. This was a compliment that has always kept me in a happy state of mind.
### Conclusion
The write-up is based on my experience in organizing meetups (Cryptography and Distributed systems meetups) in Vancouver. Our applied Cryptography meetup is based on the [book](https://crypto.stanford.edu/~dabo/cryptobook/BonehShoup_0_4.pdf) which holds once a month. The reliable and distributed systems meetup, where we spent almost 1 year doing the entire exercises of the Distributed System graduate program at KTH Sweden with material available here ([Course 1](https://www.edx.org/course/reliable-distributed-algorithms-part-1-kthx-id2203-1x-0), [course 2](https://www.edx.org/course/reliable-distributed-algorithms-part-2-kthx-id2203-2x)). Organizing meetups was a fulfilling experience that has made me a better person.
12/14
Please feel free to donate to support my work by clicking
