Meetups are amazing! They are a great way to stay up to date on the latest technologies, dive deep into interesting subjects, ask questions, and network.

Software Craftsmen attend meetups. They take pride in writing code that is well thought out, future thinking, and built to last.

So you decide to look for a meetup, but there isn't something local that covers your passion. You might be ready to create a meetup.

I started the UtahJS monthly meetup in 2010. It's been a great success and I want to share some of the things I've learned over the years.

What makes a good meetup?

Stay consistent with time and place. Find an event host and stick with them. It could be a tech company, a college campus, or a co-working space. If you keep meetups at the same time and location every month, people can make a habit of attending. This is by far the most important piece of advice.

Consider food. A lot of times venue hosts are willing to provide dinner. If not, seek sponsors for dinner. It can be something cheap like Pizza or Subs. And if you can't arrange dinner, make sure it is clear to that attendees should eat beforehand.

Keep it free. There are lots of companies that like to give back to the community, boost their image and network with developers. Try to keep the event totally free.

Make it interesting. What keeps people coming back is interesting topics. Some people will attend only a few times a year, and that is ok. Try to cover a wide variety of topics and make each month something interesting.

Focus on community. Take a few minutes at the start of the event to say welcome. Emphasize that it is the community's meetup, not yours. Encourage attendees to take leadership roles, participate, and invite others to join. Spark participation with questions such as: "Who is hiring?" "Who is looking for a job?" and "Who is new to this topic?"

Avoid bashing. Having an "X Tech vs. Y Tech" presentation is fine but a "Y Tech Sucks" or an "If You Don't Use Y Tech You're Doing it Wrong" presentation is not appropriate. Build people up regardless of their tech background.

Be inclusive. Reach out to underrepresented groups. Make your meetup a safe place for everyone.

Make your meetup a safe place for everyone

Where do I start?

Use a meetup website. I've enjoyed using Meetup.com but there new options such as freeCodeCamp's self-hosted Chapter software and All Events. Find a platform to announce topics, get RSVPs, seek speakers, and have discussions. Give your group a name and a method to contact the organizers.

Mix up presentation styles. Most groups lean toward lecture style. Try to mix in other things such as hands-on presentations, tutorials, or seeded discussions.

Fill time with lightning talks. If you run short, ask for impromptu presentations. You can announce it this way: “Does anyone have a mini-presentation, something cool that you’ve worked on, something interesting you saw, or a question you want answered? You can come up to the front and plug in your computer. Or just talk from your seat.” Some of the best meetings are those with lightning rounds and ensuing discussions.

Have a backup plan. If you end up with no presenter, have some simple backup ideas. Pick out a video you can watch and discuss. Walk through good tutorials or blog posts that interest you.

Attend other meetups. You may get great ideas and great contacts from another meetup. Be active in the programming community.

Create an FAQ. Beginners like FAQs. Link to one on your Meetup.com group page. Provide answers to common questions and links to help understand the context of your meetup's subject matter. Use GitHub, Google Docs or something else that allows your community members to contribute changes and additions.

Partner up. Look for co-organizers to help you organize and run the meetups. A good long-term strategy involves multiple people.

Make a logo. For inspiration, check out the JS Logo Registry.

Create a Code of Conduct. I've found that the Contributor Covenant is a great place to start. It is an important step for everyone to feel safe and understand your commitment to inclusive contribution.

How do I advertise?

Tell your friends and coworkers. Word of mouth is more powerful than most people realize.

Tell Twitter. Tweet and ask others to retweet. Contact influencers and non-profits in your area that would be willing to tweet your Meetup link.

Tell your Slack workspace. Look for a Slack workspace for local programmers or software in general. Maybe something tangential to your meetup. If there isn't one, create your own workspace! Choose a general name such as X City JavaScript or X State Web Development.

Tell LinkedIn. Create a LinkedIn group and add it to your profile. Update your status with a link to your meetup. Reach out to acquaintances to tell them.

Tell your local mailing list. There are still some flourishing mailing lists with members who would like to know about your meetup.

Use these methods monthly. As appropriate, continue to announce and advertise. Some folks may be enticed by a certain topic.

My story

In 2010, my friends Kip Lawrence and Nate Pilling and I started meeting in a conference room after work once a month. We chatted about JavaScript projects we were working on. We demoed some cool web app features. We watched Douglas Crockford videos.

Our goal was not to get "big." But slowly our informal show-and-tell sessions grew into a meetup. Now various organizers run monthly UtahJS meetup events in Salt Lake City, Lehi, Ogden, and Logan.

One important takeaway from looking at our origins–start small. Even after all the planning and advertising, your first several meetups might draw only a few people. And that's OK.

Meetups start small

Small events are fine. If you think back to the original goals of your meetup, you'll likely see that a small meetup fulfills those goals pretty well.

For me those goals were:

• Stay up to date on the latest technologies
• Dive deep into interesting subjects
• Ask questions
• Network

For me, all those goals can be met in small groups.

A word on COVID-19

At the time of writing, many meetups and conferences are delayed or canceled. But I say take advantage of the opportunity for fully remote meetups. Virtual meetups can be successful and even have some advantages. For one, folks who usually have constraints on time, location, or commute may be able to attend a virtual meetup. And two, everyone can see and hear the presenter more clearly.

I've had success with Google Meet (formerly Hangouts) and Zoom. Use what you are comfortable with.

The 2020 UtahJS Conference

We've been holding conferences since 2012. The UtahJS Conference this year is on Friday, September 18, 2020. The call for proposals is currently open and runs through April 30, 2020. Tickets will go on sale this Summer. Timing is dependent on the outlook of COVID-19 social distancing policies.

If you are reading this article from the future, you can go to conf.utahjs.com to check out our latest conference.

Final Thoughts

Don't be afraid to start a meetup. The experience is very rewarding. You and your community will learn new things, gain leadership experience, and make new connections.

Here's what it says:

"UPDATE October 15, 2019 1:30 pm ET: This payment change is currently only a limited test for a small number of groups. Organizers of these select groups have the option to opt-out of this test. We will not be making any significant payment changes in the near term. We are committed to providing advance notice before any changes go into effect."

They have bowed to the backlash. Now that their "flash-fry the frog" approach has failed, they are now going to "boil the frog" and roll out these changes over time. Meetup has not tweeted or otherwise alerted organizers of this pull-back.

This is a victory for event organizers and participants. But it's a temporary one. Meetup has already shown their true colors. It's just a matter of time before they start pushing this new RSVP-based pricing on more of their communities.

To be 100% clear: the freeCodeCamp.org community is still hard at work on an open source alternative to Meetup, and we are making steady progress.

(End update.)

Last night Meetup.com quietly rolled out a new pricing structure.

Effective "October", Meetup is reducing the amount of money event organizers have to pay each month from $20 per month to $2 a month.

Wow - that sounds great. Group organizers don't have to pay as much? So why is everyone so mad?

Well, Meetup is also adding a new $2 fee every time a person RSVPs for a meetup. Every. Single. Time.

Let's do some quick math. Before, it cost a group of people $20 per month to use Meetup.com to organize their events.

With this new pricing, let's assume you have a medium-sized meetup group that meets once a week and has 30 RSVPs each time.

The group's total collective Meetup.com fees will now go from $20 per month to:

($2 * 30 RSVPs * 4 events per month) = $240

Oh, wait - I forgot to add that Meetup.com will still charge group organizers $2 per month on top of this. So $242.

That's a 1,210% increase in cost.

Here's some more math.

Felipe Hoffa created this visualization to show how Meetup's new RSVP-based pricing would affect freeCodeCamp and its dozens of meetup groups around the world:

We've had 8,600 RSVPs for freeCodeCamp events so far in 2019. That would translate to:

(11,400 RSVPs * $2) = $22,800 in Meetup.com fees

Sorry, Meetup.com. Your software platform is not worth $22,800 per year to our nonprofit and its community of study groups.

Up until now, most meetups have been completely free. Meetup has the option of charging people to attend, but very few meetups use this feature.

A 2017 estimate put the total number of Meetup groups at 225,000.

This pricing change will destroy thousands of communities on meetup.com - many of which have existed for more than a decade.

Why is Meetup.com making such a flagrant cash grab? Because of the WeWork IPO Debacle.

WeWork bought Meetup.com in 2017 for an estimated $200 million.

And if you haven't heard, WeWork is in a lot of trouble. Last month their big IPO imploded.

WeWork CEO Adam Neumann resigned after taking $700 million out of the company and doing super sketchy things like buying buildings in his own name, then leasing the buildings to his company.

WeWork could run out of cash by November. So they are desperate to get cash any way they can. Which explains Meetup.com's sudden, dramatic price change.

So how has Meetup.com been handling this PR crisis? Well, they replied to some people using the same exact canned response. Then they just stopped responding. And now they're tweeting motivational quotes.

Meetup doesn't care.

They have crunched the numbers.

They know that a certain percentage of hobby groups and fitness groups - and maybe even a few big business or tech groups - will shrug and say "I guess people will just have to pay a fee now."

If even 10% of Meetup.com groups stay on their platform, they will end up making significantly more money than they are now.

At this point, Meetup.com doesn't care about sustainability. Its parent company, WeWork, could go into bankruptcy proceedings any day now.

This should just be yet another parable of corporate greed ruining a platform.

But this is more tragic. Much, much more tragic.

Because there are thousands of group leaders who have built up their communities on Meetup.com.

This isn't a slow-motion dying off, like with Tumblr or Geocities. This is all happening suddenly, and out of the blue.

Meetup is a huge platform. And its owners - out in the cold - have decided to set Meetup.com on fire so they themselves can stay warm a little bit longer.

What options do groups have?

The sad truth is there aren't many good alternatives for Meetup.com refugees.

If you create a group on Meetup.com, you will automatically get some amount of exposure - both from Google search and from Meetup's own internal recommendation engine.

Meetup has "network effects". As it becomes bigger, it becomes more useful. And more entrenched. Not unlike Facebook, Google, Amazon, or any other platform company.

Meetup.com benefits from network effects. Heck, they trademarked the common English expression "meetup" so nobody else can even use it.

I've spent the past 2 years looking for a good alternative for the dozens of freeCodeCamp study groups that are hosted on Meetup.com.

There are only two platforms that can give your group and your events comparable exposure: Facebook and Eventbrite.

Facebook has a "Groups" functionality that allows you to create events and allows people in your group to RSVP for them. It's free. And most people already have a Facebook account, even though fewer people use Facebook these days.

The problem with Facebook is it's hard to actually reach people - even inside your own Facebook group. You could have thousands of people in your Facebook group and only a few hundred of them will see your event when you post it.

You can of course pay Facebook to advertise your event. That's probably way cheaper than using Meetup.

Eventbrite is good, and is free for free events. It is less useful for groups with regular events.

And there are several functional clones of meetup.com as well - some of which are open source.

But none of these have much critical mass. Most of them are littered with groups created by people who were just tinkering, and events rarely get RSVPs - let alone actually happen.

The fundamental problem with these platforms is they aren't associated with any specific organization. They don't have a specific stakeholder raising awareness of the events.

These are big, general social network-like tools where anyone can create any type of event and make it public to everyone.

The good news is I've spent the past two years thinking about this problem. And there's a way we can get organizations onboard to bring their own networks.

A Better Way Forward: Self-Hosted Chapters

The solution is to let every organization host their own "Meetup.com in a box."

They can house this on their own servers. They can host this on their own website. And they can steer their own existing community to their own chapters' events.

This will give each organization full ownership and full control over their data. It will also let them configure the tool however best suits their chapters.

Organizations will no longer need to rely on a Meetup's big centralized directory of disparate groups and events. Instead, they can focus on growing their own audiences, boosting their own local SEO, and building their own event mailing lists.

freeCodeCamp is a donor-supported nonprofit. For the past 5 years, dozens of our local chapters have paid Meetup the $20 per month fee - totaling $10,000s of volunteers' money.

We have a Meetup problem. And we are building a solution for it. It's called Chapter.

Your organization will be able to use this solution, too. For free.

We started working on this last night in response to Meetup.com's announcement. And we're working as fast as we can to get this tool ready for you.

You can read more about this on the GitHub repository.

If you are an event organizer, or a nonprofit with a lot of chapters, know this: help is on the way.

This will be much better suited to your needs than Meetup was previously. And it will be free and fully under your own control.

The best advice I received about securing my first job as a web developer was to attend meetups. You can read more about why it's a good idea to attend meetups in Dominic's article here: Want to get into tech? It’s never too early to start attending meetups.

But assuming you already think it's a great idea, how do you actually overcome your nerves and step out into the meetup scene for the first time? Here's how I, a raging introvert, step out of my comfort zone at meetups – and even got my first programming job as a result!

Before you go – Homework

Research

The obvious first port of call for finding meetups in your area is meetup.com. Simply searching for terms related to the tech stack you like (React, Node, Mongo, Ruby, Docker, etc) or for the job you have, or want (Front End Developer etc), can turn up an incredible number of niche communities for you to join.

Some meetups choose not to list on meetup.com because of the costs, so you can also try straightforward web searches, or search on Twitter, for those. Contacting your local library can also give you a good idea of local meetups, especially those aimed at beginners.

It's worth looking into the meetups you find to see if you think it's a good fit for you - for example, do they have a code of conduct you are comfortable with, or do they appear to have a diverse community that values inclusion?

Also try to determine the format of the meetup ahead of time. Some meetups focus heavily on coding together – many freeCodeCamp meetups do this. Other meetups might be strictly social affairs where it's best to leave the laptop at home. It can feel comforting to take a laptop to a social event, and use it to deflect social interaction, but that's not really the point of going!

Develop some warm introductions

If attending a room full of strangers feels too overwhelming, you can try to reach out to other attendees or the event hosts beforehand. Asking an attendee or the host what to expect lets someone there know someone new is coming – I've yet to meet an organiser or regular attendee that wouldn't respond to this by looking out for you and maybe even introducing you around to people on the night. On meetup.com you can see a list of attendees, and many of them have private messaging turned on, so find a friendly face and introduce yourself.

Your first meetup may be a daunting enough affair without the possible pressure of thinking about how you are going to get your first job in the industry. That said, it's worth taking a moment to think about how you'd like to come across at the meetup, and thinking explicitly about what you plan to say about yourself.

It's not just about you, and treating it solely as a job fair won't be as enjoyable as it could otherwise be. But doing a little 'interview prep' beforehand, when the stakes are much lower than a real interview, can really boost your confidence should the opportunity to sell yourself come along.

Prepare to fly solo

It is tempting to take a friend with you. I would strongly advise against this, or at the very least, if you do take a friend, split up and act like you're both going solo while there. It is far too easy and tempting to solely rely on each other and avoid meeting new people if you have an easy alternative with you already.

While you're there

You made it! You actually set foot inside a room full of strangers gathered around their shared love of serverless architecture, or functional programming, or pushing divs around a screen! These are your people – relax and enjoy your night!

Icebreakers and conversations

Talk to people. Some will call this networking, and you may think that is a dirty word, but you came here to meet people, so go meet them.

My 100% successful tactic for starting a conversation at a meetup is this:

1. find someone standing on their own;
2. walk over to them at an unhurried pace; and
3. say 'Hi! I'm {insert-your-name}'
4. you can also extend a hand for a shake if that's your bag.
5. They will then reciprocate, so listen carefully for their name, and repeat it back to them, like 'Hi {insert-their-name}! Nice, to meet you.'

Then ask them if their interest in {reason-for-the-meetup} is because of work or just for fun.

This is the best icebreaker because it's open and allows them to start talking either about their work or just their interests in general. It has never let me down.

The trick to engaging with people well at meetups is to ask thoughtful questions and listen to their answers. It can be tempting to jump in with your unsolicited elevator pitch about yourself as soon as you get a whiff of the possibility that someone might have a job vacancy, but you are much better served by conversing naturally with people and probing into what they tell you with more thoughtful questions.

Generally, asking people about their experiences or soliciting their ideas about a topic are the best way to go.

• Oh, what was your experience with that particular technology like?
• What would you recommend to someone that was just getting started with that technology?
• How did you find the interview experience at that company?
• What sort of challenges are you facing with this stuff at the moment?

That kind of thing.

Another tip I picked up from an excellent meetup and conference organiser, @LJKenward, was this: when chatting with others, stand in open circles (a.k.a the Pac-Man rule). It can be hard enough approaching strangers without physical barriers. Try to stand in circles with gaps, so other people can join you.

The subtle art of giving your elevator pitch

If you are looking for work, you will likely have the opportunity to tell people about your situation and skill set at some point.

Keep it brief:

• what kind of role you're looking for;
• what kind of values you have that you think a team would benefit from;
• what projects you've worked on that have allowed you to develop your technical skills.

This is not a moment to be self-deprecating. Talk about yourself confidently and show your passion for the technology you like to use. If this is an opportunity that was meant for you, this is all you'll need to do for now!

Afterwards – Homework, part 2

Amazing! You did it! The thrill of going to your first meetup and it having gone well is hard to describe.

Now that it's over, find a few of the people you met (either through Twitter or the Meetup.com private messages) and send a short message about how much you enjoyed meeting them. Following on Twitter is great for this, since it allows you to remain reasonably passively in touch, while still developing your connection after the event.

From here, simply decompress, and fill your calendar up with all the new meetups you want to attend next!

If you see my name down for a meetup and want to connect beforehand, I'm always willing to do so. Or if you just want to discuss dev things, you can reach out to me on Twitter @JacksonBates

You’re interested in getting into tech, but it’s a whole new world and you’re not really sure where to start. You might have a lot of experience in your current industry that you want to bring across, or you might just be starting out. You might be interested in the more ‘techie’ side of becoming a software developer, or maybe you’re interested in bringing high user value as a product manager. Maybe growth management is your thing.

Or maybe you really don’t know yet — something just caught your attention, and you want to know more.

This is where tech meetups come in. They’re an open community just looking for new faces. If you’re looking for a first step into a new world and career, then meetups are the perfect place to start. No prior knowledge is required, just an interest in knowing more. And isn’t it always easier to chat with people before you need a job, when you are purely there for the experience? Take some pressure off your future self. There is no time like the present to get involved.

Three big reasons to go to your first tech meetup

1. A window into specific companies

Big meetups (but often also smaller ones) will often be hosted by a local company, or will even rotate between several company’s offices.

This gives a great opportunity to see inside buildings you would normally need a keycard to access, and get a sense of what it might be like to work there. Or even if you aren’t interested in them specifically, you’ll be able to compare what you see and feel against the places you are interested in.

Does it feel welcoming? How many people are there at 7pm, and what is their attitude? Is it very business orientated, or more casual?

I’ve definitely been positively surprised by some offices in the past, and also quickly got a sense of what is ‘standard’ for the offices in my area. Following on from that, it would be interesting to check out meetups in other areas and see if anything is different at all.

2. Connections with real people

This is definitely easier the earlier you start attending. Early on, ‘networking’ is less likely to be your first thought, and the lack of pressure definitely makes it easier for most people to have genuine conversations.

Veterans and newbies alike can be found at meetups, from all different backgrounds. Finding your space within that community can help you to understand more about what you are looking for. Being able to talk to people who are doing the job you are interested in to find out what it is like is far better than reading articles online (no matter how good the writer ?). Not sure what you want to do? The same applies — just talk to people.

And remember, ‘meetup’ is in the title — everyone who is there is open to talking to you. A bit scared to talk to new people? That will be the same for most people. If you are the one to take the plunge to say hi, you’ll likely be making someone’s day who’s less confident than you.

3. Learning unexpected things

There are meetups for so many things. Just keep in mind that sometimes the best ones wouldn’t have stood out if you were limiting yourself to the discipline you were directly interested in.

I recently heard Maria Gutierrez speak about remote working at an event I only attended to keep a friend company. To my surprise, I came away inspired and impressed by both her passion and methods. There were even new takeaways for me, and I’m someone who works with remote colleagues. So there certainly would have been a lot of info for those who have only ever been co-located.

And if you’re not yet in the industry, meetups also provide a risk free way to learn some of the ‘basics’ that are not actually that basic. Heard of ‘Agile’, but not really sure what it is? See if there is a meetup about improving Agile practices. No experience with UX? Get a sense of that world by spending a couple of hours with people whose passion lies there. Don’t worry about being the newcomer — people love to teach others about their own favourite thing.

4. Wait, what…?

Yes, I said 3, but… this one is an added bonus, and a little tongue in cheek so I don’t count it. As you may have guessed by the hero image up top: pizza! ? The larger meetups tend to offer food, and you can usually get gluten free as well as veggie options if you ask ahead. This helps you plan your day if you’re able to grab dinner at the same time as attending the meetup.

So how do you go about it?

The most universal place to start would be meetup.com. One advantage of using this platform is that, since people have clicked that they are attending, you can look up their name on the list when you inevitably forget afterwards! There are a whole bunch of meetups on there, and it is a great place to start.

Most places will also have more local sites as well, whether independent, or connected to a university or other organisation. The best way to find out what people use is to go to any other meetup you find and ask the people there. For example, in Scotland specifically, opentechcalendar.co.uk is a great example.

And that’s really all there is to it — so what are you waiting for? Find a meetup and find out what the tech world is all about!

Thanks for reading ?

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In October 2017, I launched my first open-source project on Github: the Front-End Checklist. In few hours, the project gained international visibility. After that, for a number of weeks, I had an incredible journey with many people around the world. I recently started giving talks in local communities around Spain and Portugal about the project, and I plan to check out France later on.

Doing these presentations gave me a different perspective and vision about the worldwide communities who organize meetups regularly. I discovered that there were an huge number of people who were looking for more and more content and wanted to participate in local communities.

After initiating the Front-End Dev Mauritius community, I know how complicated it can be to find people willing to share their experiences about Front-End Development. And for some, such as those who recently have moved from another city or country, having a welcoming tech community is important to getting setting up.

I wanted to share with you some of the things I learned before, during, and after these meetups I participated in throughout Europe. And I want to encourage you to participate more in local events no matter where you are today.

Lesson #1: even if local communities don’t always send you a response, don’t give up!

Barcelona, Madrid and Porto

Knowing that I would be on holiday for few weeks in France, Spain, and Portugal I decided to try contacting local groups in Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Aveiro, and Porto. I sent messages directly to the founders of local groups using Meetup.com, or contacted them via Twitter when they had specified their account on their profile. But, as I was expecting, I didn’t receive a lot of replies at first.

In Barcelona however, Bettina from Ignit, who managed the “Barcelona Front-End Development Meetup”, answered me really quickly. We decided, after some email exchanges and a phone call, to have a meetup on 14 March about my project.

In Madrid, the “Front-end Developers Madrid” organizers never answered me. But Juan Macias, a teacher’s assistant at “Ironhack Madrid,” did everything to help me setup a talk, which I gave on 16 March.

In Lisbon, Shannon Graybill from “Lisbon Le Wagon” showed a lot of interest in having me do a presentation. But we lost touch after we tried to call each other few times without setting a time. Besides, I decided not to present in Lisboa, but instead tried to do something in Porto (easier for me, as I was in Aveiro for two weeks).

Then in Porto I contacted Ricardo Mendes, who usually organizes “Porto Codes”. After few messages and emails, we decide to organize a talk on 5 April at Porto.io, at a coworking space in the middle of the city.

Lesson #2: try to know your audience, or prepare your talk to be accessible for anyone

One of the first rules I learned about giving a talk or a presentation was to “know your audience.” That is maybe the most challenging but nonetheless important rule you need to have in mind.

A few days before each talk, I went through all the profiles on Meetup, trying to know my future audience better. Unfortunately, most of the people don’t put their Twitter or Facebook account in their profiles. They don’t often answer some basic questions sent by the owner of the group when they subscribe, which makes it really hard for a speaker learn about the target audience of a meetup.

I sent a tweet to some people before the meetup in Barcelona, but I didn’t receive any responses. Next time ?.

Since I didn’t know my audience in advance, I then decided to ask about each person’s career just before I started my talk. I adapted my content and discourse depending on their responses and it seemed that my slides were understandable by any level.

Lesson #3: always check for other local events when you decide on a date for a meetup

I’m not a fan of football (although my father is) — I never felt passionate about it. But that was something that would’ve been useful to think about before setting the Barcelona meetup’s date. Twenty-three peopole planned to come, but just…2 of them came. I discovered afterwards that “Barcelona — Chelsea” was probably one of the reasons why people didn’t come.

For me, it was an awesome time. I was able to focus more on specific questions asked by Jimmy from Los Angeles and Costa Rica and Marcela from Mexico (I also won’t forget the delicious pizza we ate after the meetup at Anauco).

Lesson #4: printing your username on a tee-shirt can be helpful

Ironhack in Madrid (Spain)

That might sound crazy, but printing my username on a tee-shirt was one of the things I’m happy I did. Some people may ask you how to contact you or may be too shy to do so. But with your username “on you,” it’s impossible not to find you on Internet (or forget who you are ?)!

Lesson #5: remember to tell stories and share what motivates you

Telling stories is not that hard.

Lots of talks I’ve heard in the past, from different people, seemed “empty,” without any soul. Doing a talk is much more for me than a simple exposition of facts or numbers or code. It’s about a story, how someone found a way to develop their application, how some new technologies can improve the way we work in our daily lives, and so on.

In my case, it was how a “simple” checklist changed the way I see the Front-End worldwide community, and the way that some people will work in the future.

Lesson #6: you don’t need to be the best to share something with someone else

Talking about task runners at Ironhack Madrid

That is maybe one of the biggest lesson I wanted to share with you in this post: you don’t need to be the best or the expert to share what you know or what you’ve learned before.

Lot of beginners with less than a couple years of experience don’t feel confident sharing what they know with others, because they think they don’t know enough.

From my point of view, that’s the wrong belief. Whether you have experience or not, you always have something useful that can be shared with others. It’s as simple as that. And it’s something some people need to start believing once and for all.

Lesson #7: don’t forget to take photos before everyone leaves!

If your audience is used to sharing photos on Twitter or other social media, you’re lucky — you’ll have some photos of you to help you remember your talk or show the presentation you did. They might even come in handy if you want to write an article about it ?.

But taking a group photo with all your attendees is a fun thing to plan before everyone runs out of the meetup. I failed on that point many times, and I was only able to take a picture in Porto with the two organisers, including Tim Lai.

Lesson #8: ask for feedback to improve your next talks

This is another thing I missed, but I now know how useful it could’ve been. Having feedback on any work or talk can be really helpful when we try to improve ourselves and the way we present things.

In my next meetups, I’ll probably give attendees a bit.ly link redirecting to a Typeform quizz which I’ll ask them to fill out.

And in case you didn’t read my article about how everything began, take a look at it here.

Putting it all together

Giving these talks in different cities and countries helped me learn how much can be shared and taught to an incredible number of people. During these last few years, while learning and sharing my vision of Front-End development, I wasn’t able to see how large the community of people wanting to become better actually was.

We can start with something really small, and that small thing can give us the opportunity to meet people and give them something they needed or were searching for.

Now, let’s recap each point I went through:

• Even if local communities don’t always send you a response, don’t give up!
• Always check for other local events when you decide on a date for a meetup
• Try to know your audience before, or prepare your talk to be accessible for anyone
• Printing your username on a tee-shirt can be helpful
• Remember to tell stories and to show your motivation
• You don’t need to be the best to share something with someone else
• Don’t forget to take photos before everyone leaves
• Ask for feedback to improve your next talk

Thank you for reading!

That’s it. In case you like my article and find it useful, here are some things you can do to show your support:

• Hit the clap ? button on this article a few times (don’t be afraid, you’ll not break anything)!

Hit the clap ? button!

• Give a star ⭐️ on GitHub: https://github.com/thedaviddias/Front-End-Checklist (It’s important for me to continue launching other open-source projects)
• Follow me on GitHub: https://github.com/thedaviddias
  (Take a look on my last projet: the Front-End DESIGN Checklist)
• Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedaviddias

Hey meetup facilitators, friends, and future leaders! Do you want more people to show up to your tech event? Or at least the same number of people? Here are some ideas to try! These tips are based on observations of Boston’s meetup culture and my experience running a group focused on Ember.js (a front-end framework).

1. Don’t just ask for new speakers — create them

While Boston Ember is pretty steady, I’ve seen other meetups struggle to find speakers. As a facilitator, it’s my responsibility to curate a variety of talks, both by topic and experience level. To achieve that, I wanted to help bring in new speakers. I needed an enormous amount of cajoling to give my first tech talk, and I can’t cajole attendees at scale, so what can be done?

First, make an event of it! Find an experienced speaker who will answer public speaking questions. You could also assemble a panel. Check out the results of our attempt here, as presented by Stephen Vance. The audience was 100% captivated.

He asked the attendees which category of information they were most interested in:

• choosing topics
• preparation
• delivery
• follow on (handling audience questions)
• remote presenting.

Then, based on audience vote for the focus, Stephen took Q&A for the most popular categories.

Second, follow up. Set aside a slot for a new speaker. Advertise it that way. Many potential speakers may believe that they need to be “experts” or that someone else is more worthy. Help them overcome imposter syndrome by extending an invitation.

2. Avoid lengthy product pitch talks

Product pitches kill tech meetups. If you don’t take steps to cultivate new speakers, your only volunteers may be people who have something to sell. Your devs will get bored of sales pitches, and they’ll stop showing up.

Here’s the litmus test for whether it’s a product pitch. Ask the potential presenter,”What will the audience take away from the talk? What will you teach them?” If it’s teaching about a business use case, the company, the industry and so on, offer them a spot for a lightning talk, ten minutes or less.

I was a salesperson before I became a developer, and I can empathize with the product pitch speakers. But be firm. You owe it to your attendees. If the speaker shares more than a product pitch, you can invite them to speak again for a longer time slot.

3. Run a raffle at the end

Every month, I go to She Geeks Out, an amazing event run by some women who are real pros at community engagement. Every month, they do a raffle at the end of the evening, and the energy it brings to the room is incredible. People stay until the end, they cheer each other on, and no speaker is ever confronted with “So, I guess that’s it for questions. Bye, have a good night.” Instead, it’s “Who’s ready to win tonight!?!? It’s raffle time.”

At the end of the day, our animal brains love the chance to win a prize.

So, I tried this out for one of our special events, using some Ember swag. Because I’m a nerd, I printed out some Ember API methods and wrote a script to select them at random. Even the people who were already wearing some swag were intent on winning.

You don’t have to spend a ton of money either to add some magic to your event. Think of it as the cost of pizza for just one more attendee. Buy $40 of clearance stuff from ThinkGeek and you’re good to go for the year.

4. Be in cahoots with other meetups

In 2017, the Boston tech meetup scene suffered some serious blows. Many popular groups went poof, and seemingly the number of venues willing to host tanked. To form a support network, some local meetup organizers created Boston JavaScript. It is a Slack organization where local groups could share and grow together. Then, they invited every group and their organizers to join.

It’s important for developers to consider tools outside their wheelhouse. We all have a lot to learn from each other! The shared space enables us to share event announcements and collaborate.

I also reached out to some people in my Ember network to ask for advice. I spoke with other local members, past leaders, and facilitators in other states. They shared ideas I had never seen in action before.

5. Every month, take action to build sustainability

So what killed the Boston meetups in 2017? My guess is that the organizers needed a break, which is natural, but no one else was ready to take over.

It’s important to take steps today to prepare for when you and your partners will inevitably be moving on to something else. Don’t wait until that time hits.

I’m still exploring this myself, but here’s what I’ve gathered from other meetup leaders:

• Ask for help, even when you don’t need it. Your helpers will become the future leaders.
• Form a coalition. I recently heard of a meetup run by 6 people. It is very stable.
• Suggest many ways to help. Social media, livestream, and event advertising are all good ways for people to pitch in. Volunteers don’t need to be comfortable in front of a crowd.
• Let go of some control. Share responsibilities with your co-facilitators. Accept that they will do things differently than you would.
• Rotate the emcee, at least for certain sections of the event. People besides you need practice before they’d ever agree to be a copilot or take over facilitation.
• Get the attendees involved as participants. Ask them to be speakers and ask them for feedback. Have a session where people can propose topics they’re interested in hearing about. If people show up and leave without contributing, you may become the only one who cares enough to put in the work. Make it everyone’s baby.

In closing…

When I first stepped up to help run a meetup, I was terribly worried. I was afraid that no one would show up, that I wouldn’t be able to find venues/sponsors, that people would stop coming… that I wasn’t good enough. I got on the phone with the facilitator of the NYC Ember.js, Luke Melia, and I asked him a thousand anxiety-fueled questions.

He said something like this:

Before I answer any of these questions, I want to make one point. You are going to have so much fun! Running a meetup is an incredibly valuable experience. You will learn so much.

He was right.

Jen Weber builds apps for science at BioBright. She’s a contributor to Ember.js, a front end framework that comes with “batteries included” for better developer experience and productivity. She works to transform tech into an industry that welcomes new people.

What is Slack?

If you are new to Slack, it’s a great platform for team collaboration and instant messaging used in and out of organizations to help team communication and collaboration.

I first used Slack for a study group. You can create different channels to separate messages and discussions. You can create private channels as well to keep messages private in a team.

The best functionality is that it also allows integrations on it’s platform. And this is what makes it different than other messaging and collaboration platforms.

You can integrate Google Calendar, Twitter, Trello, and more. It also let’s you create custom applications like bots.

Project

In this post, I will walk you through building a MeetupBot for Slack using Node.js. It will give you list of meetups going on near your location based on your interest.

Feeling excited?

It will use Slack’s slash commands. You can type /meetupbot from within Slack to call the MeetupBot and it will greet you along with the list of commands.

I built this project as part of Chingu cohort with my 2 team members Zameer and Linus

You will need basic knowledge of Node.js and how APIs work. Let’s get started.

Steps for building MeetupBot for Slack

Step 1 — Project Setup

my repo URL : slack-meetup-bot
Glitch : glitch.com
Meetup_api : meetup.com/meetup_api

• First fork my repository here.
• Then go to glitch.com and create a project and edit the project name to a shorter name.
• Click on the Project Name > Advanced Options. Then click Import from GitHub. You first need to grant access of the GitHub repo to import your repositories into Glitch.
• Go to Meetup Api here and click on API Key tab and save that as you will pass it with every request to Meetup API.
• In your Glitch project open **.env** file and set a variable SECRET as Your Meetup API Key as SECRET=<MeetupApiKey>
• Click on Show Live in Glitch and you will get your Glitch project URL.

Step 2 — Create a Slack App

• Go to Slack apps and then click on Your Apps > Create New App.
  It will show you following screen:

Enter the App Name and select Development Slack Workspace and click on Create App. Now we need to do 3 things to see it working in our Slack workspace.

On the next screen you will see your App Configuration page with following things:

1. Activate incoming webhooks.
2. Create Slash commands.
3. Install your app to your workspace.

• Now click on Incoming Webhooks and activate it.
  Incoming Webhooks allows you to post messages into Slack.
• Next thing click on Slash Command” and create one as /meetupbot. Command as /meetupbot, Request URL as **<glitch-project-url>/mee**tupbot, and add a Short Description and a Usage Hint.

• By activating Incoming Webhooks and creating Slash Commands you should have already got a green tick on Permissions.
• Now click on Install your app to your workspace and that will take you to next screen to confirm and authorize before installing. And now you are good to go.

Step 3 — Test it in your channel

Open your Slack team channel and type /meetupbot and you should be able to see your commands popping up. Click Enter and you will see a greeting message from MeetupBot and a list of commands that you can use.

Since you have created only one slash command go to your App page and create 1 more commands as /meetupbot-show with Request URL as <glitch-project-url>/meetupbot-show (Follow step 2 — create Slack Command).

Now try this command, type **/meetupbot-show San Francisco and JavaScript** then hit Enter and you will see list of JavaScript meetups in San Francisco with details like Name of Event and Meetup Group, Date of Meetup, Status, Venue and Rsvp Count. Click on Event and it will take you to their Meetup Event page.

So that’s it, Congratulations you have successfully created a MeetupBot for Slack using Node.js.

Lets understand the code.

We are using the Google Geocode API to get Latitude and Longitude from location/address parameter that is passed in the command. This latitude and longitude along with interest parameter is then passed to the Meetup API to get a list of meetups.

Also we are using Express.js and JavaScript Promises, npm packages Moment.js for parsing dates and Request to make API calls.

What happens when you call **/meetupbot** ? It makes a Post request to glitch-project-url/meetupbot.

The request body contains user_name, text and other info. The reply object is the JSON response format for the Slack API.

What happens when you call **/meetupbot-show** ? It makes a Post request to glitch-project-url/meetupbot. The request body contains the user_name, text (such as location and interest separated by “&”) and other info.

We first make sure the location and interest parameters sent with the command are not blank.

Then we pass location to getGeocode method which is a JavaScript Promise that make calls to Google Geocode API and returns Latitude and Longitude, which is then passed to getMeetupEvents Promise to get list of meetup by making a call to Meetup API.

The Meetup API returns an array of meetup event objects and we iterate through this array to make an array of event objects in Slack response format and keep pushing it in the attachment array which we created in the start.

And that reply with event attachments is then returned as response and is shown in your Slack.

This response will only be visible to you (the user who calls the bot ) and won’t disturb other members of channel.

In the above code we have 2 Promises as follows:

• getGeoCode() — This take location as parameter and makes an API call to Google Geocode API with location as query string and returns latlong.
• getMeetupEvents() — This takes location and interest as parameters and makes API call to Meetup API containing the API Key, Latitude, Longitude, text or interest and radius as query string parameters.

The above code uses JavaScript Promise which is basically used to handle asynchronous operations. It allows you to write asynchronous code that is similar in style to synchronous code.

Also helps in avoiding nested callbacks by using chainable then. If you have nested callbacks in code then it looks like pyramid structure also known as “callback hell”.

Official MeetupBot

The official MeetupBot has one more command as /meetupbot-find to get list of meetup group in your location/area and also has Oauth code so that you can install it by clicking add to slack button.

You can find it here MeetupBot landing page and MeetupBot github repo. Start using it now.

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— Thank you :)

Originally posted here.