I started a Meetup. It was terrifying…

I recently logged into Evernote after 3 years to find an article sitting there of the day I started a Meetup… I am going to leave it untouched as not to tarnish my 3 year younger self. It’s quite neat looking back at the message left by myself and bringing back the emotion of how terrifying and exciting the period actually was…

In any case… enjoy.

Being someone who has always found value in surrounding yourself with clever and creative individuals I was quick to start going to local community Meetup groups dealing with a fairly wide range of development topics from languages I had simply heard about to passion topics of mine such as front end development languages.

After attending Meetups for a good year or so I started to consider the idea of being a speaker myself. Often the organizer of such groups would ask around for volunteers to speak however with what I saw as such high caliber speakers, I wondered how I would compare when talking about what I know.

I ummed and ahhed for quite a while like someone waiting to go in on a game of skip-rope waiting for that opportunity to pounce at the next request. And then that moment arose. Being a fairly regular twitter user (@lindsay_jopson)

I had made friends with quite a few people in the ‘meetup’ community, when one certain individual suggested that my city had the need for a CSS meetup and “@lindsay_jopson this should be you”. This was my turn to jump in on this game. I quickly replied to the auspicious tweet with “I could do one….” with which the out come was “do it.” so I did.

I jumped onto www.meetup.com started the CSS group and *poof… It was real. I quickly tweeted out to the twittersphere [insert image]

After two days there were just over 50 members of the group. People were obviously keen to get involved.

I setup an event date (around two months away) “that will be doable” I thought, and started looking for speakers.

I never really went into the Meetup group concept with the idea of being a speaker myself. I knew I could, and probably would at some stage however the main goal of the group I felt was to provide a platform for local like minded people share and be shown alternative or new ways to do the thing they are passionate about. Which largely included me.

Working in such an industry as web development it is clear that especially these days, the rate in which the technologies used are advancing are almost ridiculous. The question is How do you know your doing the right thing, and how do you keep up”. And the answer to alot of these things are… talk to people. Blogs and websites can provide you with a good amount of information, but throw me infront of a passionate developer who has personal experience in a technology and I will soak it up. This is what I want.

So anyway… back to the Meetup.

The day was dawning, there were 2 secured speakers Kevin Isom(@kev_nz), Jessica Alouette (@JessicaAlouette) & myself.

Terabyte was on board to cover the usual meetup supply of food & beverages & of course the venue.

The day was upon us, we had a full house of people willing to come (35 was all we could realistically fit) but with a current member count of 160+ people. That quickly filled up.

Once 6:30pm rolled around, people started turning up and after a quick meet and greet they were off being totally socially independent and i got to think to myself “wow.. so.. this is a thing now”.

There were talks, there were laughs and there was cricket to be watched (I somehow didn’t realise this was the night of the NZvsSA cricket world cup semi final)… but it was great.

Having now planned my first Meetup group, and been a speaker at the event, I can honestly say its a fantastic way to meet passionate, fun & amazing people in your industry. This was the first one I had ever organised or spoke at and I am DEFINITELY doing more. It is an amazing experience and I am sure the people that we meet along the way will add value and add to the passion of the craft that we love that is web design.