Community Building And User-group Organizing: Mike Hall Interviews Matt Polito | SCNA 2012
š Meet Matt Polito, a seasoned software craftsman with over a decade of experience in organizing user groups and conferences. Learn the key lessons he's learned in building and sustaining a community. Don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights! šš» #usergroup #communitybuilding #softwarecraftsmanship #techcommunity #mattpolito #just3ws
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
The Guest
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
The Conversation
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Hi, I'm Mike with UGtastic. I'm here at SCNA again. I'm sitting there with Matt Polito. Matt was kind of a fixture in the Ruby community here in Chicago for several years through Tiva, and he worked with the ChicagoRuby and Whitney City Rails Conference. But he loved the cold northern climes to go down to Jacksonville, Florida and join Hash Rocket. So you went down and you had a pretty good body of experience dealing with user groups here in Chicago and conferences in Jacksonville. Was it different going down to Jacksonville, or what did you experience?
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
It was. The area or the pool of developers is different, mainly because it's not as dense of an area as the Chicago and surrounding areas. So the Ruby group that was in place already had a dwindling headcount. It was tough to get people to come in.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Dwindling? Sorry, dwindling from?
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
From just, you know, every meeting seemed to get a little small.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Were you starting in the 50s?
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
Oh, no, this is maybe 8 or 12, I think.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Oh, really? Yeah.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
When we would have it in the city proper in Jacksonville, you would see a spike. So you could tell that more dark area, more likely people will come, which was the exact same case in Chicago as well. We had the Elmhurst meetings, which had a decent turnout, but when we merged with the other group and took it over to Chicago, it exponentially grew.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
It blew up.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
So you're not in Jacksonville. You're dealing with a group that's already having trouble pulling in people.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
What was?
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
So I actually wasn't a part of that group.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
Just been around the people who run it.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
And then my experience here, they decided to shut it down. It wasn't worth putting the effort and time into it because people weren't attending.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
So that ended several months ago. And then just recently, one of our developers at Ash Project decided to take it upon himself to reinvigorate the community with these types of meetings. And that just started last night, actually. That seemed to be a pretty good turnout. So I'm excited that we may have someone who's interested in bringing that community back because I am interested in participating here as well. So was there anything that, I mean, you mentioned the density and having a city meeting versus a suburban meeting. I'm assuming that the one meeting was a suburban. Similar. It's not quite a suburb, but Jacksonville is an interesting area. I learned it's the largest continental land mass. So even though you think it's just Jacksonville, it's not. Jacksonville. It's huge.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
And there's a lot of little pieces. We are at the beach, which is a considerable distance from the actual city. It can take 40 or so minutes. Oh, okay. So it's very similar to having a Chicago meeting and an Elmhurst meeting, which we found here that the people that went to those meetings would not go together. So you're looking at trying to figure out how to get people interested in the meetings again. Were there any lessons you took from the demise of the previous group and are going to try to do differently in the new group? We did things very similar to, or they were done very similar to how we did them in Chicago, being, you know, always have a specific time every month. So it becomes ingrained, "Oh, today is our meeting night. " Right, right. Always having the same location, which is something we didn't tweak.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
Because maybe the location is the thing that's going down. The consistency of schedule, consistency of location. I know that I will be near here on the states.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Exactly.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
I think that was really the big successful thing we learned with each other, really, was consistency. Because that consistency wasn't the thing that was happening with a lot of the other groups. And a lot of the smaller groups died. Also catering to beginners.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
Tends to get more people in. It's a broader audience.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
We've had an interesting conversation about that in Jacksonville, that the people who start a user group want to do it to be around like-minded people.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Right.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
But, and you say you're starting. And you have beginner to intermediate talks. And then you kind of get to this place where you no longer want to have those talks. You want advanced stuff. But the things that are still happening are not advanced. So then you start to stop going. And then I think that that's the point where headcount starts to dwindle, when people start mulling out or no longer have an interest in the types of talks. So it definitely is a balance. Because you need to have the beginner-level talks to get new fresh blood. But also find a way to keep the people that are there interested. So you have that sustained. I've heard some of encouraging the more senior attendees to be more active. They come in, they learn, and then they can start to teach.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
That would be ideal.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
I think that that doesn't happen often. It doesn't happen a lot here, as well, either. Well, unless it's .
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Yeah.
Matt Polito
community building and user-group organizing
Where you get to a certain level where you start a bigger job and you know who I'm looking at. . No, you stop going. So, yeah.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
Okay. Well, thank you very much for taking the time. Sure. Thank you.
Critical Insights
durable
"Consistency in schedule and location is crucial for the success of a user group."
durable
"Catering to beginners helps in attracting a broader audience and new members."
durable
"Balancing beginner and advanced talks is essential to keep the community engaged and sustained."