Mike Hall | Teach Yourself Beginning Community in 24 Months | PechaKucha 2013
Mike Hall presents a practical five-step approach to starting and sustaining a technical community. The talk emphasizes consistent repetition, observing participation, responding to subtle feedback, building trust, and eventually transferring ownership.
The Presenter
Mike Hall
Presenter, UGtastic
Mike Hall
Presenter, UGtastic
ā¶ Speaking
Hello. I'm Mike Hall. I do a site called UGtastic, where Iāve interviewed about 100 people in the tech community. When you get into it, youāre going to see itās really about amateur hour. Weāre going to get together and have some fun. Iām going to assume everyone here is familiar with user groups. Raise your hand if youāve been to one. Great. Letās assume the standard monthly meeting format. Today isnāt just āhow to start a user group. ā Thatās the easy part and we can cover it in five minutes. The real point is why youād want to start one, and what you learn as an organizer. Until youāve gotten up and run a user group, you donāt really understand what goes into it or whatās really going on in a session. Starting a group is five easy steps. The trick isnāt the steps themselves, itās that you keep doing them. Step one: pick a topic. Whatever youāre passionate about. Want to learn Clojure?
Mike Hall
Presenter, UGtastic
ā¶ Speaking
Start a Clojure group.
Mike Hall
Presenter, UGtastic
ā¶ Speaking
Want to learn Ruby?
Mike Hall
Presenter, UGtastic
ā¶ Speaking
Start a Ruby group. If your area doesnāt have anything going on, just pick what you like. Step two: find a place. It doesnāt have to be fancy. You donāt have to have a big sponsor. I did my first user group in a library and it didnāt work because they wouldnāt let me use a projector. Panera had one, but it didnāt work. The point is the place doesnāt matter as much as meeting somewhere. Step three: pick a schedule. This one is tricky because it needs to be something you can do consistently and that people can plan around. Step four: tell people. Make stickers, make a website, make a Twitter account, make a Facebook page, wear a shirt with your logo. Tell people until theyāre tired of hearing about it. Step five: repeat it 24 times. This is the hard part. The first four things are easy. It gets hard when you have to do it month after month, or when youāre sitting in a meeting because nobody showed up and you scheduled it on the night a big TV show was on. Itās okay to quit, but give it 24 months. If it doesnāt work for you, quit. But if you give it time, youāll make friends, learn whatās going on, and learn who you can trust so you can eventually turn the group over. And yes, just use Meetup. com. Weāre not here to show what great hackers we are by building a perfect site. Just suck it up, open a Meetup account, pay the fee, and let people find you. Now hereās where you start to learn. Pay attention to your meetings. It doesnāt just mean listening to the speaker. It means you are the emcee. You are the master of ceremonies, making sure people are having a good time, learning, and that the speaker is comfortable and has what they need. Look at your attendees.
Mike Hall
Presenter, UGtastic
ā¶ Speaking
How are they interacting? Are they talking to each other? Are people isolated?
Mike Hall
Presenter, UGtastic
ā¶ Speaking
Go sit down and talk to them. Then look at your speakers.
Mike Hall
Presenter, UGtastic
ā¶ Speaking
Are they uncomfortable? Are they getting lost in their slides?
Mike Hall
Presenter, UGtastic
ā¶ Speaking
Thatās your opportunity to step in and break the ice, ask a question, or take some pressure off the speaker so they can teach. Make sure thereās communication between the audience and the speaker. If thereās a lull or the audience seems disconnected, bring up the naive question and get feedback. Ask people what they didnāt like.
Mike Hall
Presenter, UGtastic
ā¶ Speaking
Did they like the pizza? Did they like the topic?
Mike Hall
Presenter, UGtastic
ā¶ Speaking
Pay attention to subtle feedback too: if everyone shows up for JavaScript but not Clojure, maybe do more JavaScript. UGtastic is where I interview people in the tech community: leaders, conference organizers, user group folks, all that. Please come to the site, look at it, and tell me how bad Iām doing. If you run a user group or have an interesting perspective on technical community, Iād love to interview you. You can find me at UGtastic. And remember: itās amateur hour. Weāre all having fun. You donāt have to be a super organizer to run a user group. Just give it time. Thanks.