How many people attend meetups? Were they helpful?

[faromic]

I'm debating on signing up for some local meetups in my area. I mainly interested in networking with people with businesses and similar mindsets to my own.

I'm interested in also going to a programmers meetup like Ruby on Rails or something along those lines. The descriptions say to bring your laptop to code, but I was thinking of just going and observing. Talk to people about their projects, how they do things, etc. In general there are so many different types of meetups I just wanted to get a feel for what kinds of experiences people have had.

I also think hanging out with other similar people can increase your motivation and give you confidence.

Anyone go to meetups regularly or have been in the past and what kind of experience did you have?

 

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[Halffull]

I'm debating on signing up for some local meetups in my area. I mainly interested in networking with people with businesses and similar mindsets to my own.

I'm interested in also going to a programmers meetup like Ruby on Rails or something along those lines. The descriptions say to bring your laptop to code, but I was thinking of just going and observing. Talk to people about their projects, how they do things, etc. In general there are so many different types of meetups I just wanted to get a feel for what kinds of experiences people have had.

I also think hanging out with other similar people can increase your motivation and give you confidence.

Anyone go to meetups regularly or have been in the past and what kind of experience did you have?

These are really hit or miss. Some of them are really awesome, some of them end up being kind of lame. However, it only takes one meeting to discover which is which.

 

[Pinnacle]

I attended and eventually managed a local meetup of entrepreneurs. It was a highly, highly valuable and enriching experience. Met people from all walks of life, in all kinds of businesses, with common goals among all of us. We would sometimes have meetups where we simply chit-chatted and shot the breeze while others may be topic-centric (discussions about tax loopholes, legal entity selection, social media marketing, etc.). Meetups, I believe, are invaluable.

 

[andviv]

These are really hit or miss. Some of them are really awesome, some of them end up being kind of lame. However, it only takes one meeting to discover which is which.

Agree 100% with this. Just attend three or four of these and decide for yourself if your time invested there was worth it. And then come back and let us know your opinion about it, ok?

 

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[faromic]

I will do that and get back to everyone once I've attended 3 or 4 different kinds.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Hit or miss, depends on the group type and speaker. Some I attended as a participant were up-sells for the person speaking. 5 minutes into it and I realized I was being taught nothing; it was an hour long upsell on some 10 disc CD set.

I've spoken at a few so I'm hoping that my being the speaker was the "hit" vs the "miss".

Choose wisely.

 

[JAJT]

Define your goals before going to any of these...

If you go to an event just to observe you are certain to do just that - observe.

Don't say an event is a waste of time unless you went with a purpose that was unmet. If you go for ideas and get none, it was a failure. If you go to make new connections and did not do so, it was a failure. If you went to learn new coding techniques and trends and came away empty handed - failure.

If you go to observe then you can't possibly fail.

 

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