
I Stopped Attending Programming Meet-ups - jacobbudin
https://python.sh/2017/4/why-i-stopped-attending-programming-meetups
======
tvanantwerp
I always mean to go to meetups to meet other programmers in my area, but 99.9%
of the time I don't actually do it. Every single meetup is in the evening
after work, when I'm tired and just want to go home. Maybe this is less of a
problem when you're in your early twenties, single, and used to staying out
late. But at this point in my life, not getting home to my wife until 9 or 10
so I can maybe making some soft connections just doesn't seem worth it.

~~~
aaronchall
You say you mean to go and then 99.99% of the time you don't. When I mean to
attend a meetup, I RSVP "Yes". I presume you do too.

If you can't make it, please be courteous and release your "yes" RSVP so that
people on the waitlist can get in and so that the organizers can plan more
accurately.

If you aren't likely to make it in the first place, please don't RSVP "yes"
for the off-chance that you feel like going - please wait until you know you
are going for certain to update your RSVP.

~~~
kordless
Using "you" here is a bit blaming, especially given the nature of RSVP is
"Reply if you please". If someone wants to RSVP for an event, that means they
choose the event for themselves in their internal view.

Out here, especially with social sites, RSVP is taking on another meaning
entirely. Those "slots" are fictitious (just like airlines overselling seats)
and assuming attendance numbers will be what something like Meetup says they
are is irrational. I usually factor in a 40% attendance rate - nothing wrong
with that if it's more, but it's unlikely to be 100%, unless one holds an
irrational belief their event is going to net more than another.

That's not to say it doesn't make planning for the event a bit more
challenging, but I seriously doubt there anything anyone can do about it other
than charging for the event, which may not be desirable.

~~~
aaronchall
That's why I said "If".

You're right, that on aggregate, groups do factor in a poor showup rate.

And that adds to the cost of hosting. You risk buying too much perishable food
versus running out of food and disappointing the latecomers.

There are options for dealing with this:

\- Charge for the meetup (but then people with fewer resources can't come.)

\- Track no-shows, and kick them out of the group (which is a burden for the
organizers and can penalize people with really good reasons for not being able
to make it.)

\- But just saying something about it makes a difference in the showup rates
(we tried it and it works).

So that's what I'm doing here.

~~~
nulagrithom
If you're "kicking people out of the group" and telling people not to "RSVP"
unless they're 100% committed, then I feel like you're more effectively making
people disinterested in your group than you are solving your attendance
estimation problem.

If your group is so large that you have a waitlist, I'd be willing to bet
there's a consistent statistic of RVSP vs Attendance that you could rely on.
Maybe check records of your past events and see if there's much fluctuation?

~~~
monksy
You would be surprised on the amount of people who sign up for a meetup group
and never attend a single meetup.

~~~
ghaff
Not the sort of meetups people are talking about here, but I'm on a bunch of
lists and a number of meetup groups where I have never or only rarely attended
an event.

~~~
monksy
I run a social group that has about 3.6k+ people on it. We have about 200-300
active people at any given time. Most of the people who drop out of the group
have 0 RSVP Yeses, and 0 RSVP Nos.

We do a lot to get attendance up and to create events that people want to
attend.

------
secstate
In fairness, I've been to rather expensive conferences that had talks that
didn't start on time, seemed to have whole tracks that were only loosely
related to overarching conference topic, and had many presenters who either
started too slow, or went too fast.

What I mean, I suppose is that this isn't a Free v. Paid issue. This is a
leadership issue, and you're welcome to not go. But if you believe in the free
meetup culture and it's ability to create community amongst otherwise
reclusive technology nerds, then they could use your opinions in the form of
leadership. A public blog post ripping on the people who give their time to
meetups is something of an antipattern.

~~~
gibbitz
How could the organizers put a price on an event that happens in the future?
And provided they had a time machine, how could they determine it's value to
you? Is it too advanced, too rudimentary? Does the description of the topics
covered reflect accurately the conversational direction of the future date of
the course/lecture?

I tend to take an opposite stance. Paying for knowledge is a crap shoot at
every level. I realize it every time I make a student loan payment on my
useless advanced degree. The only reliable way to learn is to teach yourself
through study and mixing with people who have different viewpoints or ways of
thinking. Paying for something that will motivate you or do that for you is
likely to be a con. It might not be, but why take the chance. Save your silver
bullet money for retirement and use lead bullets instead.

~~~
aaronchall
Well sometimes organizers do put a price on the event to minimize no-shows and
fund pizza or event space so they aren't beholding to a sponsor.

And I sometimes pay for those meetups. But I'm usually price-sensitive enough
and there's enough other meetups doing similar things for free that I don't
pay.

I want to say that the meetups that do charge money are consistently higher
value, but that's not the case. You just have to test them for yourself.

------
hvs
Do people go to meetups to learn something? I guess I always treated them as
networking events to expand my sphere. Sure, it's interesting to be exposed to
a new technology that I can then go and investigate on my own time, but I have
never expected to truly "learn" something at a meetup.

~~~
ghaff
For the most part, presentations aren't a great format for getting into a lot
of details in things like code and they generally shouldn't even try. They're
much better for making you aware of potentially interesting things and
highlight how you might use them. (It's also why I find most presentations are
better when they're shorter.)

As others have said as well, if you're going to a meetup to do the equivalent
of attending a lecture, you're probably not going to find them very valuable.

------
contenttypegeek
A slightly different debate, but as a digital nomad (who also happens to be a
programmer) I can totally relate.

Most of the meetings/conferences I went to ended with too much boozing and
laughing about silly stuff and not nearly enough networking/exchanging
ideas/helping each other to my liking. This was funny when I was in my late
20s, but I have different goals now.

Particularly, about the 'helping each other' part - I have the feeling that
everyone is pushing their own agenda most of the time, and there is very
little sincere interest in works of others - let alone helping/advising each
other. More like 'let's get the compulsory presentation part down, do some
quick networking... done? Let's get drunk'.

Maybe I'm visiting the wrong kind of meetings though. I'm guessing there's
also a big difference between meetups in the US (never been to one, hence
guessing) and in Europe (or elsewhere).

~~~
taude
In Boston, I'm going to use Python as an exapmle, we have a regular Python
Meetups [1], in addition to a Python Project Night [2], it sounds like you're
looking for something like the later, which involves a bunch of people of
various skills, hacking on projects, with some experts of the community
circulating around the room, etc.

I haven't been in a long time, but they were great.

[1] Example of regular Meetup:
[https://www.meetup.com/bostonpython/events/234430898/](https://www.meetup.com/bostonpython/events/234430898/)

[2] Example for April:
[https://www.meetup.com/bostonpython/events/237146736/](https://www.meetup.com/bostonpython/events/237146736/)

~~~
contenttypegeek
Yup, exactly - thanks for helping me figure it out (euphemism for 'phew, I'm
not stupid for disliking all those meetups').

Alas, to my knowledge, nothing even remotely similar like that exists here (or
at the places where I lived in Southeast Asia), simply because there are not
enough people who would participate, let alone organize/run such a meeting.

Thinking about it, though, it makes sense: Working 100% remotely/being a
digital nomad means moving AWAY from places like NY/SF/Boston/Seattle etc.
(where the action happens) because they are crazy expensive; This, however,
also means moving away from hubs where Python Project Nights are possible due
to the sheer number of Python guys.

To have the cake and eat it too, the digital nomad hubs should have enough x
(x=Pythonistas, Rubyists, whatever) to able to organize such
meetings/hackathons etc. However, once that would happen, prices would
skyrocket, and you would have to move again...

I don't want to derail this discussion to a digital nomad problem, so tl;dr:
seems like my global location, rather than my attitude or bad choice of
meetings is the culprit; To put it other way: living at tucked away islands
might be romantic, but it also means no quality meetings... :(

~~~
taude
Luckily, in your case, there's a lot of online communities to participate in.

------
FLGMwt
My least favorite thing is the always-in-attendance Master Bikeshedder.

"So at my organization... {2 minutes of uncomfortable and unnecessary
context}... would this solution work for us?"

 _after presenter mentions some syntax offhand_ "Can I use a special character
here? What about casing, does that matter? What about {some contrived example,
unrelated to the topic}?"

Really turns me off of a given meetup group if I know this person is a
regular.

~~~
aaronchall
If that's a problem, put it into your house-keeping - "please keep your
questions short and to the point, and in the form of a question".

I'm a member (but not an organizer) of a meetup that _doesn 't_ do it, and our
regular filibusterer will take up minutes of time with no urgency during Q&A.
Really annoys me too.

------
aaronchall
I'm a coorganizer of Python meetups in NYC.

You usually get what you pay for.

Our meetups are free, but they do take time out of your day. In exchange for
your time we offer:

\- Free pizza and beer (just Tuesday nights, not at weekend office hours - but
we usually have free tea then.)

\- Access to potential employers (usually the ones buying the pizza and beer
or providing the space - we give them 5 minutes to make a pitch about
themselves, and allow them to stick around and take questions from people who
are interested).

\- Access to other Python programmers who are at every point on the learning
spectrum, including experts who can help you.

\- There is also the opportunity to help other people who are usually
deserving and appreciative, frequently just trying to learn on their own.

\- (No one will bug you if you don't want to be bugged. We have a code of
conduct, but I've never seen us have to invoke it.)

\- From time to time, we have speakers, tutorials, workshops, and other kinds
of presentations and learning opportunities.

\- We also offer you the opportunity to provide these kinds of learning
opportunities for others.

I have been a member of our meetup for 6 years, and a coorganizer for the last
3 years. I have learned a lot, mostly on my own, but I've also had a lot of
opportunities to help others learn.

I haven't paid a dime (I think I've donated a couple of twenties) and I
haven't been paid a dime. But I've met a lot of people and it's provided me
with a lot of experience that is hard to match.

I've helped people build websites, do web scraping, and do data munging and
analysis. I've given talks myself. As a result of all of this, I'm teaching at
world-class universities.

Meetups aren't for everyone. A lot of my opportunities have come from being
there. They say a lot of success is in showing up. Well, I do that, at about
half of our office hours (I even ran them every Sunday for a year), and I
still try to show up, even though I've given myself permission to not do it.

You get out what you put into it. If you solely want a learning experience,
pay for college classes. If you solely want to get experience programming, do
free work until you can charge for it, and charge for it. If you want pizza
and beer, go buy it. You don't need a meetup for those things. But if you like
all of those things, you can show up, and we don't charge you money for that.

That's a pretty good deal, in my humble opinion.

~~~
contenttypegeek
> That's a pretty good deal, in my humble opinion.

Dude, I wish some Europen CONFERENCES offered the same (and for 100s of €s,
not for free). I'm not kidding - even big ones are shit compared to what you
are talking about (they might have more booze, food, or other material stuff
(as I said, there's a hefty entrance fee, so what) but I could only dream
about networking like you described above.

You guys in the US are seriously spoiled compared to Europeans...

~~~
aaronchall
We have the same kinds of conferences in the US. (I'm not going to name names,
though.)

The fact is that you can pay a lot of money to do just about anything, but
running conferences (and meetups, to an extent) is, for some organizers, a
business.

They're trying to create and capture value out of mostly thin air.

But as a community, we can create a lot of value for ourselves. It may not pay
a lot of salaries, but we can create an awesome experience with each other.

We just have to get organized ourselves.

The same organizers of the groups I help co-organize run PyGotham, NYC's
Python convention.

We are a bunch of unpaid volunteers for the most part, but we create an
awesome conference year after year.

It takes a lot of our free time, and we do it on shoe-strings and through the
kindness of corporations and non-profits. But we get it done. You can do it in
Europe too.

------
harryf
Interesting point of view but...

> I’ve decided I’m no longer attending programming meet-ups

Who is "I"? The "About" links to [https://python.sh/2017/2/bureau-of-
programming](https://python.sh/2017/2/bureau-of-programming) ... which doesn't
really answer the "Who" question.

To your post - meetups also perform a social function - that's the offset for
mixed quality presentations. That's if you like socialising with peers of
course...

~~~
dagw
_To your post - meetups also perform a social function_

Yea, that is mostly why I attend meetups. It's just nice to get a chance to
meet up with a bunch of people interested in a specific topic, have a beer or
two, and talk about that and related topics.

------
jpfr
You need to ask why the organizers of the Meetup are doing it. If they are
corporates, _of course_ they will plug their products. That's the sole reason
for them to invest their time. With this in mind, one can easily distinguish
between good and bad meetups before attending.

This post is not helpful for those who genuinely try to build a community in
their domain. Also, a _good_ talk compresses many days of reading and a-ha
moments into one hour. It's just a lot of work to prepare a good talk.

Background: I'm one of the organizers of a machine learning meetup in my area.
We (organizers) are PhD students, so building a strong and connected ML
community in our surrounding is an intrinsic motivation. We decided not to
affiliate ourselves with a company. Otherwise our quality control for talks
would inevitably be overruled at some point.

------
colmvp
I think it's a bit much to expect meetups, especially free ones, to explicitly
teach you concrete skills that are exceptionally well done. If someone is
doing it for free, then I can accept the fact that they spend considerable
time promoting themselves or generalizing their message (and specializing it
for a paid audience). In general, my expectations for free education sessions
are pretty low.

I don't think it's fair to expect what often amounts to volunteer effort from
the part of the organizers to provide the same learning experience as
institutions that have paid full-time employees.

Meetups however are a fantastic way to get outside of your social circle
(work, school) and meet new people. One of my favorite general meetups is
Civic Tech, since it's a mish-mash of people in the tech, academia, public
sector, and non-for-profits.

~~~
aaronchall
Exactly so, I try to avoid people who seem to want me to do all of their
programming for them.

If I do it all for them, they don't learn, and it's a bit of a waste of my
time.

What _I_ like to do is to help people get over a blocking problem on a project
by teaching them something they didn't know yet. We usually take their code
from a non-working state to a working state. Then I point out other problems
with their code, tell them what they need to work on (usually involving
reorganization of their code), and then I can (and do) focus on other things.

I don't run into a lot of dependent help-seeking types in real life at office-
hour style meetups. They generally understand that I'm going to work on my own
stuff, but they can come get me if they run into a roadblock.

------
chaosmail
Honestly, if you don't like the way certain Meetups are organised, the quality
of the talks, etc. you can always help to make them better. Just prepare a
talk such that most of the attendees can learn something from it. I am sure
most Meetups will be happy to have you!

Here in Vienna we have a couple of hands-on Meetups that require you to bring
your laptop and actually do something. Less people attend - but those that
come are usually very motivated. This is a good place/way to learn something
new.

------
settsu
I can absolutely sympathize with the post's author, having been to my share of
poorly-run events and those with poorly-communicated goals/topics.

However, I've also been to some that are run quite well, with clear & focused
topics, and where I have learned something practical or gained insight into a
particular subject from a speaker's unique perspective/experience.

And, yes, many of these events have a strong element of networking which is
clearly helpful given the job offerings and job seekers routinely in
attendance. Though I've no first-hand experience in the matter, seems like a
good starting point for a match between people who are being proactive in
their professional development and employers who value that.

"Some common characteristics of programming meet-ups" really should be
restated as "Reasons I stopped going to programming meet-ups". These would be
an excellent checklist for perhaps starting one that addresses these issues
since there are many who would agree and appreciate if someone (else) did it
right. You don't even need to be the permanent organizer, just an initial
facilitator or catalyst to get one off the ground.

------
stuartaxelowen
You have to pay for meetups in Japan and they are universally worse than the
ones in Seattle. Frankly, I love meetups: free food and drink and a chance to
hang out with people who like exactly the same stuff? Sign me up!

~~~
hodgesrm
I like meetups as well. The Bay Area meetups covering data management tend to
be pretty worthwhile--both the content as well as the opportunity to geek out
with fellow nerds. Open source projects in general have a good sharing ethos
that works well with the meetup format.

Plus it's pretty important to keep up contacts just in things go sideways at
your current gig.

------
protomyth
I recently drove down to Minneapolis, MN for Systems We Love. I'm not sure if
that counts as a meet-up. I went because the first one was interesting and it
looked like the type of thing I am up for.

It was interesting with the AV presentation being a bit of a unexpected
surprise. I guess I didn't expect hard core learning (nor should you given the
items covered), but I did get a lot of food for thought and strange ideas. I'm
always happy for the sparks these days.

It had plenty or opportunity to network[1], but I get the feeling the main
networking occurred after the event at the bar. That is to be expected and
frankly I have no problem with that, but I was a bit tired from the drive and
didn't feel up to it so I cannot really say.

The food and beer were good as was the facility. I enjoyed myself and its nice
to be around people who like technology.

I got to wonder about the nature of meet-ups in a world with YouTube. I get
the feeling that the social side of the event really needs be a draw to pull
people out of their lives. I get the whole unconference thing, but I wonder if
it even goes beyond that. What makes you say "I need to be there" as opposed
to I'll DVR (YouTube) it? I felt compelled to go because it was something
national in MN and the first one looked like it rocked. If it wasn't already a
thing, I'm pretty sure I would have ignored it. I really don't have an answer
on this one. Although, for me it was a chance to be around technological
people again. Maybe if you day job has a rich environment, meetups just don't
have the compulsion.

2) Strangely, I did not run into one person I knew from working as a
consultant in the cities in the later half of the 90's or as an employee in
the 00's. Maybe it was the nature of where I worked or maybe its age.

------
stale2002
People often misinterpreted the "point" or value of meet-up.

The one and only good thing about meet-ups is to meet and talk to other
programmers, in a fun, social environment.

Don't waste time listening to the speaker, or care about the stated "purpose"
of the event.

Just treat meetups like a bar full of techies, where the alcohol is free.

------
cf
As somebody that ran a successful meetup which I grew from 0 to 1500+ members
(now 2700) on meetup.com the article feels like it misses the point of the
meetups.

The presenter being late, disorganized, and talking down to the audience is a
pretty simple problem to fix. Screen your presenters! Don't let people who you
know would give a bad talk speak. With our meetup, we would send some
guidelines along with some information on the kind of audience we tend to
attract. This along with front-loading the socialization addressed nearly all
problems the author had.

Our meetup was and continues to be sponsored and we never felt the need to
give them a plug. We thanked the companies for hosting us, encouraged people
to talk to each other and that's it. None of these problems cost a penny to
fix.

I have seen other comments here mention that a meetup is not about the talks
that it is only networking. While, I agree that is the main benefit for going,
I tried pretty hard to have cool talks with topics attendees were unlikely to
run into online. I loved to spotlight people who had passion projects
previously working in obscurity. I loved introducing academics to an audience
of mostly industry people, and vice-versa. People would come up to me
afterwards surprised to here that someone in town had solved a problem giving
them pain for months! Bringing talks about things they might not see on
Twitter or Hacker News.

Want to know what I actually worried about? I worried about diversity.
Although 50-60% of the speakers booked were women we had trouble boosting that
ratio above 10-20% for the audience. I worried about attendees with kids that
couldn't make evening meetups. I worried about people who worked somewhere
hard to commute from. My co-organizer actually started organizing events that
occurred during lunchtime. These had just as good if not better attendance
than the evening talks. So do know those can work.

I think meetups are a fantastic medium to meeting people who like similar
things as you. And if none of the meetups around you are working, you can
always just start one that does.

------
godber
Gee, there is almost certainly nothing the author could do about this tragic
waste of his time except volunteer to give a talk and

* Provide a proper description to the organizers * Ask the organizers that they skip pizza that night or handle the logistics himself * Prepare properly for the presentation * Be considerate of your audience when presenting * Ask that the organizers tone down the commercials * oh, well, I guess you're hopeless on this one

Seriously, meetup groups tend to be community oriented and driven and members
almost always have a voice.

Or just don't go, that's really fine, they are definitely not the most time
efficient way to learn to program.

------
nemacol
Went to a JS meetup in Pittsburgh. The co-host asked me if I was there just to
ride the coat tales of actual programmers (because I was/am new to
programming). That experience has been enough to keep me away from them.

I ate their pizza anyway.

~~~
neuromantik8086
> "actual programmers"

That's funny coming from the Javascript crowd. :)

------
testtuber
You don't go to programming meet-ups to actually learn anything new. It's a
place for networking. Nothing more. The same with tech conferences and MBA
programs. They're all networking events.

~~~
endorphone
This sentiment has been stated multiple times now, and seems to be discussing
a different type of meetup. There are meetups that are simply a social
event/mixer where everyone puts on a nametag, impromptu discussions happen,
etc. That is about networking.

Then there are meetups built around a presentation. During the presentation
there is little to no socializing. Yes, if there are presentations either you
have little regard for your own time, or you _should_ be learning something
(usually some high level concepts, new approaches, etc). When a presenter
hasn't properly prepared it is simply robbing people of life for nothing.

Ultimately in things like this it's like a website that is "free" but full of
ads -- there are often unstated and dishonest motives that corrupt the whole
thing. Whether it's the bloviating presenter who is mostly interested in
trying to build their own legend, or someone just trying to use the thing as a
cheap veneer to pitch some service or product.

~~~
testtuber
No. They're all networking events. They all use different tactics to get
people in the door. In every case, the organizer's goal is to get people to
network.

Edit: See jpfr's comment. He organizes the meetups to "build a strong and
connected ML community". That sounds like networking to me.

~~~
endorphone
jpfr's comment is an anecdote and deals with a very small community. It
doesn't proves an absolute claim that every organizer's goal is to get people
to network, even if a valued side-effect.

Many are built around the core principal of providing interesting enough of
content to draw people. Because meeting other people in a given field is
_ridiculously_ easy. But if you say "let's all meet at XYZ and socialize",
generally the turnout will be abysmal because most people are not there to
just to socialize, and actually need some prescribed value to justify their
time. So most are built around some premise of providing a value. It's the
disconnect between the promise and the actual that causes issue.

------
helmsb
I cofounded a meetup a little over a year ago and so far we've seen a lot of
success. When we started it we actually made a list of things similar to this
article that we wanted to avoid. Here are a couple of ours:

1\. We only allow 3 sponsors a year at a predefined cost. This covers our cost
with a little buffer for unexpected expenses.

2\. We promote our sponsors on our slides, website and a mention in each
meetup. They also get one 5 minute promo during their sponsorship period. We
also WILL NOT give them our email list.

3\. We have it consistently on the same day of the month, time of day and
location to avoid people wondering where we're going to be.

4\. We have multiple backup presentations ready in case our speaker doesn't
show. We NEVER cancel a meetup.

5\. We always provide food and drinks and have designated people to handle it.

6\. We solicit ideas for topics constantly and schedule them a couple of
months in advance. We do not allow sales presentations and we vet all of our
speakers beforehand.

7\. We recently started a short lightning talk at the very begninning (5
minutes or less) to encourage members to break out of their shell and present
a useful tip.

8\. We offer 2 full day training events during the year. We generally do this
during the work week as we found local companies are more than happy to give
the devs the time off for free training. All of the content is created by devs
for devs in order to make it as practical as possible.

These are a few things that we do. The biggest thing to remember is running a
good meetup is not a couple of hours a month job. It's a big commitment.

------
revicon
I attend Meetups because I enjoy meeting other people that are interested in
things I'm interested in. I really don't care if the event doesn't start on
time or they forgot the pizza.

------
seanhandley
A lot of meetups I've attended do hands-on sessions which most definitely
_are_ useful for learning things.

As for presentations, they vary a lot. But inevitably you learn something you
weren't previously aware of.

If you need to go deep on an emerging technology then you need to stick your
headphones on and spend an afternoon absorbed in it.

------
nathan_f77
I haven't been to a programming meet-up for a very long time. It was pretty
fun when I was in San Francisco, because I felt like there were startups
everywhere, and everyone was excited about lots of cool technologies. And I
got so many free shirts.

This post has actually inspired me to check out some more meetups conferences.
I might see if I can fly in for the React Native conference in Portland [1].
Firstly, because React Native is my new favorite tool, after using it for the
last few months. And secondly, because my wife and I have just decided that we
might like to move to Portland one day, and we've never been there before. We
might go check it out for a weeks.

[1] [https://infinite.red/ChainReactConf](https://infinite.red/ChainReactConf)

~~~
pklausler
Gack. Don't move to Portland. It's crowded, overpriced, dreary, constantly
raining, and there's no decent bookstores or parks.

------
rb808
Last year I went to a lot of meetups. It felt kinda nice at the time but I'm
wondering if it really was worth it. Learning by doing is the best way to
really learn stuff and I dont have enough time to do that. I think this year
I'll try to do stuff rather than go to meetups.

~~~
cableshaft
The only programmer meetups I usually go to now are 'hack nights', i.e. get
together and work on your own projects together or just in the presence of
others. It helps me stay on track and I get to see and hear what others are
working on (or debating about, some people are mostly there to socialize).

I find these worth it, and most other programming meetups not really worth it.
I will still attend a lecture-style meetup if it's about a topic I'm pretty
interested in though.

Also, non-programmer meetups I find very valuable and try to go to as many as
I can afford to. I've met several of my close friends through those. There's
less pretense of networking at them and you can form real connections with
people.

------
ktaylor
Funny how so many programmers think programming meetups are for learning
something. There're not. They're about meeting people who could, at some
point, become collaborators, colleagues, co-authors, friends, mates, bosses,
or candidates.

If you won't ever need any of those, meetups are terribly inefficient and
ineffective for just transferring knowledge. Skip them.

------
mjhoy
I think you've got to try different meetups and find ones that work for you,
especially if you are more interested in learning things than in networking.
The few Ruby meetups I've been to, for instance, were well attended, but they
seemed more industry/newcomer focussed and talks were not particularly
engaging for me. In contrast, the Boston Haskell and Vim meetups were super
vibrant and full of energy and interesting talks. One presentation by John
Wiegley changed my whole development workflow. In Minneapolis I'm struggling a
bit more to find vibrant programmer meetups, it seems to be a much more quiet,
conservative tech scene here.

~~~
garrickvanburen
I assume you've checked out Minnestar.org (MinneDemo, MinneBar) or beta.mn, &
IoTMpls.

~~~
mjhoy
I have not! Thank you.

------
spcelzrd
A great organizer makes all the difference. Meetups were more interesting to
me when there was less great content on the web. Now you can find tutorials on
everything, so meetups are networking and not much else.

------
AngeloAnolin
_But the low to zero cost of meet-ups means there’s little incentive to
produce quality presentations._

If in any case you did attend a meetup and you found the presentation lacking,
is it right to think that the presenter / organizer would definitely
appreciate if you provide an honest feedback that would make the next meetup
better? I know most meetups are free and the value that it provides for
everyone can be increased by the participants adding value on how to make it
better.

~~~
aaronchall
As a speaker at a lot of free meetups, I feel a great deal of pressure to have
a strongly prepared talk. I've seen a lot of talks, had some communications
and public speaking education, and I try to follow best practices as I have
determined them.

I also greatly appreciate face-to-face critical feedback.

For example, I've been told that going back and forth in my slides is hard to
follow, and I'm trying to avoid that. (Though I think it's frequently
unavoidable.)

I've also been corrected on a minor point before - and I appreciate that as
well, I don't want to be guilty of spreading misinformation.

But I have seen (very infrequently) poorly prepared talks, or talks by people
clearly unqualified to give them. I don't want to be that guy. Maybe the
author of the main post here has standards that are too high, or maybe the
meetups he's attended just have no quality control.

But I don't know of any group that intentionally wants to have bad talks - it
reflects poorly on the organizers as well as the speaker.

------
amerkhalid
I used to go to meetups to actually learn from presenter. Then I realized I
can learn much better and faster using online videos/books.

So I stopped caring for the topic of presentation and started go for
networking and socializing. But it was just too much to sit through an hour
long presentation just so that I can socialize afterwards. A lot of attendees
leave immediately after the talk. I could show up an hour late but that feels
weird. So I stopped going to meetups completely.

------
2T1Qka0rEiPr
I did my first ever tech talk at a meetup just a few weeks ago
([http://bit.ly/2oIWHiH](http://bit.ly/2oIWHiH)). I _hope_ I prepared
sufficiently and didn't suffer too much from most of the pitfalls discussed,
but I have been to plenty of meetups which are exactly as the OP describes.
Almost all of them seem to be thinly veiled networking / hiring events from my
experience.

------
monksy
From my experience with the Chicago Java User's Group. They've done a
fantastic job at getting speakers I'd like to go and see. (And sometimes they
get spring speakers .. can't win them all :))

Feedback is collected from the organization team and it is taken seriously.
There are speakers that are asked not to come back.

I've never seen a speaker that wasn't prepared at a CJUG talk.

To me it sounds like the writer of the post has seen a poorly managed meetup.

------
RRRA
Well someone is choosing shitty meetups...

Here we usually get:

\- A quite accurate description

\- Time to chat with people and an on time presentation

\- Hot pizza upon arrival

\- Humble presenters willing to take their own time to teach us something for
very little exposure

\- 1 minute at most of sponsor specific content (with the occasional bad
filtering of presenters, but those are rare and get a bad rep. quickly..)

\- Great Wi-Fi

Maybe you should think of moving to Montreal?

------
dsfyu404ed
I guess one of the benefits of living somewhere rural by HN standards is that
there's few local meet-ups that are relatively well attended, everyone gets to
know each other, every other meeting is at a bar, etc, etc...

------
josep2
Some great points in this article. I've found that meetups happen a bit too
frequently. I think instead of monthly, they should probably be quarterly.

------
elchief
I went to a ZFS preso for the Vancouver BSD meetup and it was great and I
learned a ton. You win some you lose some.

------
norswap
Better write a blogpost about it.

------
eternalvision
Oh man, I will never forget that Erlang meetup with Julia in 2014. Man oh man.
Julia didn't want to be there, naturally. BlackRock is a Julia shop now.

