Bringing crew mates to the community treasure trove

Kat: Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for having us at DevRelCon Earth. We are thrilled to be here even though we slightly feel like news readers behind this desk. But anyway, we are here to tell you more about our journey organizing Meetup Mates. Meetup Mates is a community initiative founded by Tecknuovo: with a very simple goal.

Kat: We want to make meetups open and accessible to everybody. It's organized by the marketing and community team at Tecknuovo:. I'm head of the team, and Megan here is our community advocate. Tecknuovo: is a challenger digital consultancy that has community at the heart of everything that we do. MeetupMate is one of our initiatives.

Kat: Others include our green plan initiative and our inclusive interviews. So know a little bit more about us before we give you our talk. I joined the tech community a little bit later in my career, so I got to experience firsthand how useful a community like Meetup Mate is for an entry to the industry. If you bump into me at another event, I'm always ready to swap pasta or cocktail recipes, so please do come say hi.

Megan: Hi. I'm Megan, and as Kat mentioned, I'm community advocate at Technobo. I started my journey into the tech community at Skills Master where I was community manager and then later primary organizer of the x matter event series. When I'm not being a tech busybody, I can usually be found in a field with armor on wiping other people with a foam sword. Alternatively, I have a lot of opinions on Stardew Valley versus Animal Crossing, and I love a good board game recommendation.

Kat: So if you'd like to know more about Techmover and what we do and Meetup Mates, please do feel free to message myself or Megan on the DevRelCon Slack channel or on Twitter. The idea for MeetupMate itself came about in the 2019 when some of the team attended a conference and felt that if they had attended it alone, other than, you know, their networks in the community, they would have had a much worse experience. And it through having that support of their colleagues and the people they already knew that meant they could fully appreciate that conference. And the worry of being so low, having to inject themselves into conversations, introduce themselves to new people was eliminated. They were able to focus on learning from speakers and meeting the network of their network, and so enjoying the conference more as a whole.

Megan: This worry of feeling alone in the room is something that can be easily applied to the tech community as a whole. We want to make sure that everyone can attend the tech events they love without that daunting feeling of loneliness. Meetups are an important part of the tech community. As as Matthew mentioned, they're aware people in tech can find out about the regular updates in languages, processes, frameworks, what have you, to keep their skills where they need to be professionally and personally, regardless of their socioeconomic background because meetups tend to be free to attend. If you want to attend in cart for any reason, that's a problem.

Megan: The tech community is losing a valuable member with unique insight.

Kat: Knowing the importance of meetups in the tech community as a place where community members can learn and share their innovative ideas altogether, We decided to see what we could do to make them available to all. We asked for some feedback from the London tech community about their meetup attendance. Through our own research, we found that 43% of potential meetup goers wanted to go to meet some of the people but had never attended a meetup. 39% also wants to be part of an interesting community, but again, had never attended. This shows how real and powerful that social fear can be.

Kat: It can stop people from doing something that they really want to be involved in. We wanted to counteract this, and that's why Meetup Mates was born.

Megan: So you're probably thinking, right. I now know how Meetup Mates came to be. I know who you two are. I now know why you're doing what you're doing. But what what are you doing?

Megan: Meetup Mates starts online on our Slack channel. It's easy to sign up to via our website meetup-mates.com. All the data from the Slack channel registration is kept in a completely separate database of Tecknuovo:s, so there's no worry there. You can also check out our privacy notice for yourself if need be. On the Slack channel, mates can find out about interesting meetups happening the following week every Friday through our community polls curated by a member of the team.

Megan: Through these polls, mates can comment and see who else is attending each event through voting. The afternoon of the event day, we'll post a nearby venue to the event where mates can gather and meet each other from an hour before the event starts. By having that social icebreaker on Slack, an online platform where individuals can control the flow of interaction, and then a face to face meeting at a quieter, more relaxed venue, certain social barriers have already been broken. You've already met like minded people who are gonna be attending the same event as you, and you've eliminated that of worry of a solo arrival. You've also seen that there's a supportive group of people there should you have any issues or questions.

Megan: You also know that you're not gonna

Kat: be walking into the meetup to discover that you're the only one there who's like you. Our mission is to ensure that the tech community is as accessible as possible to those who wish to attend. Reasons for not attending could involve social anxiety, imposter syndrome, fear of tokenization, and many others. We all have the right to feel that we can be a part of the tech community. And while we can understand some of the reservations members of minority groups might have, speaking from our own experiences, for others, we need to listen to their experiences and the feedback of our community.

Kat: This is why our ethos of constant community feedback is so important for us to grow in inclusivity. When we asked members of the community if they felt there was an issue with diversity and inclusion within meetups, 71% of respondents said that there was. When it comes to tackling these issues, we believe that many voices are stronger than one. With our network and from our position, we can take any concerns or inclusive ideas directly to the meetup organizers. And as a group, we can collectively magnify those voices who are asking for more inclusion.

Kat: This can be through simple things of not always serving the same food at every event, making sure that all dietary requirements are considered, to making sure that they prioritize venues that have wheelchair access. We want to encourage these changes so that these little inclusive actions become second nature. For our own premeds, we try to select a variety of venues as always being a part, for example, could put people off due to personal experience or religious beliefs. We also include information about the closest step free access from the meetup venue, A task that can have a fair amount of emotional and mental labor for somebody with disability.

Megan: So how do we know it's working? Again, this is through feedback and how meetup mates has grown. We asked members if they felt welcome at meetup mates, and we received a 100% yes response. We asked if they recommend others to join Meetup Mates, and again, we received 100% yes responses. But we also took the time to ask members how they thought we could improve.

Megan: It's having that open dialogue to improve is important for growth. You can see some of the responses on the slides here. In less than four months of launching, we reached a 100 sign up mark. Within a year, we reached over 400 sign ups. So we must be doing something right.

Megan: Easily, the most important lesson we've learned about creating an inclusive community is to listen. The only way to counteract the blind spots or privilege causes is by listening to those who are experiencing those struggles. Our favorite part of

Kat: the tech world is the opportunity of constantly learning and discovering. There are so many incredible innovations happening every day. I mean, just look at how many JavaScript frameworks there are. The tech community offers incredible resources to stay updated, and many of them are free, such as past conference talks on YouTube or articles on dev.two. Meetups also give that regular free opportunity to learn with other devs and with an expert in the room.

Kat: We wanted to continue that spirit of learning through Meetup Mates. We've partnered with meetup groups across The UK, namely in Oxford, Manchester, and Cardiff because tech and meetups obviously don't just happen in London. And we've also reached out some of their local universities because it's important that students still they can attend meetups as they offer them the chance to get a different angle on what they might be learning about in lectures and find out more through working examples. They've helped good practices for staying in the loop, and they give students the opportunity to see the community they could end up being in professionally. Because that's the scary thing, professional.

Kat: Students or new graduates might feel they haven't yet entered the real world because they're still in a full time learning environment. This can mean that they experience a more intense imposter syndrome and fear that you don't belong in a meetup space as they'll be entering a space where they'll be interacting with professionals in the field they aspire to enter but haven't yet. It's understandably daunting. By partnering with universities, Meetup Mates create a space where students can interact with professionals. They have a supportive network.

Kat: They know won't judge them for asking questions or for asking things to be clarified, And they have multiple chances to discover more through our Slack channel, at our pre meets, or even during the events themselves. At least, that was the plan, but it all changed with COVID nineteen.

Megan: We have yet to hear about a community that hasn't been hit by the pandemic and lockdown in some bad way except for maybe TikTok. Considering that Meetup makes this core service is by helping people attend meetups and then a lot of meetups canceling, it's fair to say a lot of our plans had to go back to the drawing board for another pass.

Kat: We had to recognize the new hurdles that lockdown presented. Luckily, with tech, a lot of people in the industry had the advantage of being able to work from home, but this meant that members of our community were now in front of their computers talking about tech on their own all day during their work hours and then going to virtual events where they were stuck in front of their computers talking about tech on their own during their off hours. There's no break there with a new environment to help reset, which is so important, particularly during a time of mental and emotional exhaustion. We know it's been said so many times almost in every new email correspondence from a company, but lockdown is a strange and unprecedented time.

Megan: We put together a buddy system on our Slack channel where we pair everyone who wants to take part together with a buddy. The idea of the buddy wasn't that you needed to talk about tech or work or anything like that if you didn't want to. It was a way for members to check-in on each other and make sure no one was getting lost during the time of socially social interaction was dramatically decreased. We couldn't have hoped for a better response to this. If we need any reassurance that we're on the right track in making a helpful, open, inclusive community, all we need to do is to read back on the messages we received about the buddy system.

Megan: The uptake was everything we could have hoped for with members reaching out to their buddies, organizing virtual coffee catch ups, and just generally checking in. Having members stepping up and looking out for one another was one of those moments where we knew we were on the right track in the right place. We also started our own series of online events. We wanted something different to meetups, but still have that inclusive learning environment that meetup makes us known for. So we decided on asking anything events.

Megan: We invite renowned experts and give attendees the chance to have their unanswered questions be heard. By having a text based event, we're making sure that as many people who want to take part can. There's no need for an interpreter. Screen readers are able to work with a lot more ease as there's no slides that need to be read. And the lack of video also means that those who only have access to mobile data or unreliable Internet can also still take part as text requires a lot less bandwidth compared to video.

Megan: We also leave the transcript available to you so members can look back and read it at their own place. We also have a bit of a shameless plug. I mean, we actually have our our next AMA on Thursday, which we're super excited for. We're gonna be joined by legendary game designer, Noah Falstein, who's behind Indiana Jones and the face of Atlantis. If you fancy seeing new techniques in action after hearing this talk, please do feel free to join, especially if you have questions for Noah.

Megan: It'd be great to have you with us. It's happening in our Slack

Kat: workplace. Whilst it would be great to just list everything we've done that's worked, we'd be remiss if we didn't also talk about the challenges and the learning curve that we faced with Meetup Mates. Meetup Mates is still a young community. It's only just one years old. And like all one year olds, there have been teething issues.

Kat: The first hurdle we had to face was showing meetup attendees and organizers that we're genuine. We're from a tech consultancy. Looking after tech logos brand awareness is our day job, and we're open about that. Unfortunately, with this, there is a preexisting idea that when we take part in an event, we'll just be a group of people sitting at the back of a meetup wearing branded t shirts who are only there to speak to the attendees about a new project. We knew that wasn't meetup mates, nor is it us as a company or individuals, but we needed to show that to the rest of the community.

Kat: We tackled this in three different ways. What we were doing online, having open conversations with Meetup organizers, and being aware of the different needs of Meetup attendees. We briefly touched this at the beginning, but we knew we had to be very open with what we do with Meetup Mates' data. All the info about Meetup Mates is kept on a completely different database than the rest of Techmobos data, and there is zero crossover unless someone actively signs up for Techmobos mailing list themselves. We have our privacy notice, clearly signed personal website next to our code of conduct and our values.

Kat: We've tried our best to ensure this is written in inclusive language, and we have a glossary included,

Megan: and we date whenever we make updates to this. We're also always open to answering any questions. When it came to showing our authenticity to meetup leaders, I reached out to meetup leaders that had already partnered with meetup mates. I invited them to go out for coffee where I could tell them about the future of meetup mates, how we plan to be inclusive, and other initiatives we'd like their help with to improve meetup mates in the future. Having this opportunity for an open discussion allowed Meetup Mates to ask any questions they may have.

Megan: We want Meetup Mates to be a part of the growth of Meetup Mates, and showing that we're happy to answer their questions and give them info just reinsures that we do care about open and equal relationship. Having these conversations at a cafe rather than turning up at one of their events is really important. At an event, there is a lot going on, especially for an organizer. They just won't have the time to fully ask the questions they might have, and we want them to be able to fully consider what we're seeing, not have half a mind on where their speaker is or if the AV is working correctly. Also, by just turning up at the event as meetup mates wanting to monopolize in their time, might give the impression that we're just kind of gonna be there and that they need to get on board and or deal with it, which is the complete opposite of the type of people we are and what we're trying to achieve.

Megan: So one of the great things about the tech community is the wide range of perspectives on how to deal with technical problems. The different expertise from languages to frameworks to product practices makes it a really fascinating group of people to be a part of. But it does mean that there are inner communities within the tech community as a whole. He wants to show me to attendees that we understand the topics that we're interested in. We didn't wanna be one of those pool called dolls who just kind of blur out buzzwords without context.

Megan: So just having that base understanding helps us understand what those specific community members care about in their Meetup experience. It also helps battle that aforementioned image of those people at the back of the meetup. We're community members too, and it's important that other members know that. It goes back to what was it

Kat: about listening. By uncovering potential concerns and addressing them in an open and honest way, it shows that we really do walk the walk. We're not just talking the talk. But also shows those in the community that we more than welcome the opportunity to learn. The second big issue we need to solve quickly was wanting to be everywhere at once.

Kat: Meetup makes us new, and the team is who you see before you. Ideally, we'd be able to attend all the meetups we want at every city across The UK, but logistics just don't allow for that. In all honesty, this is still an issue we're learning to tackle, and we're discovering the best way to grow internally. Whilst we've been in the tech community for a long time, we haven't tried to start our own community within it before. As mentioned in the state of developer relations report 2020 that came out last Tuesday, so make sure you give that a read if you haven't already.

Kat: 87% of developer relation practitioners learn on the job. It's the great thing about having DevRel as a career. You can really shape your own experience depending on the dev programs and the communications at the company you work at and where you see them going. The downside is that it's so subjective that finding people who can teach you about specific issues can be really hard sometimes.

Megan: We do recognize from looking at other community initiatives that ideally, we do need to put in place an advocacy or volunteer program for members of MeetUpMate to take part in. Unfortunately, this is another one of COVID's back the drawing board plans. So we can't share as much as we would like with you because, honestly, we just don't know yet for ourselves what really works and what doesn't. What we have found though is a really neat round round about this. So it's having channels built for feedback and communication at different levels.

Megan: This allows members to have their ideas be heard and for them to discover what we have planned so they can get excited for it as well. It all comes back around to to listening and being open. The great thing

Kat: about Meetup makes members and the tech community as a whole is that they're problem solved. If they see something that could be improved upon, they generally take it upon themselves to try and improve it. With having a smaller organization team, spotting for those moments when our members problem solve is absolutely key. An example of this is how we came up with the buddy system. So before lockdown, members would occasionally organize coffee catch ups amongst themselves If there wasn't a pre meet happening that evening, but there was an event they wanted to attend, we try to recreate that coffee catch up virtually, bringing in the social element of chatting and meeting new people that you have at meet ups.

Kat: Slack has a ton of useful tools for this, donut and random coffees to name too. We tested these out with some interesting results. If anyone's not used random coffees before, it's a great little tool that auto pairs everyone in the channel together and it pit post one list of all of these pairings a week, so you're catching up with a new person each week. But it post this as a single message. We tested what this would look like as an almost a 150 bullet point list in the message on Slack, and yeah, it wasn't great.

Kat: Thankfully, never actually launched that one to everyone, but even so, we made a couple of silly mistakes with apps before we settled on the buddy system. It was early in lockdown and everyone was still working things out And we have a very friendly and forgiving community, but that cheesy saying definitely rings true. You learn more from your mistakes. Not being able to not being afraid to try all things and taking that touch longer to make sure you have the best tool or practice for your community is something that as community organizers, we had to get comfortable with quickly.

Megan: As an inclusive community, we needed to make sure we cover all types of tech. If we were to only focus on a certain area of the tech community, like functional programming or serverless, we'd never be able to say we're inclusive. The majority of the developers in the first 100 that joined Meetup Mates were all within the cloud and DevOps space. This meant that, naturally, because of the nature and needs of those community members, the majority of meetups that were being recommended and the topics that were being discussed were cloud and DevOps focused, which is great that these conversations were happening and that growth growth was happening organically. But we could see that if we didn't bring in different tech sub communities, we'd run the risk of becoming known as a specialist community rather than a tech agnostic one.

Megan: We decided that the best way to overcome this was almost doing the opposite of how we built partnerships with meetups before. When we started, we spoke to to developers who might be interested via social media and at conferences we we were speaking at. Once we had a group of interested developers, we then spoke to meetup leaders about creating a partnership to better both communities. When it came to becoming tech agnostic, however, we actually went to Meetup leaders first with what Meetup Mates is about, our plans, and how we aim to help the tech community become more inclusive. The Meetup leaders, they were able to let their community know that they were actively working with us to make the community more inclusive.

Megan: Their members were then made aware of Meetup Mates and were able to explore different areas of tech they might be interested in, as well as help potential new Meetup goers attend the events the original attendees loved. It's like creating a little ecosystem of confident Meetup attendance. We're now officially partnered with 14 meet up groups, focusing on different languages, practices, and processes across tech. We still have a long way

Kat: to go before we can say we've got a good covering across the majority of tech, but we're certainly on our way. And just because something's worth a tip of the way doesn't mean it can't be tweaked depending on the context. So these are our lessons. It's important to listen, to be open, to test, not to be afraid. It's okay to fail and to change your winning formula depending on situation.

Kat: We're planning on continuing our work and growing out our ethos of an inclusive space. We're hoping to start a mentorship program where members of the community can give advice and learn and grow. Not just the junior being partnered with the dev, but mid level devs being partnered with seniors, seniors, team leads, and so on. We're hoping that by fostering this environment where members of the community can freely ask for advice, either technical or professional, will encourage an open dialogue. This is also from the lessons we learned.

Kat: Members were already doing this in part, so it's only right we help foster these positive actions.

Megan: We're currently conducting some original research for our own path of growing and understanding community. We're looking to uncover why people like being involved with meetups from an attending organizer perspective, but also from speakers and sponsors too. We're hoping with this research to get a deeper understanding of why meetups are so important, which areas we benefit from most, which areas need improvement, and what that improvement should look like. We have a link on the slides. And after this talk, I'll also be posting that same link on the DevRelCon Slack.

Megan: It only takes a minute to complete. Once we've gathered the re results, we'll post them, so it's free to access for all the communities to benefit from. We'd really appreciate if you took the time to do it.

Kat: We've enlisted those diversity sponsors for a few conferences that meant to happen this year. Hopefully, when these events are able to take place, you'll spot us there. And we plan to create a space that conference goers can come, relax, and buddy up. If meetups can be daunting, we know that conferences with several thousands of people are definitely nerve wracking.

Megan: If hearing about what we're doing has intrigued you and you want to know how you can take part, your first step is by registering to join our Slack channel. You can do this on meetup-mates.com and follow the instructions there. If you'd like to get involved in how we can make Meetup Mates a more inclusive environment, interested in becoming a mentor, or want to know more about our partnerships, please do feel free to reach out to us. You can do so via Twitter or DMs on the DevRobPlan or MeetupMate Slack channels.

Kat: So the future. It's quite funny for us talking about the future of MeetupMate because in all honesty, the future that we want is the Meetup Mates no longer exist in the form it currently is in. We want everyone who wants to attend tech events to be able to without needing a community within a community. We're achieving this by creating a supportive network that can

Megan: be used as a gateway and a tool to promote change to ensure inclusivity in our tech community. Once the tech community reaches that point where people feel comfortable to attend events without worry because events are just inclusive by nature, there won't be any reason for meetupmates in its current format. We'll undergo this magical transformation, and we really can't wait for that to happen. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Megan: Questions.

Speaker 3: Hey, Megan and Kat. Thank you very much for that. Just while, we're waiting for any questions to come through from from the the viewers, I would like to ask a question. So how do you measure the so Meetup makes this you're doing something good for the for the the broader development community. But, obviously, you're you're being paid by a company to spend some time on this.

Speaker 3: How do you measure the benefit of Meetup Mates for the people who who are signing the checks?

Kat: Well, I mean, Meet on Meet is obviously a community within the tech, and Techmovo is a digital consultancy. So really, helps Techmovo if there are more good people in the tech community. And we find that the people who tend to attend meetups, who are actively involved in upskilling and growing in as many different ways as they can, they are going to naturally come across the best developers and become the best developers through that learning. And so, obviously, you know, it does help Techmover if there's better developers out there because that's that's the business that we're in. But really, the community aspect of MeetUp makes itself is there to try and make sure that everyone is able to be in that community.

Speaker 3: Well, one of the things that I've I've long been interested in is is how and I've mentioned this in the in the intro, is how we make more meetups that are inclusive and available to a broader range of people. Have you come across any particular stories where individuals have said to you that they've had, you know, transformational experience through meetup mates? It's enabled them to achieve something in their career or or perhaps just overcome fear of attending something new.

Megan: Yeah. We get quite a lot of anecdotes of people that you you meet them in a pre meet, you'll go and say, And they'll be like, oh, gosh. Actually, I've just traveled in because this is my first ever meet up. I would have never have come because I'm worried about doing that long journey into London if you're just outside and not being able to speak to anyone, but I can see from the Slack group and chitchat to people there and then wanting to meet them face to face that it's it's kind of made it worth it. And the other thing is some people will ask like, oh, I really wanna ask the speaker this question.

Megan: I really wanna know more, but I don't know how to how to ask them. I don't know how to frame it. And just having that, like, that little bits of help just really just gives people that confidence to explore more and get more involved.

Kat: I think what we've also found is that the types of people that go to meetups tend to actively want to help other people, but also don't know how they can. So that was what we were hoping to bring together with more of the mentorship program is offering a, hopefully, very easy way where people can lend that advice because everyone started somewhere, and it's giving that that person who's just starting themselves that step up.

Speaker 3: And many of the people watching this will be involved very practically in meetups, whether online or in person. So I think it'd be really interesting to to hear how much of your time this takes on a on a typical week because it's great to have, like, a benchmark to compare against.

Kat: I think it really depends a week to week. But

Megan: yeah. It I think it with when we decide, like, if we want to implement something, so, like, with the mentorship program and stuff like that, you do have to think, right. I need to dedicate, like, a good hour a day to, like, the first half week of this and, like, kind of gradually take time. Let do less time on it as time goes by as it just becomes second nature. I've never really timed my week.

Megan: It's kind of just been something I've throw kind of thrown myself myself into. But it's it's definitely being aware that if you want something to to hit off and and go off well so you're not having to constantly check on it, you do need to invest a lot of time into it initially just to make sure that it does have all the foundations it needs. It does have those mechanics in place so that especially when you you scale as well, everything's kind of there ready to go. It's it's much harder to try and, you know, bring in, like, with this step free access. Like, we did that quite early on, so it's easy second nature easy to do, and it's easy to do now.

Megan: But if, you know, if you're growing across lot of cities, it would be harder to to get in in a later date. Yeah.

Kat: I think on on the growth path that Megan was talking about, we started off only really focusing on London meetups because we're both based at our our company which is in London. And as we started contacting other meetup groups across The UK that involved naturally travel, which obviously is also time taken out of the day. And, yeah, we were actually planning to go up to a few more events, but sadly, they also fell into this March to now time frame, so they didn't happen. But, again, obviously, time is about to be factored in.

Speaker 3: Okay. Well, we're we're we're coming to the end of of our q and a session, so I've got one more question for you. To people who who aren't looking to help a whole bunch of meetups, but instead, they run their own meetup. What what and you did give some tips, but let's just let's just kinda summarize. What what's your advice to someone who's starting meetup or already runs one, and they wanna ensure that they have a an inclusive environment that is really welcoming to to first timers.

Megan: I think listen and also don't which we mentioned a lot, but also don't be afraid to reach out to organizers from bigger meetups that you see that are just that are running in a way that you want you inspire yours to run just to have a have a chat with them and ask them because I've yet to meet someone in the tech community that if you turn around and ask them a question or or ask some help, they're gonna turn around and say no to you. It's generally a very open community, so that sharing of knowledge. The other thing is if you just take the time to just talk to your attendees, find out who's never attended before if it's their first event, find out why, discover if there's extra things you can include just to make it a bit bit more inclusive. I think those are the good first steps to to start going. Also, meetups yourself so you can see what other people, what other practices, things are going on.