Common Themes & Lessons Learned
HUG Organizer Sessions, March 2020
At the end of March 2020, we hosted three roundtable sessions to connect with our global network of HashiCorp User Group Organizers. This Community Forum thread is a recap of common themes and lessons learned from the sessions.
Jagdeep, Chandigarh HUG
If speakers have demos in virtual meetups, work with the speaker to pre-record for better resolution and attendee experience
Nikola, Berlin HUG
Maintain privacy while recording and posting Meetups by letting the attendees know that you are going to record before pressing “record” to make sure everyone is aware. Take a pause to allow those that do not consent to leave the Meetup and participate in the recording after.
Brian, St. Louis HUG
Check out OBS project to livestream your meetups with more polish and have seamless transitions between speakers. Explore discord for chat features.
Guillermo, Madrid HUG
Virtual Meetups are proving to have a much better attrition rate and reach many more attendees than in-person Meetups ever have.
Jono, Pittsburgh HUG
Be interactive with your Meetups by setting the stage at the opening and addressing that this is a different platform and that these are unique times. Share best practices. Encourage attendees to interact in the chat and Q&A and +1 in the chat if they agree with a speaker’s point of view. Pausing is different in every culture - allow time for pause between speakers. This will encourage others to jump in and feel comfortable sharing without interrupting others. Be patient with people’s internet connections. Have a co-organizer with you in the virtual Meetup dedicated to moderate the chat.
Kerim, Amsterdam HUG
Have a helper available for moderation of chat(s) and also to do house-keeping of the Zoom Room (locking, unlocking, removing folks etc). Recorded demos are better than live demos right now, as they allow for much more control. Protips from our test: white background instead of the traditional dark one, large font sizes and type slower than usual. Personal protip: use screencasting software (ScreenFlow on macOS, ASCIInema everywhere: output is JSON so you can edit “mistakes”).
Stephen, Sydney HUG
Engage new speakers in your community by asking specific community members to speak. Often, by asking someone to speak you are encouraging them to do so by signaling that you believe they have valuable knowledge to share with the community.