Meetup Organizer Best Practices

HashiCorp User Groups, Events, and Meetups
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I have been plugged into the HashiCorp User Group program for over a year now. Below are some organizer best practices that I have learned from our wonderful HUG organizers but will be applicable to any Meetup group. What are your best practices for organizing or attending Meetups?

Getting started as an organizer

  • Accept invitation to the Slack channel
    • Drop a hello :wave: and introduction in #general
    • Create a #channel specific to your chapter to enable async communication amongst co-organizers and HashiCorp community liaisons
  • Post your first Meetup quickly for visibility with joining members
    • When the chapter is created, Meetup will socialize to members of other local groups
    • HashiCorp will encourage any local teammates to socialize the new chapter with their networks

Communication, Communication, Communication

Meetup Event Descriptions

  • The more details, the better
    • Agenda
    • Speaker bio
    • Talk title, talk abstract
    • Parking / public transportation information
    • Accessibility details
    • Thank you to the host
  • Descriptive title
    • Instead of New York City HUG July Meetup, use something descriptive like “Consul Service Mesh Deep Dive”
  • Include your email at the bottom in case anyone is interested in getting involved as a speaker, venue, sponsor, or fellow co-organizer
  • Your chapter branded holding slide or social card is a good place holder photo for the Meetup
  • Here is a good example

Speaker Enablement

  • Encourage the speaker to arrive early to engage with community members and familiarize themselves with the set up
  • Socialize your speakers using the templates for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook
  • Give your speakers the slide deck template

Encourage people to get involved

  • An environment of trust happens top down from an organizer to the local community
  • #CityHUG social hashtag for your chapter
  • Do your best to make the rounds and speak to everyone at your Meetup and identify yourself as the organizer in case they are interested in speaking

Consistency

  • We recommend hosting at least quarterly and our most successful chapters host monthly
  • Consistency has a huge impact on a chapter’s attrition rate

Out-of-the-box Meetups

Stepping down as an organizer

  • If you need to step down as an organizer, we understand and wish you well
  • Please let us know in the HUG organizer Slack or via email
  • If you have someone that you know is interested, please connect us

Plug into HashiCorp Resources

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