Join Morad Stern (organizer of Meetups at Wix & Global Dev Communities Manager at Wix.com) for a discussion on how he has solved challenges organizers often face. He shares his uncommon approach for encouraging members to share their learnings, improving their soft skills, leveraging the power of communication, and growing their personal and professional brands.
Main Takeaways:
- The best Meetup groups are those that are driven by passion for their topic and provide value. In a constant search for great stories and big insights, a great organizer is open to and seeks out new stories. By focusing on what we learn rather than just the details of what we do in our jobs, we create a supportive community where we can grow together.
- In providing value for our members, we know that with great power comes great responsibility. As an organizer, it’s our responsibility to help our speakers. Whether that’s coordinating marketing, logistics, workshop setup, or a presentation, it’s best to help with anything they need so they can focus on sharing the best content they can without worrying about the extra details, all in the pursuit of providing value for our members.
- We have the tendency to feel that we have nothing to offer others or that our perspective and knowledge is the same as everyone else’s. This is a common mistake because we have a responsibility to share our expertise with others. When you’re able to help people see the journey that got them to have the knowledge and perspective they have today, you can help them to understand why they’re unique and why their voice needs to be heard.
Top Q&A Questions:
- How do you select the topics you present on?
- This ties into the pursuit of value, and good content comes in many surprising ways. Sometimes someone comes to you with a great story, sometimes you hear about it in other ways. Look for stories actively, but also be open to stories. Think like a journalist — they’re on the hunt for good stories, but they also have a great ear for whispers of cool things that are happening around us.
- To reach 13,000 members in your group, it must take a lot of time. How do you explain to others at Wix the value or return on investment that Wix is getting from an investment of your time and effort?
- It’s part of our culture at Wix. We talk about how busy developers and engineers are, but we know how important it is to share what we learn and support each other. Everyone sees that this is just part of who we are and what we do. We invest in the growth of our developers, knowing that learning new things and leaving our comfort zones is what helps us grow.
- Do you think it’s the individual people in the Wix community and/or the local tech community that has made your Meetup group so successful?
- It’s taken a lot of effort to get to where we are. Every country and region within it has its own cultural differences and there’s a way to connect and deliver messages accordingly. Looking deeper and truly understanding your community and cultural differences can help in creating a successful group.
Resources:
- You can check out Morad’s group here: Meetups at Wix
- Click here if you’re interested in starting your own tech group.
Last modified on November 15, 2023
