Meetup Organizer Mastery Monthly Networking

Forty people RSVP. Fourteen show up.

If you've had that night, you've probably spent a while wondering what you did wrong. Wrong topic. Wrong day. Wrong room. Maybe people just don't come out like they used to.

Here's another explanation, and I think it's the real one. Which will be the core discussion point of this first networking event.

For a long time, the advice for running a good event was simple: give people good information. And that worked, because information used to be hard to get. You had to be in the room.

That's over. Anyone can look up almost anything in seconds, for free, without putting on shoes. So if the main reason to attend your event is what people will learn, you're up against a free, instant, infinite version of you. That's not a fight anyone wins.

But something else happened at the same time, and it went the other way.

As information got cheap, everything that isn't information got more valuable. Someone who's actually done the thing. A room where you can ask a real question and get a real answer. The feeling of not being the only one dealing with this. A reason to actually follow through on something you'd otherwise let slide.

None of that can be looked up. All of it needs other people in a room.
That's what your group has. It's the only thing you have that can't be copied; and most of us are still building our events like it's the information people came for.

What we'll do:
About ten minutes on the idea above. Then we open it up, and it's your questions for the rest of the time.

Bring one thing you're stuck on with your group: Attendance, engagement, burnout, the members who used to show up and stopped, or the plain "is this even worth it" question.

Anything is fair game, and you'll notice pretty fast that you're not the only one with that particular problem.

Who this is for:
Anyone who runs a Meetup group. Twenty members or two thousand. Six years in or six weeks. You don't need a plan or a polished group; just come as you are.

And yes, the format is on purpose. This event isn't a presentation, because a presentation would prove the opposite of the point.

Come say hello.