Thanks for posting this, it’s interesting to hear about other people’s experiences.
The DC group has also found that having meetups with a specific activity or topic is really helpful. Undirected discussion can get awkward, isn’t always productive, and doesn’t attract people to the meetups in the first place.
Right now we’re trying two things: (1) Explicitly “social,” not-necessarily-rationally-related meetups, alternating with more “serious”/”topical” meetups where we have rationality-related discussions or activities. Examples of “social” meetups: Board games, going hiking. Examples of “serious” meetups: Minicamp discussions, TEDTalks, discussion on a specific topic like choice blindness. (2) “Show and tell” meetups, where a specific person presents on a topic they are knowledgeable about, not necessarily rationality-related. The first such meetup (on economics) is scheduled for the week after next, so we don’t have any data on this yet. (This is in the serious category.)
“Social” meetups seem to be working pretty well so far, as well as just having more focused meetups, for attracting participants and getting people to come back. The DC group definitely has better attendance than it did last fall, even after the end-of-summer exodus (people going back to school, moving away for a new job, etc). And we have gotten a lot of new members recently, although one or two have dropped off the map.
We’re hoping “show and tell” will improve member retention, by getting people other than Roger and myself more involved in the group, and also by giving people a chance to learn more about each other’s strengths. (BTW, if you’re someone in the DC group reading this who we haven’t pitched the idea to yet, consider this an offer to present on a topic of your choice.)
Our gender ratio isn’t too great. I’m the only really regular female member right now. But we do have one or two other women who show up periodically. I’m female, but I have no idea how to attract my own kind. (Except maybe recruiting the few of them I know directly, but that hasn’t worked too well so far.) We also had a female first-timer last week, who seemed pretty cool; hopefully she will come back.
Our age demographics are reasonably varied, though. Our median age is probably 30ish; I suspect it’s a bit older than the typical meetup group.
Blatantly copying meetup topics that worked well for other groups seems a very effective strategy, too. Examples: Zendo, Biased Pandemic, TEDTalks.
Thanks for posting this, it’s interesting to hear about other people’s experiences.
The DC group has also found that having meetups with a specific activity or topic is really helpful. Undirected discussion can get awkward, isn’t always productive, and doesn’t attract people to the meetups in the first place.
Right now we’re trying two things: (1) Explicitly “social,” not-necessarily-rationally-related meetups, alternating with more “serious”/”topical” meetups where we have rationality-related discussions or activities. Examples of “social” meetups: Board games, going hiking. Examples of “serious” meetups: Minicamp discussions, TEDTalks, discussion on a specific topic like choice blindness. (2) “Show and tell” meetups, where a specific person presents on a topic they are knowledgeable about, not necessarily rationality-related. The first such meetup (on economics) is scheduled for the week after next, so we don’t have any data on this yet. (This is in the serious category.)
“Social” meetups seem to be working pretty well so far, as well as just having more focused meetups, for attracting participants and getting people to come back. The DC group definitely has better attendance than it did last fall, even after the end-of-summer exodus (people going back to school, moving away for a new job, etc). And we have gotten a lot of new members recently, although one or two have dropped off the map.
We’re hoping “show and tell” will improve member retention, by getting people other than Roger and myself more involved in the group, and also by giving people a chance to learn more about each other’s strengths. (BTW, if you’re someone in the DC group reading this who we haven’t pitched the idea to yet, consider this an offer to present on a topic of your choice.)
Our gender ratio isn’t too great. I’m the only really regular female member right now. But we do have one or two other women who show up periodically. I’m female, but I have no idea how to attract my own kind. (Except maybe recruiting the few of them I know directly, but that hasn’t worked too well so far.) We also had a female first-timer last week, who seemed pretty cool; hopefully she will come back.
Our age demographics are reasonably varied, though. Our median age is probably 30ish; I suspect it’s a bit older than the typical meetup group.
Blatantly copying meetup topics that worked well for other groups seems a very effective strategy, too. Examples: Zendo, Biased Pandemic, TEDTalks.
Thank you so much for this. This is exactly the kind of sharing I hope to see more of.
I wish you luck in your meet up endeavors.