Re: [UG-ADMINS] Meeting Space

In South Florida (http://soflophp.org) we host our meetings at a 
coworking facility for our northern meetups and at a companies 
conference room for our southern meetups. (We do 2 each month with 20+ 
attendees at each.)  We also have a very professional recruiting firm 
who sponsors the food and drinks, or other things when needed.  It has 
worked out well for the recruiting firm, and also works well for the UG.

However, I have set ground rules:

  * They are given a couple of minutes to speak at the events they
    sponsor. (Though they usually opt to just let me "plug" them during
    the intro/outro.)
  * They do not spam, chase, or perform other questionable practices.
  * They are permitted to post to our meetup board...ONLY.
  * They do not actively reach out to individuals, and instead wait to
    be approached.
  * If a developer stops contact with them, the contact is considered to
    be a dead lead until the developer reaches out again.

The contacts at the recruiting firm have been very appreciative of my 
"mentoring" them on how to interact with the UG, and it has led to them 
being more profitable as a result.

Regards,
Adam Culp
561-870-6361
Twitter: @adamculp
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/adamculp

On 07/11/2013 10:33 AM, Stefan Koopmanschap - PFZ.nl wrote:
> Hey Cal,
>
> you guys are lucky with your recruiters there. Giving them a couple of 
> minutes to explain who they are is logical, I would suspect most UGs 
> do that for their meeting hosts :)
>
> One of the reasons I've always been wary of recruiters being involved 
> in usergroups is because employers may be scared to encourage their 
> developers to go to usergroup meetings. They might get afraid of the 
> recruiters taking their developers for another job. Having said that, 
> two years ago we had Dutch recruitersfirm StarApple being the main 
> sponsor of our PFCongres conference, and their involvement was a huge 
> success. They did *not* do anything bad, did not force themselves on 
> people, plus had even developed a special game for their booth that 
> people could play to win prices (such as phones, tablets etc). So it 
> is definitely possible to get recruiters involved, it's just very 
> scary for me as a UG-leader to get their involvement because of how 
> employers could react to that :)
>
> It is interesting to see how that works for you. Perhaps we should 
> (re-)consider our stance on recruiters :)
>
> Stefan
>
>> Cal Evans <mailto:[email protected]>
>> July 11, 2013 4:20 PM
>> Skoop!
>>
>> We've got a great recruiting company here in Nashville, TN-US called 
>> Vaco.com and they have a meeting space that will hold about 100. They 
>> are always gracious hosts, never do a hard sell. They do ask for ~2 
>> minutes to explain who they are but that's about it. The only 
>> downside is it's in the suburbs of Nashville and during rush hour may 
>> be difficult to get to. (Oh, and they hav free parking!) :)
>>
>> =C=
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> *Read this book* before you hire a
>> developer to build your website.
>> *Avoiding a Goat Rodeo* <http://avoidingagoatrodeo.com>
>> Stefan Koopmanschap - PFZ.nl <mailto:[email protected]>
>> July 11, 2013 4:17 PM
>> Hi Cal,
>>
>> Interesting! I just learned that contacting recruiters and co-working 
>> spaces are possible candidates for hosting meetings like this :)
>>
>> Most of the usergroupmeetings I've organized (or been to for that 
>> matter) were at small, medium or even large-sized development shops 
>> and sometimes hosting companies. To be honest, I'd usually not 
>> contact recruiters because, well, they're recruiters. I've never 
>> considered co-working spaces though, that's an interesting option to 
>> add to my list, especially now that we're starting a new local 
>> usergroup near where I live. Thanks!
>>
>> Stefan
>>
>> Cal Evans <mailto:[email protected]>
>> July 11, 2013 4:13 PM
>> Hi all!
>>
>> Our NashvillePHP.org meeting was Tuesday and I learned something that I
>> thought I'd share. Normally, when I start looking for event space, the
>> first place I look to is recruiters, second is usually co-working space,
>> etc. I'm sure you have your list as well. This month, we were hosted by a
>> moderate sized company here in Nashville, TN-US and I was surprised 
>> at the
>> facility. It was a training room big enough to hold 50-60 in classroom
>> style. (Tables) There was power on each of the tables, the wifi was
>> easily accessible, they had 3 screens w/projectors AND they recorded the
>> meeting for us.
>>
>> Now I knew this company existed as they are one of the better PHP 
>> shops in
>> town. But I had no idea that they had a facility like this.
>>
>> The thing I learned is to widen my net when casting about for meeting
>> space. Find the good shops and ask them. Most aren't going to have
>> something this nice...but some will, and those are the ones you want 
>> to get
>> to know better. :)
>>
>> So, that's my lesson, what lessons have you learned when casting 
>> about for
>> meeting space?
>>
>> Cheers!
>> =C=
>>