Re: [UG-ADMINS] How do you generate enthusiasm?

Something we've had some success with has been to have people do 15 minute
"mini-talks" before our main presentation. It's more manageable when it
comes to preparation and for those with stage fright, it's not as
intimidating as a 45 minute slide-based talk. We encourage more of a
"show-and-tell" format with the minis and we leave the topic more open for
general development topics. We did an "IDE roundup" one year where we had
3-4 mini talks on different tools. We've recently asked for anyone
interested in doing a demo of something they've used at work (or home for
that matter), such as a particular library or development method. We
haven't done this yet, but have also thought of a "mini-talk night", where
we line up multiple people for the 15 minute format. We've had a few people
who started out with a mini and have since done a full length talk for us,
so while we don't have 15 new speakers waiting in the wings, it's been
helpful.

Ultimately, we hope to cultivate more full-length speakers by easing people
into it. Some time ago, I got in touch with O'Reilly and got multiple
copies of "Confessions of a Public Speaker" (
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596802004.do), with the intent that
we'd focus a bit more on developing people who are interested in speaking.
I haven't had time to formalize it yet, but I picture something like a book
club format or at least one discussion session for those who'd like a copy
of the book and are willing to commit to eventually presenting to us.

Hope this helps!

Chris


On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Jonathan Sundquist
<[email protected]>wrote:

> Andrew does have a great point. I have actually taken that direction with a
> few speakers, however the issue you also run into is you may have great
> speakers but eventually those speakers get brunt out and you have to find
> new speakers.  MN PHP has been pretty good at finding speakers this year
> however its starting to slow down. We do typically average anywhere from 20
> to 40 attendees each session however having over 600 people on our mailing
> list we wonder where the other 580 people are or why they don't come out.
>  I actually just sent out a survey to all of our members asking them a few
> questions to get a better idea as to how we might be able to get them to
> attend.
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 10:49 AM, Andrew Shell <[email protected]
> >wrote:
>
> > I find it works better to be direct.  Instead of sending out an e-mail to
> > the group saying "Hey I'm looking for speakers" I'd personally contact
> > regulars in your group that you think would be good candidates and say
> "Hey
> > I want you to speak, let's figure out what you can talk about." you may
> > already have an idea based on chatting with that person what they do and
> > what topics they might be able to speak about.  In that case you can be
> > even more direct and say "Hey, I'd like you to speak to our group about
> > <topic>. Is the <month> meetup enough time for you to prepare?"
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Andrew
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 10:44 AM, Patrick Schwisow <
> > [email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > > I have not had too much difficulty getting attendance since changing
> > > locations in January, but I have recently noticed that I am the only
> > > "regular attendee" of the group to give a talk this year.  I've been
> very
> > > lucky to get some great speakers outside the group, but how do I
> > encourage
> > > members to step up and speak?  I have emailed a few times looking for
> > > speakers, and not gotten much in the way of responses.  It's very
> > > disheartening.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, Oct 15, 2013 at 10:36 AM, Tim Lytle <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >
> > > > A quick personal note - sending out the 'so, what should we do
> > > differently'
> > > > email didn't really get much in the way of actionable feedback, but
> it
> > > did
> > > > give us a bump in attendance (still, we're a small group, so 10 or so
> > out
> > > > is a success for us).
> > > >
> > > > So it might be worthwhile just to send out that email.
> > > >
> > > > Tim
> > > >
> > >
> >
>