How did Super Mondays start?
Gregory
For a regular event that relies on speakers, how do you get them to volunteer for something that doesn't exist?
With an event per month, I imagine you'd need speakers set for about 3 months before you get people to attend. Then those 3+ people will really affect the tone/breadth of topics. Were there enough founders willing to speak for Super Mondays? But I don't even know who founded it, was it experienced speaker friends in a pub one night
Alistair MacDonald
Now that is a some what interesting question and some what pertinent.
Exactly how we started and what the motivations were change depending on who you ask. Everyone has there own reasons as to why they got involved. It happened because of many people's effort, random things aligning (ranging from changes to VAT rules to someone wanting to take there wife to a networking event that did not suck), and the sheer bloodymindedness or Ross.
Finding speakers is the hardest part. This is true for all user groups. Generally for Super Mondays someone from the community would take a subject we were interested in and find speakers, either through contacts they had, through social media, or just by researching and asking.
I also asked a lot of friends in the tech industry to curate events and these were often the best. If they had not done something like this before we were there to help.
I tried to keep us ahead of the game and know what the next but one event would be at all times, but the truth be told we had often not confirmed an event with two weeks to go, and sometimes the speakers changed days before the event. This I did find stressful.
Ultimately the problem was that something the size of Super Mondays requires a lot of time and effort and it was getting hard to find people to help. In recent years if no one volenteered it fell to the advisory committee, and if no one there volenteered it fell to me or it did not happen. As we collectively were burning out half the events in 2014 were organised by me. As a result and I needed a break. I took one at the start of 2015, we lost momentum, and we have not had an event since.
I bet you regret asking now Gregory. ;-)
Okay, so Super Mondays has burnt out a few people over time, and I must find a way to thank them all one day, but this is a crazy large thing that kind of got out of hand. My advice is just do it. Float the idea, find some friends to speak, or if you can not do that pick a date and ask for volunteers. Run a small event, and then take it from there. If you need more precise help then just ask me in person.
Finally, on the subject of Super Mondays I have always said I would organise another event, and this is scheduled for March/April this year. This will be a Makers event and my last event as an organiser. As things stand it will also be the last Super Mondays. We will have drinks that, if everything comes together, will be served by a robot.
Alistair
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Gregory
On Monday, 1 February 2016 23:32:27 UTC, Alistair MacDonald wrote:
I bet you regret asking now Gregory. ;-)
Thank you for your answer. The start was my focus, I think Super Mondays was great for being so broad in technologies and talks I attended managed to please both knowledgeable people and people who hadn't heard of the subject beforehand at the same time. So unlike a specific user group that needs the effort to start, it seems Super Mondays also needed the random things aligning.
The "just do it™" advice is good. I've started small pub-based events like this. You need one person willing to turn up prepared to be alone, or to have a mate agree to attend. If nobody else comes you can run it again, people learn the event is taking place and what subject(s) will get discussed, and then you're doing great if you have 5 people come in future. It doesn't necessarily need to be big.
We will have drinks that, if everything comes together, will be served by a robot.
Greg.