Fighting the Echo chamber
Working as a product person can often feel overwhelming. Constantly trying to find better value for the customers in ways that work for the business, at a high pace. This environment can easily make you stick to familiar routines because there’s little time for innovation. A paradox for someone who is constantly trying to change the environment of others for the better. I’ve already talked about one way to challenge this: with the help of one’s mentors. Another effective strategy is attending industry meetups, which help you think outside your usual work setting—your echo chamber where everyone may have similar thoughts and actions.
What is a meetup
Industry meetups are events organized by volunteers or organizations, focused on specific themes or interests They vary in format, including morning sessions with breakfast, evening gatherings, or full-day events. Some meetups feature speakers, while others might be more about group discussions or informal ‘un-conferences’. Whether public or invite-only, occurring monthly or annually, the goals are consistent: to facilitate learning about a topic and to enable networking among participants.
Reflecting on the main topic(s)
Usually in most meetups I’ve been to, the organizers will have (a) speaker(s) to discuss a specific theme of the day. Unlike more formal conferences, these speakers are usually volunteers sharing their insights for free. Sometimes you’ll get an influencer in your domain, sometimes you’ll get someone sharing a piece of their worklife story. Everytime, you will get to reflect on what you are (or not) doing on the specific topic. Plenty of learning opportunities ahead :) .
An important point here is: dare asking your questions. The benefit is both for your sake and for the speaker to clarify a point that they might not have covered well.
Networking
Networking is arguably the most important part of the meetup. Although it can be a mixed bag, especially at public events, the people you meet are generally eager to learn—just like you. Now I have to admit that talking with perfect strangers can be daunting. Even after years of participation, it still takes effort for me to start conversations. But the rewards are worth the incomfort.
Tips:
- Get introduced to others by the people you already know. It helps breaking the first contact more easily. Organizers can give you a hand with that too, just ask them :) .
- Add people as new contacts on LinkedIn. That’s one of the artifacts of your network growing and makes you more memorable in people’s heads. I can’t count the times when I used LinkedIn to recall the name of a person I met.
- Reach out to the people you meet after the meetup. Most people I have met have welcome the talk, and it makes for great lunch dates.
How do you find meetups?
As said before there are many flavors and they use very different channels. One good starting point are the websites: Meetup (more community driven, usually free) and Eventbrite (more commercially driven, sometimes free). In these website you can search by city and keywords to find the meetups that are programmed to happen or meetup groups. Many meetup groups gather only a few times or a year or less often so check when the few last events happened to see if the group is active.
Once you start knowing people, you are likely to get invited to more restricted whatsapp or telegram group where more private events circulate as well. More often than not these events are open, but placed in rather obscure places (only on the organizing company newsfeed for example). Having organizers in your Linkedin network is also a good way to keep up to date with when events happen.
Speaking in meetups
One good way to get to gaining exposure for personal branding and get your current knowledged challenged is to talk on stage in a meetup. Not only does it actually work but you also get to improve your public speaking team at the same. And you don’t necessarily have to be the best expert on a topic, just have a story to share, yours.
The best way for it to happen is usually to contact the organizers (in person works better) and to tell them what you would able to talk about. They most likely will put you in a backlog of possible speakers and reach out when they have an event that would fit you.
Organizing meetups
I’ve personally been organizing the Product Tank Helsinki for a while now. I haven’t started it, so I can’t say for sure how hard it would be, but I suppose it’s mostly a matter of finding a few people with a similar interest around a topic (Product Tank is around the product management and leadership for example). Then you just organize a gathering at one of your companies, where one of you speaks about a topic or facilitates a talk and post it on Meetup+ Linkedin
In the case of the product tank, the community is already there, so my role as organizer is mostly to find a sponsor, a topic and speakers. I mostly find sponsors from asking participants of the previous meetups.They will then do the needful with their company to book the space and most of the time some snacks and drinks to avoid hungry participants. Topics, I usually discuss with the sponsor what is something that they would benefit to talk about. They usually have a few ideas that can be picked from. As for the speakers, I have to rely on my network or my network’s network. Usually someone knows someone else who would make a great speaker about a topic and more often than not, these people are happy to share some of their knowledge on stage.
Final words
It can be a bit daunting at times to go to events, especially before or after a long workday, but I very rarely regretted participating as there is always something valuable to learn or someone interesting to meet.
I hope I got you excited to try to participate (more) into meetups, and if you are from the product community and not far from Helsinki, to give a try to the Product Tank Helsinki :) .