Last Tuesday, during the week of WWDC, there was a breakfast in San Francisco for CocoaHeads organizers, organized by Mark Aufflick, who runs the Sydney chapter, and hosted by Pivotal Labs. I got to meet Mark Dalrymple, the more visible cofounder of CocoaHeads ("AgentM" being the other). I got to hang with my friend Mike Morton, who organizes the NH/VT-ish CocoaHeads.
If we do this again next year (and I hope we do), I'll try to be more social. I didn't talk to as many people as I should have. I did meet the Boulder organizer and the former Taipei organizer. And I told a fellow from Sweden the one Swedish sentence I know ("Your wife is beautiful"). But there were lots of people I did not talk to. For example, I recognized but did not approach Graham Lee. It was a shame I didn't grab that opportunity to pick everybody's brains.
Among the people I did talk to, I noticed we all wondered the same things about each other:
- How big is your group?
- Is your group mostly about iOS?
- How do you get speakers?
Regarding question 1: I think a typical CocoaHeads-NYC meeting has about 15-18 attendees now that Google is hosting us. Maybe more. Ed Marczak, editor at MacTech magazine, is our sponsor. (On a related note, I want to thank Tekserve for kindly hosting us for a few years before we moved to Google.)
Regarding question 2: although many of us are iOS developers, our group has managed to stay focused on Cocoa. A lot of what we talk about translates to iOS, but I don't think we ever had an iOS-specific talk until last month. I haven't given much conscious thought to this, except to acknowledge that there are other meetups in New York that are iOS-specific, so there's no point in us being another one. And maybe the fact that I am not yet developing on iOS myself is a factor.
Regarding question 3: To me this is the most interesting question. I should probably be more systematic about getting speakers, but basically I wing it month to month. I've been lucky enough to get unsolicited volunteers along with friends who were willing to come up with something when I didn't have a speaker. On rare occasions I'll ask someone if they wouldn't mind presenting on a particular topic. And a few times I've either made myself the featured speaker or given a short talk in addition to a featured speaker's short talk.
Recently for a job I'm doing I learned about two new topics: Cocoa scripting and the keychain API. As I was taking notes, I realized I was itching to explain what I was learning to a group — partly just to share, partly to crystallize my own understanding, and partly so people can correct me where I misunderstand. When I get a chance, I'll prepare Keynote slides on these topics and hold them in reserve for when I need them.
Honestly? I would be perfectly happy to be the default speaker (or secondary speaker) at any given CocoaHeads meeting. But I want people to, you know, keep coming to our meetings, and it's safe to say they won't do that if CocoaHeads-NYC becomes The Andy Show. And besides, I learn such great stuff from other people. So I'll have to think about how to keep getting volunteers.
If you're a Cocoa developer in New York and there's something you'd like to present, let me know. It doesn't have to be fancy or super-advanced. It doesn't have to be a lecture — it could be a demo of an interesting project you're working on.
If you're a fellow CocoaHeads organizer, I'd love to know your approach to getting speakers. Do you ask what topics your members want to hear about? Do you have regular or semi-regular speakers? How far ahead do you schedule? Any other tips on running the group would be welcome too.
I don't know if "The Andy Show" would be that unpopular.
In reading this I realized that I've been dealing with a chicken-or-egg problem: I'm not in the habit of preparing slides if I haven't offered to present. I never offer to present unless I'm sure I'll have time to prepare. But I'm almost never sure I'll have time for anything: hence, I think about presenting but never do.
Clearly the way out of this is to do as you suggest for yourself: prepare the slides first, then offer to present them (being confident that the preparation is done).
Thanks, Ben!
Here is what I'm doing in Raleigh, to answer your final questions. 🙂
Do you ask what topics your members want to hear about? Generally no, my viewpoint here is the members are the speakers. They are the ones volunteering to talk. So far, most people have been interested in what has come up. I picked a topic for July that is non-iOS so we'll see how that goes. 🙂
Do you have regular or semi-regular speakers? Not yet, but I'd be up for it.
How far ahead do you schedule? I've been trying to plan 2 months ahead. This way I always can tell people what is coming, but it isn't so hard to manage since most people don't have regular plans that far ahead.
Thanks, Josh. I suspect if someone volunteers to present, they themselves must find the topic pretty interesting. I always like to see people who are really into what they do.
My response quickly grew beyond most sane bounds, so I made the epic version a post on my site instead 🙂 … But to answer shortly:
1: My group – Cocoaheads Göteborg – usually have meetings of ten to fifteen people.
2: More people are into IOS than OS X, but it feels to me (being more of an IOS developer myself) that topics have been quite balanced between IOS and OS X, and much of the time things which apply equally to both.
3: So far, mostly by me nagging everyone I can think of until someone happens to say yes 🙂 … It may be getting easier though, but we haven't even gone on for a year yet so it's hard to tell the incident from the trend. In any case, last time we had three different speakers, none of which I really had to bother much to get in. (Then, they all had to cancel their speeches for various reasons, but that's a different story.) Even without a speaker lined up we have always managed to fill the time surprisingly easily with just semi-random development discussions. Casual and friendly is certainly our style 🙂 …
We don't have any regular speakers (but I wouldn't mind having some). I do ask what people are interested in hearing, but just for reference. I can't see myself turning down someone with a suitable topic, I am completely with Andy in his comment above. A volunteer speaker is interested in his topic, and an interested speaker tends to be a good one worth hearing. Should people complain, they are more than welcome to step up and do it better themselves 🙂 …
My vision is to have a plan at least a month or two ahead. So far, it hasn't really happened. But it could in the future!
Two questions of my own: 1: How large is the spread in Cocoa experience in your group? Ours ranges all the way from "started on an Apple II and was a full-time Next developer" to "just getting started with IOS".
2: Do you try and reach new people much, and do you have any interesting ways if you do?
Epic version here: http://bjoreman.com/main.php?mainId=1776
Thanks for starting a good discussion and geting me to think even more about all this.
Thanks, Fredrik. I like your additional questions — I'll answer them back on the list. 🙂