Scale back on those introductions?
I think the format where everyone goes around and introduces themselves can be a problem, especially given a group that's over a certain size (say, 10-12 people).
Don't get me wrong, I love meeting folks and sometimes there's relevant information (and my own introductions are often on the longer side).
But this week, introductions took up a full half hour, which competed for time and energy with really interesting programming (the sea level rise presentation was great). And since half the room broke into small groups, the intros weren't that helpful to the whole group anyway.
Even if you did want to keep the practice of having everyone personally say hi to the group, I think you could cut the intro time by 2/3rds if you have folks just say their name, where they're from, and a simple one- or two-word phrase. In this case you could encourage people to do more detailed intros on Slack, which might be a good way to get them active there.
Just a thing to keep in mind, since 7p is already a late start time and energy def starts flagging after 8p, so you want to make the most of that first hour.
I have other thoughts about how to maximize our time together, but one suggestion at a time...
Greg Bloom Fri 3 Feb 2017 4:12PM
May be a matter of personal taste. But I'd say after five minutes people's attention wanders anyway. So if you figure a normal long introduction takes about 30 seconds (i don't have hard data on this) I think you'd want to scale it back to name and a brief phrase once you're past 10-12 people.
Poll Created Mon 17 Apr 2017 1:12PM
Per Greg: Skip intros if there are more than 25 people at a MeetUp group Closed Thu 27 Apr 2017 1:03PM
I propose that if a MeetUp has more than 25 people for presentation purposes, we skip introductions and go straight to the presentation.
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Agree | 33.3% | 1 |
|
| Abstain | 66.7% | 2 |
|
|
| Disagree | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Block | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 0% | 33 |
|
3 of 36 people have participated (8%)
Ernie Hsiung
Mon 17 Apr 2017 1:12PM
It can get long.
Adam Old
Mon 17 Apr 2017 2:18PM
If there are a bunch of new people do intros, if not, don't.
Susan Jacobson
Mon 17 Apr 2017 9:43PM
So I think it's always good to know who is in the audience. Maybe we can do very short intros - just name and affiliation - if there is more than 25 people.
Ernie Hsiung · Fri 3 Feb 2017 4:00PM
@gregbloom: what's a magic number of people you would say where if there's more it would require less of a personal introduction?