Hi folks,
It’s been a long time since we talked about Ansible Meetups, so I thought we should fix that. Some of the ideas head follow on from the great discussions we have around reducing fragmentation in the Ansible Communication platforms.
Summary
We’re migrating Ansible’s meetups to a new home on Meetup Pro to create a shared space for Ansible users, practitioners, technologists, and all-round automation enthusiasts. Meetup Pro allows us to connect Ansible events on a global scale in a more unified way than having multiple, separate groups operating independently.
I’d like to get you ideas on what we can do better, so if you’ve never been to an Ansible Meetup, or you are an Meetup host, I’d love to hear what’s working (and more importantly) what we can improve.
Actions
We will keep this list updates with current progress
Create Ansible on Meetup Pro Ansible | Meetup Pro- Create ansible-virtual-meetup group (for online events)
Add useful links into Ansible’s new meetup landing page- Create subcategories for other spoken languages
- French initial threads
- German initial threads
- Italian initial threads
- Invite Meetup members from closing groups to Forum & ansible-virtual-meetups group
Promoting events
- How can people find out that there is a Meetup happening in their home town?
- Where should we be promoting the events
- Some of this might be regional, for each Meetup, do we need the members to help identify where we can promote the event?
Making the events useful & fun
- How do we keep the events interactive
- Do we need to ensure there is a balance in each event between “Getting Started” and a “advanced topic”. For the Ansible London Meetup event, we get a fairly consistent 50% of people defining themselves as “New to Ansible”.
- Are open floor & panel discussion useful? Give people a chance to ask the room of users
Ansible Forum for promotion & discussion
How can we better use the Forum to support our meetups?
- We already have the event calendar, how can we improve this?
- Earlier this year we started adding slides to the Forum, though apart from the February London meetup, we’ve not had much discussion
- In the past few months, we’ve created Forum Badges for Meetup Attendees, presenters and hosts
What to do with inactive meetups?
There are a few meetup groups that haven’t ever hosted an event, and some with no events since 2017 (or 2020). What can we do there, would people be OK with those groups having n-months notice then been closed down
International audience (non-native English speakers)
You might not know, though we have an International Category in the Forum. While it’s not widely used, it seems like something that overlaps with what we are trying to achieve with the Ansible Meetups.
I feel having non-English talks and resources is especially important for folks that are just starting out.
Meetup organizers logistics
We recognize its both rewarding and tough work running meetups, I think we could do more to support our meetup organizers across the globe
- Would a dedicated area on the Forum for Meetup discussions help (maybe with sub-sections for logistics+promotions, CFP, etc) help
- If you are a Meetup organizer (Ansible or another group) what could help you?
Virtual Meetups
Is there interest in having some online meetups. I know we miss the social side, though it recognized that the vast majory of Ansible users aren’t close to city with an active Meetup, of if they are, can make the events.
- For example, we could have an event that’s EMEA evening and therefore East Coast afternoon.
- How can we make online meetups fun?
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- How can we make online meetups useful?
Multi City Meetups (Hybrid in-person & virtual)
There was an interesting approach in India a few years.
(from memory) they have 5 meetups across different cities, each city did one meetup live, and broadcast to the other 4 meetup locations.
Meetup Survey
Do we need a survey across all out meetup members, we’ve got thousands of people across our Meetup groups, what should we ask them, as the target users. Some initial ideas:
- Multi-select: Meetup locations
- Have you ever attended a meetup
- Did you know Ansible has meetups
- Which other meetups do you attend
- Free form: What would we need to do for you to attend meetups
- Do/have you
- attended Ansible Fest
- attended Red Hat Summit
- in-person Ansible Meetup
- Virtual Meetup
- Are you interested in
- (copy above list)
- Where do you hear about meetups
- How would you like to know about meetups
- For your city/region is there any website/LinkedIn/etc place where tech events are shared?
Thank in advance for your ideas, any discussion is welcome, from all people, even if you’ve not been to a Meetup.