This section is dedicated to resources you should be aware of as a network builder. If you are looking to create the best community out there, you should take a look at the following books and resources:
- 25 best practices for Meetups
- Exponential Organizations
- The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation
- Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City
Have ONE (1) point person for each outcome / component of the meetup. As the organizer, your life will be less hectic, and the events will run more smoothly, if you delegate as much as you can to a core group of co-conspirators. Co-conspirators often wear multiple “hats” - are the point person for multiple outcomes. Tips: You can give team roles fun names evoking sci-fi / fantasy flavors or other silliness. Describe responsibilities in terms of clearly defined high-level outcomes (not only tasks), to allow for individuals to notice things you didn’t and find creative solutions. Examples include:
- “Master of Architecture: make the event room an inviting, dynamic, clean place to be. This includes making sure the chairs are set up and the signs are on the door, along with whatever else tickles your imagination. Ways to accomplish this include doing it yourself and/or recruiting other people to do it with/for you.”
- “Chief Officer of Beverages and Feasting: make sure food / snacks / beverages are available, most of which are healthy, and are set out in the room a way that facilitates conversation. Ways to accomplish this include bringing stuff yourself and/or setting up a potluck signup sheet where people can volunteer to bring individual items such as salad, cookies, drinks, etc.”
- Example from Weekly Meeting: “Community Growth Wizard: make sure regular attendees know where the weekly meetings are, and if/how they can prepare for them; make sure new people feel welcome and know how to plug in. This includes: create and invite people to a facebook event for the weekly meeting, send casual weekly updates, give an “introduction” to any newcomers at the meeting.)
Technologies are cool and are what brings most people into the door. (“I can code and I’m interested in brains.”) Personal ownership, social dynamics, and important problems are what keeps people there. (“I love being apart of a team of people I like and respect, working on a project that will be useful to the outside world, and I’m learning / working on an exciting challenge / getting stronger in the process”).
A group will grow to the extent that its members have a sense of personal stake/ ownership in it. Articulate how the group’s mission connects to each person’s individual missions / incentives.
When thinking about technology design, don’t only automatically extend the existing technologies; start with the problem that you want to solve, and then match it to the kinds of tools you can use to solve it.
Create a schedule where you incorporate 6-12 events a year. It will help you stay focused.
Have one community project to work on with an end goal.
The best types of projects are those that involve outside groups (other tech communities, small companies ). Don't commit to something you can't complete. Scrum is a good methodology to help manage a project
Aim to do an event at least every 2 months. Focusing on quality versus quantity is important as if a person dislikes the event, it's likely they won't come back. Spend the rest of your time working on a group project, to keep things focused.
For best community building- have an activity which you can locally work together on something and then aim to release it to a larger community. The art of Commmunity is a great read with some great details on how to grow your open source community.
Before just adding anyone to become a chapter admin, you should ask yourself yourself the following.
- Can they meet the :doc:`Expectations`?
- Would they encourage challenging and innovative new initiatives?
- Are they comfortable with talking with people?
- Do you think you can work well with them?
The time may come when, there might be some people who may do more harm than good for the community. Certain characteristics of a toxic member includes:
- Constantly causing fights or bad mouthing other members
- Constantly expresses information which is not not scientific in merit and is pseudoscience
- Alienating or belittling new people who may not be as informed as them.
Before doing anything, ask yourself the following:
- Why do I believe that he/she is toxic? Is it a style clash or actual toxic behavior?
- Are you or others enabling the problem?
- Do you have the wrong perspective of the person?
- If you still believe that you are dealing with a toxic member, try the following approach to resolve the issue.
- Have a sitdown meeting with all of the team.
- Focus on the behavior problems that they are exhibiting and not the person.
- Learn to empathisize and not criticize. In many cases people may not be aware of their actions
- Set certain boundaries of what is acceptable and what is not that everyone can agree with.
If the problem persists, provide one more additional warning before removing them completely from Admin. The international Director of NeuroTechX can help you with this. His/Her email can be found in the contacts section.
An interesting thing to consider is sometimes in tech communities you can observe the Jeremy Clarkson effect which is where a person who has a high level of knowledge or is charismatic in nature may start to belittle newcomers and/or show bad behavior. It's better to remove the person, if they won't adjust. Otherwise your community will remain small and won't grow as newcomers won't feel comfortable in staying. Even if you lose the knowledge that they bring, you'll discover that they can be replaced with time.