Hello everyone, welcome to my talk.
I hope you all have been
enjoying EmacsConf so far, like I am.
But you might be wondering,
"How do I meet fellow Emacs users
after the conference?"
What if I tell you there is a way?
The answer is local meetups.
These are user groups who arrange events
at some frequency, they meet at some frequency.
That's what we are going to talk about today:
attending and organizing Emacs meetups.
In other words, enjoying your Emacs journey
with more folks!
I am Bhavin, I am from India,
and I have been organizing
Emacs Asia Pacific meetup
since last few months [almost 2 years].
We will be talking about online meetups
most of the time.
The beauty of online meetups is,
you can join any meetups
if the time permits,
if the time zone is same.
And there is no barrier.
So let's get started.
Let's see how a meetup looks like.
We will see one of the Emacs APAC meetup's
snippet, basically.
[Ihor]: There is something called org-indent-mode.
So, it's like this org-adapt-indentation
which is like electric indent.
Like when you press enter, it will indent.
There is org-indent-mode, which does not require you
to actually make the indents physically
in the file.
It will make things appear indented.
This one?
Yeah.
[Bhavin]: org-adapt-indentation.
Okay.
Looks interesting, right?
So, let's get into more details.
You might have a question:
"Why I should attend meetups?"
That's a good question.
You should always ask "why".
It's an opportunity to learn together.
You basically meet like-minded people,
like-minded Emacs users,
and you can always have fun, right?
You still might have a question:
"I am a beginner."
I would say that's a great avenue for you.
You get to discover more things.
You can get help if you are facing
any issues, any errors.
And always keep in mind that it's okay
if you don't understand everything
from the discussions.
There are going to be times where everything is…,
all the topics you are not able to understand,
which is totally fine.
"I am an experienced user."
I would say that's even better
because you can help others
during the meetup.
And usually, in Emacs or in general,
there is always something new to learn.
There are plenty of packages.
There might be something
you have never tried.
And there are always going to be
different workflows of using something.
So now, how do I become part of a meetup, right?
"How do I become part of a meetup group?"
The first step you might be doing is
finding a meetup.
There is this page,
EmacsWiki page called Usergroups,
currently maintained
by Leo and Sacha.
So, let's see how that page looks like.
As you can see, this page tells you
about all the upcoming events.
And it also has a list of all the meetup groups.
So, you can find all the groups there.
Once you find one,
you need to join them, right?
How to join differs from group to group
but usually you will find a way to subscribe
to their mailing list or RSS feed,
join their IRC channels.
They might have accounts on some platforms
like Mobilizon or meetup.com.
You can just go there and join,
so that you get notified
whenever there is a new event.
Now, seeing that list,
you might say, "There are too many events
of my interest."
Don't worry, there is a solution.
There is an Emacs calendar,
you can subscribe to this calendar.
Let's see what all events
are there in this particular calendar.
This month there is Emacs Berlin to start with
and then there is EmacsConf,
then Emacs APAC is also there.
Let's see…, there is a companion website
for this calendar as well.
Let's go to the website also.
You will see all the options, how to import it.
There is ICS file,
there are different time zones,
Org mode files.
You can just go there and subscribe.
"How do I make most of it?
If I am attending a meetup,
how do I make most of it?"
I would say never hesitate
from asking questions.
If there is something new,
something you don't understand,
just go ahead and ask questions.
Ask for help if you are stuck somewhere.
There are going to be new things,
so make sure you note them down,
and you can try those later.
If possible, have a microphone or webcam on,
so that you can connect with others very easily.
If that's not an option for some reason,
it's fine, you can always use chat
and interact with everyone.
So, don't make that a reason for not attending.
Go ahead and attend,
even if you just have chat as an option
to interact with others.
"Wait, I still have questions."
Definitely.
If you have more questions,
go ahead and post those.
I will come to them at the end.
Now we know how to attend,
what are the things you need to do
if you want to attend.
"What if I want to start my own meetup group?"
Because there is no regional group,
or there is something very specific
which you want to start a group about.
Again, "Why should I start a meetup group?"
It is a way, I would say, to give back
to the community by creating a platform
for people to interact.
You give speakers a platform,
you also give a platform to the attendees.
And obviously to have fun with others.
There are some common questions
which might come up,
something like,
"How much effort do I need to put?"
Personally, I don't have to put
more than two hours a month,
that's including the time
I attend the meetup.
"What if I'm new to Emacs?"
That's totally fine.
You don't have to know Emacs,
you don't have to be an expert
to start a meetup group.
That's totally fine.
You will have more folks joining in
with different experiences.
That's totally fine to be a beginner
in Emacs to start a meetup.
"How do I do it now?"
So, let's look at some specifics,
some questions you might need to answer
in order to start your meetup group.
Format of the meetup.
What participants will do during the meetup?
Let's see one of the options,
this is one of my favorites.
Keep it simple, a bit unstructured
and have free flowing discussions.
What does that mean?
That basically means letting people
ask questions, share new things they have found,
let them ask doubts, let them ask for help.
During this free flowing discussions,
you can go through Emacs News as well,
go through the topics, and you might find
something interesting which you can talk about.
Why I prefer discussions?
Discussions basically give an opportunity
to all the participants to participate.
They get to talk about what they know
rather than just having one way talk.
They can basically participate
by putting up their thoughts.
Everyone gets to learn more
as topics change.
Usually during these free flowing discussions,
topics keep changing
and that's how you get to learn more.
This also has less friction for the speakers.
They won't have a burden that,
"Okay, I have a talk in the meetup
I need to prepare."
That just increases friction for them
to participate.
If you are having a free flowing discussion,
it's basically just a matter of saying,
"Hey, maybe I would like to share my screen,
and I'll talk about this particular thing."
What about talks?
Everyone loves talks, even I do.
So, make sure you are also accommodating talks,
allow people to submit talks,
and have talks plus discussions.
You can also host watch parties.
You can pick up
any of the talks from EmacsConf
for anything which is out there,
and you can watch it together,
and you can have discussion
about that particular talk.
The next question
you might need to answer
is frequency of the meetup.
How often the group is going to meet?
One option is recurring meetups.
So something like, you meet every month
on a specific day time.
Another option is one-off meetups.
You can meet whenever you have
some specific talk,
some specific discussion topic.
What you can do about the timing is,
if you are targeting a specific region,
make sure [people from] all the time zones
from that region are able to attend.
Now you have figured out everything
and you are going to schedule the meetup.
So, "Should I schedule and just wait?"
No.
Go ahead and spread the word about it.
Let's see what we can do.
You can post on social media about your event.
Usually do it a week or two before,
so that people can plan their other things.
Share it on local GNU/Linux user groups.
They might have IRC channels, mailing lists,
so you should share your event there.
Reddit seems to be a popular place as well.
Many people follow and are there,
so you can post about your event there as well.
The next option is adding your event
to Emacs calendar.
You should get your event added
to the EmacsWiki and the calendar,
which we saw in the first part.
And the instructions are given there.
So, whenever you schedule a meetup,
you should definitely add your event
to those places.
Next thing you should do is…,
these are few points
which you should do during the meetup.
You should start with the introductions.
Introductions serve as an icebreaker, usually.
They make everyone speak about themselves,
so that everyone knows each other
a bit at least.
Make sure it is possible for others
to participate via chat.
So, if there are some messages in the chat,
make sure you relay those to others
who are talking via audio/video.
Share your website at the end,
so that people know and they can follow it,
and they can join the next event.
The next is keeping track of time.
Make sure you keep track of time.
Have some time, let's say, 1 hour
or slightly more than that
and time-bound your event,
so that we respect everyone's time
and we conclude in time.
Now your meetup was done,
it was good, people attended.
What's next?
Publishing the recordings, I would say.
You should consider publishing the talks
or discussions both.
The reason being people can revisit the things.
Usually people go back
and watch the recordings again.
And those who were not able to attend,
they can also participate
by watching the recording.
You can do even more.
You can have captions for the videos,
so that people can enjoy the talks
way better than just audio video.
And you can even have written summaries
of the discussions,
something like with links.
Let's see some of the examples of summaries.
This is one of the summaries
for Austin meetup
and this is written by someone
who is participating during that meetup.
You can see they have put up their thoughts,
what they think about something
they got to know in the event.
Another example we can see is M-x Research.
You can see they have put up
all the discussion points.
They even have action items from the meetup.
One more example we can see is Emacs APAC.
What I have done here is,
I have mentioned the topic and links,
who shared what.
And that's about post meetup stuff.
You can keep it simple.
Just start with hosting your video recordings,
and just start with basic links and details.
So, are we ready to start a meetup?
Definitely.
Let's see some of the points
or checklist, I would say,
you should do before you start
a meetup group.
What are the next steps?
Have a co-organizer.
So, have at least one co-organizer or person
to talk to during the meetup,
so that even if no one shows up
you will have someone to talk to
and you both can discuss
about the topic you decided to.
If your friend or the person
you have reached out to
are hesitant to become a "co-organizer",
because that feels like responsibility,
it's fine.
You can ask them to just come with you
and have the discussion during the event.
And like Andrea explained
in his talk about 'buddy',
buddy is someone who is helping you
with your Emacs journey.
Buddies and their mentees
can make their meeting public,
and that can be a good way to start
or spin-off a meetup.
Have a website for your meetup.
You should definitely have a website
where people can go and read
about your event or the group.
Keep it simple.
Have RSS feed, so that people can subscribe.
And whenever you have new talks,
make sure you add those talks
to the announcement pages.
Let's quickly see some of the example websites.
The first one here is again
Emacs Asia-Pacific event.
You can see we have details,
what is the timing, how to submit a talk,
how to attend.
Next example is Emacs Berlin.
So, you can see they have mentioned
what is the next event,
which were the previous events,
how to participate, how to stay updated.
And similarly, there is M-x Research as well.
They have mentioned what are the events,
what are the upcoming events and all.
You can just get started
by taking any of the websites,
and just modify it to your liking.
That's totally fine.
The next thing you will need
is a video conferencing tool.
It should support video, screen share, chat.
These are the few of
the free software options.
One is BigBlueButton
and another is Jitsi Meet.
You can request for an account
on the given instance to EmacsConf organizers
on this mailing list,
or you can stick to any
of the Jitsi Meet instances.
Communication media.
You should have at least some way
for people to interact post meetup
or before the meetup.
You can use any of the existing IRC channels,
#emacsconf, or maybe you can use the existing
GNU/Linux user groups lists.
I would recommend you to read or watch
"Starting an Emacs meetup" by Harry Schwartz.
They have mentioned details
about in-person meetups,
but there are many important points
to consider in that post
as well as in the recording.
So, go ahead and definitely watch
before you start your meetup.
If you need any help with
BigBlueButton account, hosting,
or captioning the talk recordings
for very specific or good talks,
don't hesitate to reach out to
EmacsConf organizers.
There are many volunteers
subscribed to that list,
so you will definitely find
someone to help you.
I had one idea.
If you are one of the organizers,
or if you plan to start a meetup,
I was thinking if
we can have a common platform
for all the organizers
to discuss what they are doing,
what they are experimenting.
If you are interested,
drop me an email at this email address.
If I get somewhere with this idea,
I will definitely involve everyone
who is interested.
With that, we come to the end of my talk.
I would like to thank Sacha and Leo
for their inputs while I was creating this talk,
and thank you for joining.
Now it is time for the questions.