The meetup happened yesterday and we had a higher turnout that I was expecting (I made reservations for “6 to 12” and I think there were ~14 people) and I thought it was super fun, but I got the sense that better prediction/planning could have made it even better. I want to try a small experiment with this comment.
Please, anyone who attended, reply to this comment with an observation of something GOOD, BAD or INTERESTING. The idea is that we should try to repeat and retain the good stuff at future meetups, fix the bad stuff… and the interesting stuff doesn’t have to be good or bad but it might grow into a practical intuition pump.
For comments responding to this, please do it like the monthly quotes thread, so if you noticed multiple things, make multiple comments so they can be voted up or down independently. I’ll do three by way of example.
(If you were at the meetup but don’t have an account you should all make an account and post something here, or at least vote on the other comments!)
BAD: While the venue was a good choice for several reasons (especially for group bonding), one of its downsides was that it was somewhat loud. Conversation was still possible for most of us, but there was a hearing impaired LessWronger in attendance who was unfortunately unable to participate in any group conversations. And while it’s not always possible to accommodate everyone, it seems that a quieter venue for future meetings would not only benefit him, but facilitate communication for everyone and increase the maximum conversational group size.
Even with quiet I’m pretty marginal at interacting with a group, I’m afraid, but it’s a nice suggestion. (What can work for me as the person in question is one-on-one chat in a quiet environment. So why did I come? Just for the sake of maybe getting surprised—and I did have a nice chat with mindviews on the way.)
The location in space was fine, the location in time, however, was problematic. Friday afternoon, especially in that area, has probably the most congested traffic anywhere on earth. I was so frustrated to finally get there that I ended up parking in a structure that cost me $16 for two hours. Maybe the next meetup can happen at a later time (after 6pm) on a weekday other than Friday.
Also, a little more structure would have been nice in order to massage the strained conversations into a more productive path. For the next meetup it might be interesting to ask prospective attendees to suggest a list of topics of discussion which we could vote on.
INTERESTING: Someone at the meetup (not me! who?) noticed that our group showed up at 3PM and had name tag stickers. Then lots more people showed up for the SENS thing proper. All the LWers were more familiar with each other and were marked, so there was a visible “faction effect” as we stuck with each other the whole night. If it had been on purpose but secret, it would have been a frighteningly Machiavellian way to encourage a sense of solidarity among the LWers… if it had been on purpose with “informed consent” it might have been a great way for us to consciously build group cohesion :-P
INTERESTING: Large groups can’t easily include everyone in the discussion, while small groups couldn’t easily sustain conversations without silent breaks between topics.
It seemed to work best when there were a few discussions going on in close proximity, so when one subgroup finished their discussion, they could jump right into another one with no awkward delays.
Also, roughly circular layouts makes this easier by keeping the end extremes closer.
I was wondering about conversation size when it was mentioned that it was 12-14 people.
The largest everyone-involved conversation I’ve been in was 7 people. (8 were there, but one wasn’t talking.) It seemed like a miracle. We were seated at a round table in a quiet restaurant, and it was fans, so this happened spontaneously, not as a result of rules.
I’ve since found out that 8 people was considered the maximum size for a dinner party.
GOOD: Lots of people showed up! Part of the reason seemed to be that people brought interested and interesting friends. This seems like a custom we should encourage in the future :-)
BAD: The parking situation was a mess. There was “two hour limit” parking and garages that chaged $2 / 15 minutes. There were better places to park a little farther from the center of the neighborhood of the Brewpub, but it would have been good to know that they existed. For future reference, there was a parking lot at the corner of Weyburn and Hilgard that was $7 for the whole day.
I found a public parking structure just around the corner here with the first 2 hrs free and I believe $3 flat rate parking after 5pm that was a good deal.
The meetup happened yesterday and we had a higher turnout that I was expecting (I made reservations for “6 to 12” and I think there were ~14 people) and I thought it was super fun, but I got the sense that better prediction/planning could have made it even better. I want to try a small experiment with this comment.
Please, anyone who attended, reply to this comment with an observation of something GOOD, BAD or INTERESTING. The idea is that we should try to repeat and retain the good stuff at future meetups, fix the bad stuff… and the interesting stuff doesn’t have to be good or bad but it might grow into a practical intuition pump.
For comments responding to this, please do it like the monthly quotes thread, so if you noticed multiple things, make multiple comments so they can be voted up or down independently. I’ll do three by way of example.
(If you were at the meetup but don’t have an account you should all make an account and post something here, or at least vote on the other comments!)
BAD: While the venue was a good choice for several reasons (especially for group bonding), one of its downsides was that it was somewhat loud. Conversation was still possible for most of us, but there was a hearing impaired LessWronger in attendance who was unfortunately unable to participate in any group conversations. And while it’s not always possible to accommodate everyone, it seems that a quieter venue for future meetings would not only benefit him, but facilitate communication for everyone and increase the maximum conversational group size.
Even with quiet I’m pretty marginal at interacting with a group, I’m afraid, but it’s a nice suggestion. (What can work for me as the person in question is one-on-one chat in a quiet environment. So why did I come? Just for the sake of maybe getting surprised—and I did have a nice chat with mindviews on the way.)
The location in space was fine, the location in time, however, was problematic. Friday afternoon, especially in that area, has probably the most congested traffic anywhere on earth. I was so frustrated to finally get there that I ended up parking in a structure that cost me $16 for two hours. Maybe the next meetup can happen at a later time (after 6pm) on a weekday other than Friday.
Also, a little more structure would have been nice in order to massage the strained conversations into a more productive path. For the next meetup it might be interesting to ask prospective attendees to suggest a list of topics of discussion which we could vote on.
Other than that, nice meeting you all!
next time try the highway and zip up the 405
INTERESTING: Someone at the meetup (not me! who?) noticed that our group showed up at 3PM and had name tag stickers. Then lots more people showed up for the SENS thing proper. All the LWers were more familiar with each other and were marked, so there was a visible “faction effect” as we stuck with each other the whole night. If it had been on purpose but secret, it would have been a frighteningly Machiavellian way to encourage a sense of solidarity among the LWers… if it had been on purpose with “informed consent” it might have been a great way for us to consciously build group cohesion :-P
INTERESTING: Large groups can’t easily include everyone in the discussion, while small groups couldn’t easily sustain conversations without silent breaks between topics.
It seemed to work best when there were a few discussions going on in close proximity, so when one subgroup finished their discussion, they could jump right into another one with no awkward delays.
Also, roughly circular layouts makes this easier by keeping the end extremes closer.
I was wondering about conversation size when it was mentioned that it was 12-14 people.
The largest everyone-involved conversation I’ve been in was 7 people. (8 were there, but one wasn’t talking.) It seemed like a miracle. We were seated at a round table in a quiet restaurant, and it was fans, so this happened spontaneously, not as a result of rules.
I’ve since found out that 8 people was considered the maximum size for a dinner party.
GOOD: Lots of people showed up! Part of the reason seemed to be that people brought interested and interesting friends. This seems like a custom we should encourage in the future :-)
BAD: The parking situation was a mess. There was “two hour limit” parking and garages that chaged $2 / 15 minutes. There were better places to park a little farther from the center of the neighborhood of the Brewpub, but it would have been good to know that they existed. For future reference, there was a parking lot at the corner of Weyburn and Hilgard that was $7 for the whole day.
I found a public parking structure just around the corner here with the first 2 hrs free and I believe $3 flat rate parking after 5pm that was a good deal.