I was at a meetup last night for a technology I am just starting to wrap my brain around. And while I didn’t learn anything about the platform I don’t think I did crystallize some thoughts around how not to present at a meetup. Something I like to think I know something about since I have been attending and/or presenting at them for at least 15 years.

  • A meetup is not a customer sales meeting. It may be awesome that you have lots of cool companies as customers — but we don’t care
  • If the tech is cool, show off the tech! The front of a room of 15 geeks is not the main stage at Demo
  • It is fine to refer to a crib sheet — but don’t be constantly referring to it and switching slides because your notes say you are on the wrong one
  • Have meetup appropriate slides
  • If it isn’t your code, don’t show it. Do not say ‘I had one of our techies whip this up’
  • If you show code, don’t show it in Microsoft Word. Oh, yes. I am serious…
  • You may be smart, and know some other smart people, but we don’t care
  • If you are give 60 or 90 minutes, then that is how long you session should be. Not 27 minutes.
  • Speak to your actual audience, not from your script. Saying ‘…while emailing your husband’ to 15 men seemed a bit odd. Perhaps the speaker was getting into the spirit of Pride week.

I’ll give this group a couple more shots before writing it off to see if last night was anomaly. But forewarned, if I’m in the audience, this is the criteria I’m measuring you against.