Curating Content & Finding Speakers, NA GDG Academy

In this talk, you will learn how to find the best content for your community, how to source speakers, how to provide interaction between the speaker and audience for your event and understand which topics you should be covering.

Laurence de Villers (GDG Montreal & Canada Regional Mentor)
Vikram Tiwari (GDG Cloud San Francisco & Pacific Regional Mentor)

Laurence de Villers - Android Developer, Transit
Laurence is a mobile developer at Transit, she worked on a variety of mobile applications like Busbud and Le Grand Pool RDS and others for different companies. She's leading the Google Developer Group Montreal and Women Techmakers in Montréal.

Vikram Tiwari - Co-founder, Tech at Omni Labs
Vikram is one of the newest Regional Mentors and he will be working with GDG chapters in the Pacific region. He currently leads GDG Cloud San Francisco and has managed other GDG chapters in the past. As the co-founder of Tech at Omni Labs, he is helping to the build the future of work.

Transcript

2. Curating Content & Finding Speakers Laurence de Villers and Vikram Tiwari | February 22, 2020
3. Laurence de Villers GDG Montreal WTM Ambassador Mentor - Canada Region Vikram Tiwari GDG Cloud SF GDE Cloud and ML Mentor - Pacific Region
4. Making event and meetups 01. Curate Content 02. Find Speakers ‍‍‍ 03. Prepare your event 04. Promote your event
5. Curate Content “If you want to create messages that resonate with your audience, you need to know what they care about” - Nat Elliott
6. Ideas for content There’s a lot of content • Popular ◦ Flutter ◦ Cloud ◦ AI • How to begin with a technology • Programming language • Shortcut and development tools • Code Lab • etc. • What is new in technology ◦ New framework ◦ New IDE ◦ New Language etc... • How to solve a specific problem ◦ Architecture ◦ Testing
7. Know your attendees Know what they care about and what is their interest.
8. Create custom question for new member of your Meetup. Manage group -> Edit group setting -> Your members Meetup Know your members
9. Create survey after each event. Ask if there is any topic that they want to see for the next event. Ask question to find more about your attendees. Google form Know your attendees
10. Add custom questions on your ticket form Eventbrite Know your attendees
11. You can even become friends
12. And do silly things together.
13. Know what is popular in your city Read news about technologies in your city and go to other meetups to know what is popular as a technology.
14. Your aim is to pick the best For your community!
15. Getting started topic - Requires technical audience - Great for folks who are struggling with something specific - Do them as last talk of the day because some audience members always wants to talk to the speaker afterwards. A suggestion Some new emerging tech - Easy to attract new members - Good for every type of audience regardless of their professional acumen - Provides a platform for upcoming speakers Some very specific problem - Keeps topics hip and spicy - Good for folks looking to expand their horizons - Helps folks to better understand and appreciate a technology and see where they can impact it
16. Finding speakers
17. Picture a shoe
18. While one did you think of?
19. We all have our own biases. Let’s be intentional and avoid these traps.
20. ensuring Diversity & Inclusion ‍‍‍ Finding speakers
21. Diversity & Inclusion Try to have at least 30% of Women speakers
22. • Contact information ◦ Specialities ◦ Location ◦ Email • Sources ◦ Community leads platform ◦ Women TechMakers Ambassadors ◦ Women.sh ◦ Twitter list by @ladyleet Keep a list of diverse speakers
23. Attract speakers to your event Make everything look amazing • Build an awesome website ◦ Content ▪ Description of the event ▪ Pictures, videos, articles of last year’s event or other events. ◦ Tools ▪ gdg-x/hoverboard ▪ DaveyEdwards/gdgvancouver
24. Attract speakers to your event Include advantages/reward in your call for paper Small meetup and event • Recorded video of your talk Big event • Two free tickets ( you and your +1) including access to all talks, promotional article, food and party • Transportation, if needed • Hotel, if needed , etc
25. • Describe the event ( to make it super exciting) • Define what kind of talks you are looking for : ◦ Topics ◦ Level of complexity ◦ Speaker qualification • Submission deadline Create a call for paper
26. Call for paper • Small event ◦ Google form • Big event ◦ Papercall.io ◦ Sessionize
27. • Find CFP List of diffusion ◦ https://twitter.com/ltCfpList ◦ http://www.wikicfp.com/cfp/ • Add a link on your website / NewsLetter • Email Campaigns • Social Media • Share on slack group • Share to others meetups Spread the call for paper
28. Don’t forget about diversity! • Share the CFP in minority meetup and group ◦ Lady Learning Code ◦ LatinaGeeks ◦ WiMLDS ◦ Women Who Code ◦ Black Women in Technology ◦ Etc... • Women Speaker List
29. • They are fantastic at what they do and even more! • https://developers.google.com/community/e xperts/directory/ • Now on community leads platform too! https://communityleads.dev/home/members -directory Ask GDEs to do a talk Google Developers Expert
30. When you go to a conference try to talk to potential speakers and get their information. Don’t forget to pitch your own meetup group. @gdgvancouver: the top rising GDG in the world Talk to speakers from other events Networking is very important
31. Encourage your personal contacts to do a talk The majority of the people are scared of public speaking. There is a plenty of talent and we need to encourage them to do some public speaking. “Step outside your comfort zone because that’s the only way you’re going to grow” - Madeline Brewer
32. Prepare your event
33. 3 months to event 1 week to event 1 day to event Timeline of well scheduled event 2 months to event Create a meetup page and/or update event websites Confirm speakers and prospective topic for the event Send reminders to speakers and attendees Send reminders with directions to the venue. ♀
34. Important make sure people get the information! • There are always people ◦ Who do not read email ◦ Who don’t remember deadline ◦ Who are lost ◦ Who don’t understand ◦ Forgot about things #people
35. Keep the events free for all Keep registrations open for all Enable +1s Add a banner for the event Add clear directions to the event Put it on Meetup
36. If any problems arrive please find one of those organizers ☝ Code of conduct GDG is dedicated to providing a harassment-free event experience for everyone, regardless of: • Gender • Sexual orientation • Disability • Gender identity • Age • Race • Religion • Nationality Be nice to each other! https:/[linkToYourWebsite]/code-of-conduct/
37. There are a lot of variables. Your aim should be to reduce the number of things that can go wrong. A local speaker is much better for your audience than a rockstar speaker on hangouts. Don’t do remote speakers for first few events
38. Ask for help Have co-organizers and volunteers “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much” You might need someone at door The pizza might not arrive Your laptop might not work Take deep breath ! It’s okay. - Helen Keller
39. Have a plan A-B-C-D Be prepared There is always an incident like a speaker that miss his/her flight A speaker that doesn’t wake up on the morning or all of the above Think about some plan B for your event “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong” - Murphy’s law
40. Promote your event
41. Every region is unique and their audiences are also very unique. - Twitter - LinkedIn - Instagram - Slack groups - Facebook groups - University message boards? Find a channel that’s popular locally
42. Remember to add banners to meetup page When speakers share, their friends share too Have a consistent hashtag for the group Share on social media
43. Tag your speakers Keep it clean and concise You can schedule these posts to happen every few days before the event Highlight your speakers
44. Get your attendees to share Generally during the event Things that might help - Cool venue - Engaging content - Fun speakers - More cookies!
45. Laurence de Villers GDG Montreal WTM Ambassador Mentor - Canada Region Vikram Tiwari GDG Cloud SF GDE Cloud and ML Mentor - Pacific Region Thank you! FEEDBACK: https://forms.gle/mcNmRA6V9bVT6jML7