I like to step off the beaten tutorial path with blog posts. In fact, I much prefer posts that explore the culture and philosophy behind being a data analyst rather than pure “how-to” posts where I dictate what steps you should follow in order to solve a narrowly-defined problem.
So, then, this blog post is right on brand to answer the big question: How do you become a succesful data analyst? It’s of my opinion that any professional worth their salt is consistently sharing their knowledge openly. Speaking at meetups is a great way to do that. In particular, speaking at meetups is a frequently-cited way to build one’s professional authority. With more and more analysts interested in going independent, I expect this to be of interest to some readers.
Where should speaking at meetups fit in the professional life of a data analyst, especially one interested in self employment? Here’s what I’m thinking now, after at least five years of dabbling in the space: do it until the benefits dry up.
The benefits of meetups
By a “meetup” I mean a volunteer-run and free community interest group offering structured lectures or activities on a regular basis. As this is an analytics blog, I’m focusing on groups looking at Excel, R, general data analysis, etc.
If you’re not at least occasionally attending a meetup — do it! This is a great way to meet like-minded individuals and hear from interesting people in your space. I usually suggest those just getting into analytis or looking for a job to attend their local metup. It’s never been easier with so many moved online (more on that shift later). Ditto speaking at meetups — of course, our post’s focus.
Good speaking practice
Perhaps the most immediate benefit of speaking at meetups is the opportunity to communicate your knowledge openly. It can be hard to find a group of supportive techies — run with it!
You hear about comedians travelling the country to do endless hours of shows, and a perfectly workshopped routine emerges. An analytics presentation may not need be that intense, but trying out your material a few times can be a real blessing. Doing analytics isn’t easy, let alone communicating it well. This is a great chance to try.
Community service
It’s also unadulterated community service: sharing your knowledge for its own sake, with nothing expected in return. We need more of this as a knowledge profession. There’s no reason to horde what you know as a fixed amount — on the contrary, the more you share the more you collect.
No one in this space knows everything, and we’ve all got a unique style. So chances are you’ve got something interesting to say that would make a great meetup presentation. (Not implying that it will be like The Room btw. Don’t be deluded 😉)
Of course, this community service could have some concrete benefits, such as the knowledge gain as discussed earlier. A few roles and positions may look for this track record as a signal that you’re serious about the community. The Microsoft MVP award comes to mind (Hit me up? 🤷♂️).
Typically, these benefits are more important to independent professionals; very few full-time employers give a lot of weight to community service and may even see it as a distraction to the “real work.” It seems like this is changing gradually. But when you’re independent, you’re nothing without the support of your community.
Travel the world… sort of
This one is of course much harder during the pandemic, but it’s still pretty cool to speak over Zoom to dozens or even hundreds of people who are thousands of miles from you. If you do get to physically travel somewhere, hey — travel writeoff! And meeting people IRL who you only know as a LinkedIn profile picture is priceless.
Good data
As mentioned earlier, speaking at meetups is a great way to workshop your ideas. There’s no better market research than getting in front of a room of people and talking with them. Over time, you’ll see where frequent questions or objections come up in what you’re presenting, or hear about suggestions for future material. This is really where you get to see what analytics in the trenches looks like — this can be a really important reminder especially when you’re somewhat on the sidelines as an independent consultant.
What happened when everything went online
So, there are good things going for meetup presentations. Most of my speaking experience has been post-pandemic, but I do have some in-person events to compare them to. Like everything else the meetup scene changed dramatically when everything moved online:
The barrier to entry went way down
This is the game-changer: the cost of putting on a meetup basically went to zero, besides a Teams account. It doesn’t take an event planner to copy and paste a URL. So as a prospective speaker, it may make sense to “cut out the middleman” and give your own online workshop.
To be fair, some meetups already had hundreds or even thousands of people on their signup lists, so depending on your own reach as a speaker it may make sense to work with the meetup for their audience.
It became harder to connect
When you speak at a meetup you’re more or less building your authority “on rented land.” There’s really not much of a way to establish a relationship with the attendees, especially when it’s online. Maybe at a meetup you could have an informal conversation with interested people, perhaps at an afterparty. No go here.
I’ve tried to have attendees opt their email address into something as part of a presentation bonus, but they don’t like it. I’ve had several report subsequent emails as spam (keep in mind they did opt in to the list…). In many cases, they’re really not at the meetup for you — they’re there for the meetup more generally.
To hit the marketing jargon, speaking at an online meetup really offers a tight “touchpoint.” There’s not much of a “funnel” to speak of. Translation? It’s a one-and-done affair. You present, they hear, end of story. That’s true probably 99% of the time.
The big meetups wanted unique content
So here’s an interesting one: think about a book tour. An author travels from city to city, more or less repeating their spiel at each place. Because each audience is going to be a different crowd, it really doesn’t matter that the author told the same dumb story in Detroit and Des Moines.
As it turns out, I happened to publish a book this year. I couldn’t do a physical book tour, so I took it digital by speaking at a few meetups.
The thing is that with the meetups being online, there is a sizable “geography-independent” crowd that attends many of the events. Portland, London, Auckland, you name it — they’re there. They’ve heard the dumb anecdote you used at the last presentation.
Because of this, many meetups are starting to look for 100% unique content for the presentation. This would not necessarily happen in an analog world.
The same audience got used to hearing you speak for free
This goes back to the very low cost to present a meetup. When there’s no travelling, it’s so easy line up speaking at meetup after meetup. The thing is, like I said, that there is a big group of people who attend nearly any meetup, anywhere, so long as it’s online and free. So what happens?
- As a presenter, you are asked to present something new for reasons discussed earlier. You also want to workshop new material like any presenter does.
- With no geographic barriers, a group of people will attend your presentations on a variety of topics to the point where they’ve developed a habit of hearing you speaking for free
- You find your audience, sure. But they associate you with speaking for free. And you don’t even have their emails because you’ve built on rented land, aka the meetup’s own email list.
I really don’t want to get too negative or cast aspersions on the whole enterprise, but like I said — this is a conversation worth having among data analysts, especially those looking to build a business.
Here’s the thing with speaking at meetups — like everything else, moving online has been a drag for everyone. Now it’s still good speaking practice and it’s still good community building. But if you’re hoping to move the needle in your profession by speaking at many of them — take a look at the really successful names in the analytics world. Very few of them speak at meetups, ever. Even before things went online. And that’s just made it harder.
Where to go next
So rather than me just lay this all down and gripe, what should you the reader do about it?
Wait until meetups are back in person
Of course, I don’t know how long you’ll be waiting, and it seems like many groups are content with staying online for the duration. But I think growing some roots in a specific meetup — as a frequent attendee and speaker — can help establish the connections you need to grow your authority and get something out of your effort.
Or get it out of the way now
In my opinion, people wait way too long before presenting to a meetup. They think they have to know everything. Guess what? No one knows everything! Share your knowledge early and often. We talked about this earlier; you saw The Room meme. Enough said.
Focus on one topic or group
Similar idea as before. Really try to get on the radar of one particular interest group or meetup audience. Short-term drifting through groups is probably not that effective, especially online.
Don’t be afraid to “do business”
Whether that’s opting people into your own email list or including some call to action at the end of your presentation (or really, both), find a way to make your presentation a knowledge share, yes, but an information session about working with you. Show them that there’s more value where that came from.
Russell Brunson’s Expert Secrets does a great job walking through how to give an online presentation that leads to something for your business. I don’t know how compatible his whole blueprint is with a typical meetup presentation. I’m working through it myself and may report back here…
Whither the meetup?
For the time being, I am hanging up my hat from meetup presentations for the reasons discussed here. Of course, things may changed. I get that; I’m a data analyst. But I hope this post provided a fair assessment of pros, cons and who may yet still benefit.
What do you think? How can speaking at meetups build authority, particularly in the analytics space? Will in-person come back, and will that change things? Am I all wet in my assessment of the benefits? Does this post have any bearing on your analytics career?
Let me know in the comments.
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