July 2010 Southern California Meetup

So... do you have a "physical world interface object" that is already in Southern California, but which is otherwise engaged tomorrow? If it exists, what is the zip code of the location where it usually goes for repair and refueling?

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.

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!

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.

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.

Would a detour through Burbank be any bother? I don't have a car myself.

Where is your starting location? If you mull out loud there's a chance you could find a carpool situation so someone else can deal with the cesspool and you can talk with them if the driving is boring and safe enough that they can spare the attention!

You should come after 5. I probably will be doing that. 3 is an odd time; I hope future SoCal meetups are after 5 or on weekends.

I've never been to a convention, but it sounds neat.

My impression, from experience trying to organize stuff, is that the best way to do this sort of thing is to first poll people close to you to see if they think its a good idea, then if the stars seem to be aligned, just go for it and tell a bunch of people until you start getting a critical mass. When you get people you say yes privately, then ask them to say yes publicly, because it might not occur to them otherwise.

On the basis of looking at past meetup posts, I figured this attempt would count as a success if I got five to ten "non-Jennifer comments", and so far we're at eleven!

One thing that's helpful is to model the plans in terms of other people's interests instead of your own, and imagine people who might not know what's going on and explain how the thing you're proposing would connect with the simpler and more public things that they are probably already interested in. For example, I don't even know what TAM is, but googling turned up conventions for the Telephone Association of Maine. I assume from the name that DragonCon is something to do with Fantasy, and maybe its in SoCal, so I didn't bother to google it.

A good way to do this, then, would be to do the research on your own, figure out upcoming dates and locations, think about logisitical barriers and other people's interests and then say something like:

"Convention W is happening at X on date Y with amazing thing Z. On the other hand convention A is happening at B on C with amazing thing D. I want to negotiate a group rate for hotel rooms for LW people that are near each other [or some other thing you can do to "pitch in and help" to get the stone soup started] , but I want to do it at the one that will have higher attendance. Which of these would people prefer?"

This would give people information necessary to respond, they could come up with improving variations on your plans, and so on. Then, look for ways to say yes.