Yesterday evening I attended my first Meetup event. I’ve known about Meetup for some years, since it was made popular by Howard Dean’s campaign for President.
I’ll share with you the lessons I learned after I give you an overview of the event:
There were about 400 people in attendance and we heard 5 minute presentations from 6 companies, plus questions from the audience. The companies presenting included Tagiton (social netwokring), Gilt Group (clothing), First (school children robot challenge), Tablexchange (selling and buying premium restaurant reservations), and I’m in Like With You (dating service).
Lesson 1: Have a good presentation (speak clearly, engage the audience, have good graphics/images and be exciting)
Lesson 2: Understand your audience. If you are speaking to school children you’ll have to present differently than if you were presenting to adults.
Lesson 3: Nothing beats networking like face to face networking. If you don’t get away from the office and network with real people you are missing out on many opportunities.
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