Re: [UG-ADMINS] Introduction: PHPJutland in Denmark

Hey Michelangelo & Boyan. Thank you very much for the replies, I'll be sure to look at this when organising the next meetup. We have had a few speakers from outside the country, Two have skyped in from the states, and one has come from Germany. The Skyping wasn't a great success, so we'll stick to live speakers, but I'll definitely be trying some of the other formats for a meetup. We would love to have you speak at some point, Michelangelo, I'll keep you on our list of speakers :-) Thank you for your ideas and suggestions. - Jesper On Thu, May 17, 2018 at 10:25 AM Michelangelo van Dam <dragonbe@gmail.com> wrote: > Hey Boyan, > > > All this reminds me I still have to come down to Varna and speak at your > user group! Let's make it happen in 2018!!! > > Michelangelo > > *Michelangelo van Dam* > Sr. Web Application Architect, Test Automator & Microsoft Azure MVP > > Mobile/WhatsApp: +32479922951 <+32%20479%2092%2029%2051> > - Telegram/Twitter: @DragonBe - Skype: michelangelovandam > GPG Fingerprint: 5732  D8FE  EDE8  D59F  E59F 1597  70DF  8F88  2024  203C > > On 17 May 2018, at 10:17, Boyan Yordanov <boyan.yordanov.dev@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Hey Jesper, > > Congrats for running the user group for more than a year already! > > I feel your pain. Our group in Varna, Bulgaria suffers from pretty much > the same problems. People were really hesitant to even show up at first and > most of the “regular” speakers in the country are located in the capitol > (Sofia) which is a 5-6 hours drive. > > My observation is that people started offering talks more after I did a > few. And after a year and a half I continue to speak every third meetup. > I’ve experimented with other formats like lightning talks with mixed > results. Also a personal encouragement and offer to help from the > organizers seems to go a long way with prospective speakers. > > As for reaching out my personal experience is that word of mouth and > people bringing their colleagues and friends with them works best. Also > having a present on all popular platforms in the country. Currently we > still have more people showing up trough the Facebook events than trough > meetup.com <http://meetup.com/> because that’s more > popular in Bulgaria. > > > On the bright side it’s awesome that you have inspired others to start > similar events. > > As long as people show up you can even grab a drink and talk php without > talks and still have a really productive event and a good time for > everyone. > > Keep up the good work and good luck! > > > On Thu, 17 May 2018 at 3:00, Jesper Østertoft Jacobsen < > jesper@oestertoft.dk <mailto:jesper@oestertoft.dk > <jesper@oestertoft.dk>>> > wrote: > Hello UG-Admins > > I am Jesper Jacobsen, I run the Danish PHPJutland group. > > > We've been up and running for a year and a half now, and are finally > starting to gain some real traction. > > However, developers in Denmark are still very shy, as there has been no > precedence for meetups or the likes beforehand. Luckily it's contagious, > and companies that has hosted us has started to do similar events. > > What's your best advice for reaching out to new users, and to potential > speakers? > It's currently quite the challenge to find speakers as they are shy, and > Denmark is quite split. About 50% of the developers we can use as speakers > are located in the capitol, Copenhagen, about three hours away. We have had > speakers from there before, but I don't think we can do that every time. > Aarhus, where we're located has a lot of great companies, but they aren't > very keen on speaking, unfortunately. > I'd be glad to hear anything you can tell me about running a Meetup, as I > still feel very new to the whole process. > > > Thank you very much > - Jesper > > > > Boyan Yordanov > boyan.yordanov.dev@gmail.com > > Organizer of PHP Varna <http://phpvarna.com/> > Software Engineer @ ShtrakBG > Find me on Twitter <https://twitter.com/specter_bg> > > >