3 Things I Learned from Hosting Meet-up

Last week, I hosted a meet-up and tried to mix and match all my friends who are working in the digital field. It is fun to see people connect. I also write this note to remind what I learned from it.

1. Active listening & show interest to others

Hosting a meet-up doesn’t mean I have to lead the entire conversion. Sometimes I will think maybe I should say something and add on other person's conversation. But now what I will do is show interest in the other person, their world and what they might be interested in. Actively listen to the conversation and ask them open-ended questions about something I notice within the conversation. It will eventually help others open up and be comfortable disclosing things.

2. Create a condition, atmosphere and environment for people to share comfortably and build connections

The environment will affect how we behave so when creating the meet-up, I decided to host it in a bar, a place where you will hang out with your friends. Make sure everyone is standing so that they can interact and switch groups.

And most importantly, having a strong yet fun introduction to all my friends, talking about how I met them and our funny stories. When people hire your story, they are more willing to open up.

3. Focus on creating a community not audience

When I started my newsletters couple months ago, I thought about building audiences and how to grow the subscriber. That’s good when you have ideas and points of view to share.

But I also realised having audiences is one-way communication, maybe my friend will also have great ideas to share. And I decided to create a hub for my like-minded and interesting friends to connect with each other.