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Baskarrao Dandlamudi
Baskarrao Dandlamudi

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In Person Meetup or Remote Online Meetups

As a beginner/experienced developer, do you prefer attending in-person meetups or remote online meetups? What are your expectations while attending a meetup?

Top comments (8)

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Jay H.

Short meetups can be either. Sometimes remote is better since it may lessen the anxiety level I think.

Longer should be in person. Best after a short remote Meetup since people have had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with each other.

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Amara Graham

In person. Remote online meetups almost always end up falling back to a webinar format.

My expectations are learning something and meet someone. Every meetup and every community is different, so I try to set my expectations accordingly. If its a workshop, I raise my expectations that I'll walk out with a clearer understanding of something.

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baskarmib profile image
Baskarrao Dandlamudi

Yes In-person is generally preferred. What if we can make remote meetups more interactive?

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Amara Graham

I would say it depends on the community and the platform you are using to host. Can you facilitate small side conversations (chat or voice/video)? Can you remove anonymity?

I'm comfortable with in person or remote, but I've been both an attendee and an organizer. If folks don't do a lot of video or voice meetings it may be awkward for them and harder to get them to engage.

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baskarmib profile image
Baskarrao Dandlamudi

Yep we tried asking questions in the meetup on voice and send in questions through chat and have them addressed at the end during Q&A. But agreed it would be challenging for those who do not do voice and video meeting.

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Matt Eland

100% in person. Both for the presenter and for the audience. There's a lot of benefit to be gained by talking with local community members and being able to ask questions in person.

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Baskarrao Dandlamudi

Yes I generally prefer in-person meetups as well. But it might be difficult for some to commute from their work place to attend in-person meetup. So in those situations as an organizer I prefer to conduct remote meetups.

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Matt Eland

My issues with meetups tend to he time. I usually don't want to take time away from family or some volunteering work I do, so I rarely attend unless I'm extremely interested in a topic or presenting. It's easier in the summer when the tutoring program I help with is stopped.