For some time now, I've been involved with a grassroots group of web geeks from the Midlands that, collectively, goes by the name of The Multipack. We all get together, at least once a month, in Birmingham and/or Leamington, for a few drinks, the occasional meal, and a friendly, social chat about anything – with a heavy slant on anything to do with technology.

Photo Credit: Paul Lloyd

Revitalising the Format

Whilst 2010 only had one event, on the design processes employed by three of the Multipack's finest, it was clear that Presents had been sorely missed. So, following the event, a proposal was made to change the format for 2011 to allow for more time to organise the events, whilst still leaving room for the Geek in the Park summer event to take place.

On February 12th, the Multipack held the first of 2011's Presents events at the offices of Birmingham web agency, One Black Bear, with a simple format. Instead of having a fixed theme, the Show and Tell event offered everyone a 10 minute slot to talk about anything they'd been involved in.

Photo Credit: Paul Lloyd

Ten people responded, nine people presented¹ – myself included – and over forty people, our biggest attendance at a Multipack Presents event yet, thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Organised Chaos

Straightforward as it may seem, organising any event can be fraught with difficulties, but I turned to a handful of great tools on the web that make organising events, such as Show and Tell, that little bit easier.

Google Moderator

When we announced the event, we needed a way of getting hold of everyone's suggestions for talks, and this gave me a chance to make a real use of Google Moderator for the first time.

The premise behind Google Moderator is simple - you propose ideas or questions and people vote for or against them. Once the allotted time is up, the votes are frozen and you get to see which are the most popular. This made selecting the ideas very easy, though with just ten proposals, it made sense for us to get all ten speakers to participate.

I have a feeling that next time we run a Show and Tell event – and trust me, based on the success of our first one, a future event is almost a dead certainty – that more people will submit talks, and even more people will vote on those talks. This is one tool you definitely haven't seen the last of!

Lanyrd

Simon Willison and Natalie Downe's wonderful social conference website, Lanyrd, was something I came across at dConstruct last year and, since then, I've become hooked. Whilst I'd love for the site to be able to distinguish between things like conferences, barcamps and meet-ups, I use it to list all of the above anyway.

Poor old Upcoming hasn't seen much love from Yahoo! in recent years, and the cracks that started to show early last year have only gotten wider. Whilst listing your events on Upcoming is still something I'd recommend – and still something I do – I advise everyone who's organising an event, especially one which will be attended by people who use Twitter, to get their events listed on Lanyrd.

The great thing about Lanyrd is that it was created by fast-moving, great listeners and really nice people to boot – thanks to their feedback, you can now subscribe to all future Multipack events in your calendar software of choice (iCal, right?). Not only do we have a place to alert people to upcoming events, but we've also got the opportunity to showcase all the slide decks and videos we take at the events.

Vimeo

As part of the Multipack Presents format, we video each of the talks and publish them online for the whole world to view - sure, there's a lot of work involved in making sure everyone uses the wireless lavalier microphones, and that we get everything synchronised with the video, adding logos and fades, but the end result is very much worth it.

One of the main reasons we go to this length is to make sure that everyone gets to experience it – both the regular members of the Multipack who can't make it, and those who don't know what a Presents event is like.

Lessons Learned

From the feedback I've received, Show and Tell was a success, but it certainly wasn't perfect. This gives me an opportunity to reflect on what I would change for the future.

With regards to the amount of time allotted to speakers, 10 minutes worked really well. The majority of people who spoke at Show and Tell were done in around 8 minutes, but time taken to set up computers and connect to the screen meant that everyone hit their 10 minutes. So, for next time, I think we'll probably ask all the speakers to send over their slide decks so we can use a single computer for all the talks.

As the compère for the event, I spoke a little faster when I was nervous, and not knowing what the talks about made me nervous. It did make me listen intensely to everyone's talks, so I had something to say when segueing between speakers, but I think next time I'll probably ask speakers selected to send over a blurb of their talk and a little profile – if I don't already know them.

Hindsight being what it is, it's apparent that we didn't need 5 minutes in between each talk to get everyone changed over and ready for the next talk. The break offered a chance to speak about the first talks and, in this particular case, it worked really well, because we built up enough of a buffer during the first half of the event to have a discussion during the sessions. That said, a bigger break next time may offer more of a chance to chat with speakers, eliminating the need for awkward QA sessions directly after the presentations.

Photo Credit: Simon Banyard

With food and drink being graciously sponsored by the fine folks at Campaign Monitor, as part of their Gives Back efforts, the one thing I dropped the ball on this time was the collection of the food. We got the drink sorted ahead of time, but the food arrived late because I didn't get someone out there in time - next time, it'll be a good idea to get a volunteer to go and collect it before the break.

Finally, while One Black Bear have been gracious enough to provide space for us to meet, talk and present for the past 2 years, it's becoming apparent that their wonderful board room is just not big enough to house the growing number of attendees. We may need to look for a bigger venue for our next event, which may mean we need to get sponsorship from outside bodies to cover the costs associated with hiring a larger space. 

Next event?

Speaking of which, our next event, to be held in May, will be focused around Mobile development – not just iPhone and Android Apps, but Windows Phone 7, Phone Gap apps and Mobile-focused Web Applications. If you've got a good story to tell, and have a broad knowledge and understanding of the process of developing for your chosen platform, from start to finish, and would like to present at this event, get in touch with me at multipack@abitgone.co.uk.

Plus, if you propose a talk, I'll even buy you a beer at the event!

1. Ten would have presented too, but one dropped out last-minute. ↩

Note: This entry has also been cross-posted over at The Multipack Blog - you can get involved with the group and find out more about us there.

It's been a year since we started our little midweek group over in Leamington, so it seemed like a good idea to have a bit of a birthday party!

If you didn't already know, The Multipack meets twice a month - every second Saturday in Birmingham and the last Tuesday of the month in Leamington (an iCal feed is available). Our little group in Leamington started a year ago so, on the anniversary of our first meet-up, we celebrated with cake:

Our cake, adorned with an iced version of Paul Robert Lloyd's logo masterpiece, went down very well. So much so that we're attributing our best ever turn out to its presence. Many new faces, including some who'd previously not been able to find us, but who had a cake to look out for this time!

Sadly, whilst the cake worked in giving some people a beacon to find us, we can't bring cake every month, so if you've got any suggestions on how to help people find us, we'd love to hear them.

Staying with the same format

The reason we formed our group in Leamington was to give those who couldn't make the Saturday meet-ups a choice of when to attend. It's worked really well, and whilst we've had the odd month where only a handful of people have turned up, there's usually always a good, friendly crowd at our Tuesday night events.

Over the past 12 months, we've been joined by designers, developers, project managers, social media luminaries, other halves and even the occasional prospective parliamentary candidate, and it's been nicer still when some of our newfound geeks have hooked up with the larger group in Birmingham on the second saturday meet-ups.

We think it's worked, so we're going to stick with it - we'll continue meeting from 7:30pm on the last Tuesday of the month at the White Horse in Leamington Spa, where you can find good ale, good food and a good atmosphere. If you work in or around the Leamington Spa area and fancy joining us, we'd love you to join us!

On the last Tuesday of every month (excepting December) from 7:30pm, we run a little social in Leamington for anyone with an interest in anything web-related. Run under the Multipack banner, it was something we thought up last year as a way to promote interest in the larger Multipack meet-ups which take place in Birmingham.

Last night was April's social, and my thanks go to Richard Cunningham (@rythie), David Wilkinson (@dopiaza) and Daniel Newns (@danielnewns), who are fast becoming our band of regulars for the group, for turning up and taking part.

We discussed next week's general election and our frustrations with politics, politicians and the electoral system; buying big-ticket items on the web and the technical, social, economic and psychological barriers in place; iPhone OS 4.0, the forthcoming 4th generation iPhone, Android devices and the differences between them; and the gap in the market for social networking tools aimed at businesses.

So if jovial conversation that doesn't necessarily involve talking about computers coupled with a few beers and a place to meet some local digitally-inclined folk sounds like something you'd be interested in, why not keep the evening of May 25th free in your diary and pop along to the next one?

Update: An edited version of this post is available over at The Multipack's Blog, where you should get involved and leave your comments.

Around this time last year, I heard about an event called Geek in the Park, through Jon Hicks' blog. Given that it was being held in Leamington Spa, a few minutes walk from my door, I figured that it'd be silly not to go along - especially given that it was a free event.

From that point on, I've been going to the regular monthly Multipack Socials in Birmingham, and on the second Saturday of every month - with an alternating schedule that flips between social meet-up and seminar-style events - we meet up, socialise with our peers, have a drink or two and talk about all things web, tech and general geekiness.

A lot of us understand, however, that it's not always possible to give up a Saturday afternoon every month in order to travel up to Birmingham. Weekends are premium time, to spend with your families and where you deal with your other out-of-work, weekend commitments.

Weeknight Socials

It's often easier to meet up for a quick beer or two straight after work and so, with that in mind, we're going to meet up, regularly, on a weeknight to complement the larger Birmingham-based meet-ups. I know there's a burgeoning web design and development community bubbling under the surface in Warwick and Leamington so, with help from Si Jobling (@Si) and Tim Print (@timprint) - who hail from Rugby and Stratford-upon-Avon respectively - we've started a local Warwickshire chapter of the group and will be holding socials in Leamington Spa, with the scope to expand throughout south Warwickshire on a rotating schedule.

Our first meet-up was held last night, on Tuesday, June 30th, at The White Horse in Leamington Spa and, as launch meet-ups go, it was relatively successful, with a number of new faces from the area joining us for a few beers to discuss local community groups and efforts, such as PHP West Midlands, WXWM and a number of others. The weather was fantastic, and our choice of The White Horse and their courtyard worked out really well, with a handful of us staying a little later to sample the excellent food.

Getting Involved

As part of our discussion on getting people to attend, we discussed the fact that it’s not always easy - especially for people who are on their own - to make the jump into attending an event such as this. Meeting up with a bunch of like-minded individuals you’ve never met before can often be difficult for first-timers - a valid point that Richard mentioned - which means it’s all the more important to talk to your friends, colleagues and local contacts who are interested in the web and encourage them to join in.

We’d like more Warwickshire-based geeks to meet up with us and, occasionally, join up with us at the larger Birmingham-based Multipack meetings. If you’re interested in coming along to our next one - the date of which is still to be decided - then please keep your eye on this website, follow @Multipack and @abitgone (me) on twitter, and join the discussions over at the Multipack Forums, where we’ll notify everyone about upcoming events.

The only thing we'll need next time is something to draw newcomers' attention to us!