Survey Follow-Up and First Meetup Scheduled

The survey I announced last Friday concerning real-life networker meet-ups has received nearly 400 responses so far! I had intended to run the survey for two weeks, but it seems the flow of responses has dwindled and a number of very strong patterns have emerged. Let's analyze the results one by one...

Survey Results

The following results were collected from a total of 374 submissions.

1. How often would you want to attend a meeting?

Most people prefer to meet once per month, with roughly even numbers preferring to meet more and less often.

2. What day(s) of the week would you prefer to attend?

There's a pretty narrow spread here because most people selected more than one day. We notice a significant bump in the middle of the week, Tuesday through Thursday, which seem like our prime days.

3. How many people would you prefer be present per meeting?

Those with a preference on the matter clearly favor a moderately-sized group.

4. How long would you prefer each meeting last (roughly)?

I don't think there's much question that two hours is our sweet spot here.

5. How far from home or work would you be willing to commute to attend (one-way)?

The majority of respondents are willing to commute up to 30 minutes or more out of their way, which is great news especially in congested metro areas like mine.

6. How much, if anything, would you be happy to donate per meeting?

Donations can be used to fund higher-quality refreshments and miscellaneous administrative costs, such as a Meetup.com subscription. It's great to see that people are (presumably) so generous!

7. Would you want to give a short presentation on a topic which interests you?

Most people would prefer a little time to come out of their shell before presenting anything to a larger audience, which is completely understandable. Personally, I envision presentations serving primarily as casual ice-breakers to kick off open discussion.

8. Would you be interested in hosting a meeting?

Yeah, I'm not really sure yet either. I guess we'll have to find out after the fact whether I'm up to the challenge.

Northern Virginia Meeting Scheduled!

Heeding some advice from the free comment section of the survey, I've created a Northern Virginia (NoVA) Networkers group on Meetup.com. Our first meeting is scheduled for July 3rd at 6pm in Reston, Virginia, at the Reston branch of the Fairfax County Public Library. Oh, and anyone who makes it to the first meeting gets a free poster!

I'm very excited to kick off the first of what I hope will be a long series of engaging discussion groups. And I'm even more excited about the prospect of starting a ring of such meetups in other areas if this one proves successful.