Why you should start your own search meetup

About this time last year Stefan Olafsson and I were running around a search conference handing out hastily-prepared fliers to anyone who would take them. The fliers were advertising a brand new event about a month later that we were calling the “Enterprise Search London Meetup.”

When the evening of the meetup came, exactly two of our friends showed up. Not the crowd we were hoping for, but enjoyable conversation nonetheless.

At the second meetup about a month later, we had eight people show up. Then, we decided to start doing things properly and arrange for someone to give a talk at the third meetup. So, we booked the only person who was willing to do it: me.

Since these very humble beginnings we’ve hosted a number of excellent presenters including Tony Russell-Rose from Endeca, Vegard Sandvold from Comperio, and Udo Kruschwitz from the University of Essex, and drawn an average crowd of around 30 people. Last night we held the most successful meetup yet in conjunction with The Guardian. Martin Belam curated an outstanding event of 7 lighting talks that drew a crowd of 60 participants (with many more on the waiting list).

What’s you story?

As you can tell from our experience, you don’t have to be a rock star to start a meetup. Anyone can do it. All you need is enthusiasm and a bit of persistence.

A week and a half ago at the Lucene Revolution search conference in Boston we launched SearchMeetups.com, an initiative to encourage other people to start search meetups in their own city. We’ve seen how the London meetup has helped people grasp the true value of search and encouraged greater awareness of best practices, and we want to see the same effects take place at a global level.

If you are interested in search (which you must be since you are reading this), then you should consider starting a search meetup of your own. Not only will you be giving back to the community, but you’ll get to meet new people and be seen as thought leader.

So what are you waiting for? Read our tips on SearchMeetups.com and get started!