 Welcome to How to Build Local Communities and Meetup Perspective. I'm joined by Henrietta Dombrovskaya, Associate Director of Databases at Riviant Holdings, who will discuss how Chicago pug grew into the third largest in the Western Hemisphere, the effect of COVID-19 on local groups, and how Chicago pug managed. My name is Lindsay Hooper and I'll be your moderator for today's webinar. A little bit about your speaker. Henrietta is a database researcher and developer with over 35 years of academic and industrial experience. She holds a PhD in computer science from the University of St. Petersburg, Russia, and currently holds multiple roles as Associate Director of Databases at Riviant Holdings, local organizer of the Chicago PostgreSQL user group. And she's an active community member, a frequent speaker at the PostgreSQL conferences. She's the winner of the Technologist of the Year 2019 Award of the Illinois Technology Association. So welcome. So with that, I'm going to hand it off to Hedy. Take it away. Hello, everybody. So thank you so much for coming. I am very surprised that so many people wanted to listen to non-technical presentation. And as Lindsay already said, I am the Associate Director of Databases at Riviant Holdings, but today I'm talking in my capacity of the Chicago PostgreSQL user group, local organizer. And first of all, this talk was originally prepared for the New York Peerja Conference in March. We didn't happen because everybody knew why it didn't happen. And it was originally planned as a short talk. So it will be definitely not the whole hour. But, you know, we talked about whether it's still worth presenting. And we decided, yes, it probably still worth presenting. So originally, why I actually decided to give this talk? Because everybody was asking about this. It was funny because when I started, I did not plan that it will be something unusual and unexpected. And when, like two years ago, I think Tomkin Kite said, you know what, Chicago Park is the third largest postgreSQL user group in the Western Hemisphere. I like seriously. And I went and checked and turned out, yes. And I think I checked it today. I think now we are actually, I mean, maybe not the third, maybe four depends on how you count, because there are some meetups which are not officially like postgreSQL user group, but they're still kind of all about postgres. And I think also I'm the only female main local organizer. I do not know what is good and bad, but that's the fact. So since we grew from almost nothing into something, actually, people regularly asked me, how did I do this? And in all the postgres conferences, somebody would find me, you know, during the break between meetings, or you know, what somebody told me, I need to talk to you, we want to do our local postgres user group. So how you did it? And I thought, okay, you know what, I don't think I did something special, except I really wanted to build the postgres user group. So to be fair, it's not like I started it. The Chicago postgres user group existed for a while. But let's just go through the stages of its history. So it was first organized in August 2011. And it was hosted by Innova International. And incidentally, I joined Innova in July 2011. So I was there when it started. So how did it look? So first meet up happened on September 31. There were nine attendees, okay, we sat around the table and talked. And then it was going and going for several years, several, meaning eight years. And that was kind of what was happening, except of, you know, when Bruce was presenting, or Drosselka was presenting, like our typical attendance was like less than 10 people with RSVPs going like from 10 to 15. So that was the situation. And then, you know, Chicago was the only postgres conference, which we had, and then I started to talk to community, how we can get the conference back. And I got, okay, Henrietta, how is your Chicago Pag is doing? I'm like, not doing, not existing. Okay, if you want conference back to Chicago, and you do not even have proper user group, like look at Austin, I looked at Austin, and I said, okay, you know what, I think I can do it. So I did that. It's not in 19, it was 16. Oh, nobody corrected me. Okay. So it was November 16, the previous time. So then in the end of 2016, I joined Breven Holdings. And our leadership was very welcoming. And, you know, they said, you know, yes, if you want to host user group, we can do it, we can provide you space. And I talked to the current local organizer, and that, okay, let's try to transition. And so this was first in your Chicago Postgres user group, January 18, 2017, the number of RSVPs jumped immediately. And the most interesting thing we had as many people as number of RSVPs. I'm not sure whether they were exactly the same people. I think somebody did not show up at people who did not RSVP come. So that was like, huge success. And yeah, it had been like, going on and on and on until pandemic happened. And then it was new story. But that's like our brief history. So now, first of all, we always have people, we always have crowd. And we actually are enjoying what we're doing. Now, the question is, so that's our exciting history. So how did we get there? And as I said, I was presented with this challenge. And, you know, I like challenges. And I take them seriously. And most of the time, whether it work or not work, everybody who knows me know that if I want something to happen, it happens. So most of the time, when people ask me how you did it, how you built Chicago Park, I like, I really, really wanted it. And I wanted it and it happened. But obviously, it did not happen with the like waving or the magic one. So what exactly? What exactly I did? Actually, I was thinking what went wrong. With the previous version of Chicago Park. And what I can do differently. And so we actually set with the former organizers, we like listed it. And we okay, so what will work? What did work? What did not work? What kind of change? And I listened to everybody. And again, did everything differently. Not even what we were talking about. So first of all, I stopped doing several things. And the first thing I stopped. So I okay, so first thing I stopped, I stopped to wait for more people to show up. And I can tell you why I stopped because, okay, the fog meetup happens on the weekday after work. And in Chicago, the citation is that many people or majority of people who work in the city, they live in the suburbs. So normally, they want to go catch that rain. So they can get to park like relatively early. But then they are constrained from the like from the other side of the meetup. So if we're waiting, it's like, okay, there are like five people showing up, let's wait for a little bit, let's wait for a little bit. Then guess what? People who came on time, they getting bored, they do not want next time to come on time. And then when they finally start things, then they have to leave. So I started to like literally start on time. And this was very challenging. But even now, when we're going virtual, I start sharply at six o'clock. Again, that thing was before we did like, okay, we will start like a six, but it will just start like coming, talking, etc. So no, we start at the designated time, no matter what. I mean, I do not wait for like more than 30 seconds. And once actually know what I had, once I had that my speaker didn't show up. And I had five minutes to arrange new speaker on the spot. And when my speaker came 20 minutes later, I said, sorry, no, he got very upset. He actually stopped coming. But those rules are rules. And I think people appreciate it. Then I started to skip introduce yourself part. And that is in contrast to any suggestions, which you would normally get. Because normally people, yeah, that's a nice breaker, people should like start feeling comfortable. And you should start going around the table, introduce yourself, introduce yourself. So I stopped doing this, because I saw how it used to happen before. So first we wait for people, we wait like 15 minutes or whatever, nobody does anything. Then if there are like, you know, like, more than five people, it takes a while because each person is saying, okay, I'm so and so, I've worked so and so, my experience is so and so. And nobody remembers. So when you go around the table of 20 people, nobody will remember. I mean, okay, maybe somebody majority of people even would not remember who is who. And that doesn't help. It's not really a nice breaker. Because it doesn't lead to any conversation. Like literally face of time. And other people, again, who came there, say they came by six, and they need to take seven 30 train, and we have 15 minutes of wait in 20 minutes introduction, and then they will need to go with seven and nothing did not set yet. So I skip this. And we have other networking in the beginning at the end. But I mean, I found it to be completely useless part, which does not help with anything. The other thing I stopped doing, having meetups without agenda. So that was the other thing where everybody were guilty. Not always, we would have a speaker. And then instead of just saying, Okay, you know what, let's reschedule our back then local organizer with Okay, let's just sit and talk. That's like, seriously, you want to come to like some other place after work, after work day in the middle of the week. And the season talk about like, I don't know, about how database people are not appreciated in the tech companies. That's a topic. So not worth gathering. So I was making sure that each time I actually have a very specific agenda, and I have invited speaker. The other thing I stopped, I stopped to have a like specific date for the meetup. We're still meeting once a month. But we became more flexible with dates. And you know how it helps. Again, most of the time, people will tell you, you need to have specific day like we had a third first of the month, like at six o'clock that's a meetup. You know what happened? Some people just cannot make it on Wednesday, they have something else on Wednesday, they will never show up then. So we experimented a lot about what days of the week work. So what I found, first days do not work. Like, I do not know why, but everybody have like 15 different commitments on first day after work. First days are diverse. So Tuesdays and Wednesdays are equally good. Sometimes Mondays can play in though like less frequently. But what I decided, we made it like kind of lose. So we're doing either Tuesday or Wednesday, either the second or the third week of the month. And it might look like small change, but it really helped. Because, you know, somebody cannot make Wednesdays, they can make Tuesdays, somebody cannot make this, somebody can make the same date like next month. So it really, I think boosted attendance. And by the way, people started to pay attention to the meetup announcements. Because you know what, you do not want to know how many people went to the old place when First Meetup and Breven Holding was announced, when we just moved it to First Breven Holding's office. And how many people were keeping coming to all in our office, because they used to have this like first word of the month, it's in email, it's in invite, it's on the meetup page, people did not listen. But then after we educated people that you know what you need to read the announcement, then after Breven Holding moved to the new office, nobody went back to the old office, everybody read the mail and everybody knew where to go. So I think that was also good thing. So those are the things which I stopped doing. And on the positive side, what I started doing. So that's what I said, started being flexible between days of the week and days of the month. Have a guest speaker each meetup and announce it at least three weeks before the meetup. That is not easy. You know, again, I heard people, oh, you know what, yeah, you do not have to do anything for the meetup. Actually, you need to make sure you have a scheduler. And ideally, I'm trying to have line up for the next two meetups, at least talk tentatively with different people and see who has who is able to feed us in the scheduler. The other thing I started started to do meetups earlier, again, when we did it in real life, doors open and pizza arrive at 530. It works for people again, people were telling me it does not work for Austin, probably, I don't know, it does work in Chicago, because in Chicago, again, outside pandemic, people commute, people are done by 530. It's very good time for them to show up. They can eat pizza, they can socialize, they can walk around, introduce themselves, and then we'll have this firm start time. So that I honestly think it's like the most important part. And when I talked to other meetup hosts, and I heard, oh, she's starting on time, like what's the big deal? Looks like it's a big deal, you know, I cannot underestimate the importance of always starting on time. People started to come on time. I mean, again, in real world, but outside pandemic, I had, I don't know, maybe like, two, three people coming a little bit later and a little bit like five, 10 minutes later, and they would even email me and say, you know what, sorry, I'll be late. So I think that it was all good practice. So the other part which helped me a lot for the first two years at least. So, you know, friend of mine, the lady pay at Innova Jerry Severs, he's just awesome. And I told him, I need your help. So after each speaker, we have this like 15 minutes for Jerry. So anybody could just ask him anything. And he would do Q&A on any postgres topics. So that was like a month's help. And then we ended up this Q&A with Jerry, ended up trickling into the like the rest of the like networking. Then this unscheduled time. So we started to have this unstructured time after after. So again, here is an important part. People who need to go, people who need to leave early, they listen to the speaker, if they want and have time to go on, so then they can stay, but they're not missing anything from the talk. So this, like flipping the scheduler that was very important. Okay. Alright, so other things which I started to do, I started to do Chicago Pug Awards. And I have a little bit of funds on the Chicago Pug account. And it's like literally like 50 bucks a month on gift card. So I'm keeping track of all the talks. And I'm reminding people each time in the beginning of Pug that, okay, best talk award, so you need to vote at the end of the year in December, we vote for best award. Then I still never gave student talk award. I'm like, I'm hoping that eventually, you know, there will be like some students who will give a talk. I'm asking everybody about this one did not play. Well, yeah, I'm still hoping. So diversity award is my award. So the history is that so everybody knows that we do not have enough female in IT in tech and that the situation in postgres is like worse than probably in any other areas. So my diversity award is that I'm giving it for first female speaker, which is not me. And actually, I was able to vote for this for two years in a row. So I didn't get the chance to do this year. So we'll see. But you know, I'm actively encouraging people to vote and especially like having female speakers huge, I literally have maybe one except me, but it's still big progress. Okay. So that's what I'm doing in the beginning. I'm doing this five minute intro, you know, people who come somewhere do not have Wi-Fi. That's a tragedy. So most important thing I have Wi-Fi. And then I have this list of Pag Awards and list of talks so far, then again, at normal times outside pandemic and we have upcoming conferences, I always list. So this is what is coming, deadlines, discounts, and watch for discount information for Chicago Pag members. Then I am giving the speaker intro. And I'm showing announcement for next meetup. So most of the time, I know what will happen next time, who will be speaking, what's the date? So it gives people time for planning. And each time, very important, I end each of my five minutes intro. Thank you so much for being a part of Chicago PostgreSQL user group. I wouldn't be able to do anything without you. Please support meetup. Please come with suggestions. Please let us know how you make it better, volunteer to talk, suggest the topics, etc. All right. So what else? What else I'm doing? Variety of speakers. That is part which is difficult to balance. So I'm always trying to invite great people, important speakers. And fortunately, I have connections like everybody knows me. And I can ask virtually anybody to come and talk. So that's great. But I also encourage local talks. So each time at meetup, I'll repeat people, you know what, whatever you are doing in your company, each of you are innovating, each of you doing something new and interesting. And there is nothing which is not interesting. We would love to hear your experiences. What you did with the super cool, please come and share. And I had quite a bit of local talks when people just tell, Okay, so we developed this and in course of developing, we found this like, you know, little cool tool, which helps us to do so and so great, you know, then companies and products, this tough part, because, you know, like representatives from different software development companies and stuff, they message me and like, can we talk? And I'm actually letting them talk. So one thing I'm not allowing, I'm not allowing active recruiting during meetups, but then people have, you know, opportunity to socialize and like talk and find people. But okay, if somebody wants to introduce their product, please, yeah, full speed ahead. So I am there always like, Okay, can we like buy your pizza, can we buy your beer? I like, you know what, we can buy our pizza and beer. But you know, if you want to contribute to the Chicago Park account, always welcome, not required, you can speak for free. Again, it's usually like nice balance. So I'm keeping track of, okay, so I have great public community speakers, I have local people, and I have companies and products. And sometimes for local speakers, I can combine two of the speakers during one meetup. It's also fun, you know, and then they invite their support group. So one company who did not have the presence in Chicago Park, they come and talk. So it's all good. All right. Other thing, all speakers are equal. That is also very tough part. So as I told you guys, it once happened that the speaker was late. And, you know, I had two talks this day, and he was supposed to be first speaker. And I know that the second speaker will ready like, you know, he was ready to be second. And I did not want to reward this behavior that he forgot what time it starts like literally that's what he told me. So I quickly arranged one more speaker fortunately, again, I have good network, I have people who are able to jump in. And we had this new talk. And he like came like, sorry, nope, I can be second. Nope. Sorry, I have somebody else who is second. So you cannot be second. And other things. So as I said, I plan ahead, I try to plan like couple of months ahead. So and sometimes I schedule a local speaker. And then, oh, you know what? So and so somebody from like, you know, somebody really like important will be in Chicago. So do you want an electric? Now what? Sorry, you need to notify me in advance. Because you know what? If I will tell somebody, sorry, I scheduled you. But now somebody who is more important is coming and I want to schedule you, you know, who will have any respect to me. And you know, my promises and everything. So I had the citations when I did turn big speakers away, when it was like a week short of notice. I like sorry, let's plan next time, let's plan ahead. I cannot do this. So I think it also helps, you know, building trust and good relationships. And once again, we encourage local talks. It's very important because people come there not only to learn from the great masters, people want to be valued, appreciated in everybody have something to contribute like honestly, everybody. And that important thing again, not for pandemic time, but seriously, I found it very important having something else except pizza. People love it. People love it, really appreciate it. I was always making sure when I order food, I have like healthy options in addition to like five different varieties of pizza or even more. Like, you know, it's really important these times. So pandemic. And then pandemic happened. So literally, I prepared this talk. So it was like 20 minutes talk and up pandemic happened. And the country's didn't happen. And my meetup was like literally, I think that it was like three days after we went to lockdown. So the speaker canceled the week before that. And first one I skipped. And I was trying, I was trying very hard to make sure we have something. But the problem in March was that some people were already working from home. Some people were transitioning. Some people were from the office. So it was like logistically, I didn't know how to do this. And that's, I was at a loss. And I thought I'm, you know, a failure, I'm bad leader for the community. And so then we like regrouped and started doing zoom meetups in April. So I did my talk, which again, I scheduled to schedule it and then we continued. So what were the pandemic challenges? First of all, it is difficult to talk on Zoom. And it's unbelievably difficult to talk if you did not have these chances before. Like now I'm talking. And I do not know what I'm talking too fast. Or like everybody already disengaged. I do not see your faces. I do not see your eyes. It's extremely difficult. So it even people who are great speakers, if they didn't have Zoom experience, they kind of like, do not perform this well. I performed horrible, by the way, in the beginning. Now I got some practice. So without live audience, you cannot adjust, like your talk, you cannot address directly. So like tons of challenges. Yeah, you cannot do beer and pizza. And I'm joking about beer and pizza, but joking, but not joking. So I still cannot really measure this impact. But each time I schedule next event, I like, sorry, guys, you I cannot send you beer and pizza. So it's effects. It's not a challenge. The other challenge, not showing up. So when you signed up for virtual event, and you know that the only thing you need is to dial from your home is very easy not to dial. When you know that you have to go somewhere. And it's like physically, you need to make this mental efforts. Okay, after work, I'm going. Then you kind of already made up your mind. You didn't have time to turn on it didn't have time. And you know, people skip virtual way more than the skip real life event. And you might think why it's easier, actually, just to turn on but somehow psychologically, people, I mean, I saw it that people feel like it's easier to skip virtual event and relevant. And the other thing, it's just difficult to keep attendance high, because many people are like, either out of work or overwork like one of two. So people who are out of work, they kind of like feel depressed, do not want to go to meet up. Especially there is no networking, and you cannot really find, you know, potential potential next employment. And then, like, overworked, all the others are overworked, including myself. So then you do not want to do anything after work. For example, because work doesn't attend. Okay. So those are real challenges and we're trying to work with them. But in addition to challenges, we also have some pandemic gains. So you can invite any speaker, you know, you do not need to worry. Okay, does do they have engagement in Chicago? Can you like plan around their travels? Or if they don't, you need to like book hotel for them? No, you just need to be approximately at the same time zone. So I was able to invite some great speakers just because it's so easy now. Okay. And also people from anywhere in the world can dial in all the the time zone is the limit. So my some of my former coworkers who moved away from Chicago, but they still miss me top they started to dial in. And that's great, actually. And yes, the reduction, of course, obviously, because I mean, my company was awesome, paying like most of the costs associated with running Chicago Park. So yes, virtually, it's easier the only thing I need my paid zoom account. So there are some gains. Okay, and the takeaways. So again, I heard lots of discussions, what will happen when it will be all over, and it will be over if you think it won't I mean, I'm firm believer it will be over. So what will happen? We will be life definitely. So as soon as life events will be possible, we will be life and Chicago Park is never going to become virtual. That's for sure. And I can bet on that. But we still want to zoom meetings. And you know, you know what, previously, again, multiple citations when somebody with message me and say, Oh, can you please do live stream? I cannot attend. But I would love to see it like from, you know, remote parts of Illinois from like, okay, from St. Louis and from whatever. And I like should you know what, I think it would be great idea. I just kind of do not have capacity mental capacity to set up live streaming. So now we have it. So definitely, I think that great advantages of having live stream in addition to live event. So we will be definitely doing it. And the other thing we might consider having online speakers, even when we will be live, we're still thinking about it. Because you know, previously, I was like, like, categorically against having somebody speaking from Skype or from zoom when life attendees are here. But we might be doing it. I mean, like honestly, we'll still like have to decide. So again, we're running good. I think we will end up 2020 strong. Definitely all this online events are put on hold. Definitely we miss the ability of socializing life. But I think overall Chicago Pug is doing great under challenging circumstances. So takeaways. Get to know your community, you know, this thing about like people working in the city, living the burbs, it's not everybody's dynamic. And I spoke to other meetup organizers. So you need to see what is your community, what's their normal typical work schedule, or computing or not, and plan events which work for them. Listen to your community, like, get feedback constantly, each time, after meetup, before meetup, in between the meetup, it's very important. And respect your community, respect, including like, you know, starting one time, providing vegetarian options, not letting people disrupt all the citation, be respectful for the speakers, be respectful for your audience. And be thankful for your community. For me, it's a big part. I'm always having this slide. Thank you so much for being a part. Thank you for coming. Thank you for participating. This, this meetup is live because you are here, you're coming. And it time and effort, you know, it's surprisingly how much time and effort it takes, because even scheduling speakers, when you need to work around other people's schedule, when somebody say, maybe yes, maybe no. And I do not want to have somebody just in case, because nobody likes to be stand by speaker. Nobody wants to be like, you know what, if so and so would not appear, I will ask you, it's miserable situation. Nobody wants it is disrespectful. So all this planning, making sure that you have a speaker, and you don't have two speakers who competing for one time slot, that's a lot. Lots of like politics, lots of psychology, lots of everything. But I think all these is just, you know, is paid off. So I think that I think we're really doing a good job of this. And also for me personally, it's a big commitment because again, when I started it in 2017, I thought, okay, so after it will be like, going rolling, then probably, I would not need to like, do it all the time by myself. So for me, I'm planning all my personal things, all my personal trips around Chicago, I mean, I cannot tell I need to go somewhere when Chicago bug is scheduled. Now, when I had back surgery in 2018, I had one bug in the body brace. So I just had to be there, like two weeks after surgery. So I take it seriously. And I think that's why people also take it seriously. And come. Okay, and that ends my presentation. The yep, the sit and questions are welcome. Awesome. So I have three questions here. And then if anybody else has any more, please feel free to put them in the chat now. First question is, what are the best practices for starting a new meetup? That's a great question, because I, like in some sense, I did not start new with that. I just took what was there. But you know, what I think it depends again, where you started, because, for example, if you know, I think it all starts from people. If you know people from your place, your city, who spoke or participated in some conferences, what I would do, I would try to find them, I would try to reach out. Advertising in other meetups normally does not help because normally people are very local, even now that we are going virtual. So I would say, start from finding people, start from the company. So the other thing, you know, need to research which companies in your area are using Postgres, and maybe, you know, you know, somebody or somebody from your network, not somebody like try to reach out to specific people. So it's all about people. And when you have a group, you know, when you have like five, 10 people, then you can start a meetup on meetup page and then see how things will go, you know, then ask everybody to advertise. So I'm always copying my meetup advertisements on my LinkedIn and on my professional blog. And hopefully it will, you know, get some traction. Great. Another question. They're starting to come in. Can you say a little bit about your company's support? Do you have to keep asking for it? No, actually, no, that was like, awesome. Because my company, first time I talked with our CEO, and we're a small company, when I started doing it, we were a company of like 15 employees. So that was big, big ask. But, you know, our CEO, she really like, you know, respects me and values. And she said, Yes, you can do this. And she was always given space. And we were always doing a piece of beer through the like, corporate cards. No, I never asked, you know, what's also really remarkable. So when we moved from smaller office to the new office, and there was a big space, like around the kitchen area. And like my CEO said, you know what, that will be a great place for your meetup. I was thinking that you will need it. And we have speakers, and we purchase microphones, and we purchase bigger screens so that you can continue holding your meetups. So I like, I never had to ask a second time. So like one ask, and I was supported all the way. That's incredible. I've been in your shoes before. And not every organization is that that giving. So good on, good on Bravian Holdings. Another one, do you have any recommendations for soliciting feedback from your attendees? That is that might be challenging. There are questions on meetup page. So what I was asking at the beginning of this meetup, please rate our meetup. So they can come. So after the meetup is over, you can set up a magic email. How was the meetup? And then you can like kind of prompt them to rate meetup. The other thing I did, it takes a little bit of effort. But again, it's worth I was putting together the service. So again, you can do it at meetup page, you can put together survey with questions. And then I was sending it through the meetup messaging. Again, it's all built in. So you can mess if you are organized, you can message to all attendees or to everybody who are subscribed for the organizer messages. And then so have a survey online and like explicitly send it. So again, it might not work. Sometimes challenging but just keep trying. Great. And we have one more question. So finally, do you have? I'm sorry, do you use the same speaker format for every meetup? IE do you ever do panels or fire side chats? I okay, I was planning to do this. So normally we have several events with one meetup. So most of the time I have a speaker. And it's maybe a long presentation or maybe several short presentations. Then we have this Q&A for the panels. I was thinking about this. I mean, I love panels, I think it's like very productive form of holding meetups. It's a little bit more challenging, like in general, because, you know, the world of politics is small, and it's difficult to put together, like, so several people who, you know, people would come and talk to, like, it's one place, it's one time. So I think it's good. And I hope that when there will be like, not online, but like life again, I will be able to do this. But panels, I've been participating in a couple of panels on other meetups. And I love it is great. I like literally didn't get yet for this format. Fantastic. So those are all the questions that have come in. I want to say thank you so much, Heddy. This has been fantastic. Particularly as an events person myself, lots of really solid key learnings here. Additionally, I want to say thank you to all of our attendees. You guys are wonderful. Keep coming back. See, Heddy, I'm following your advice. Yes, we wouldn't or couldn't do this without you. So regardless of where you are, if it's morning, afternoon or evening, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. And I will see you back here next week. Thank you.