Simon Willison's Weblog: meetups

Events (leisure): How can I get into presentations, mixers and meetups without paying the entry fee?

2012-09-10T16:47:00+00:00

My answer to Events (leisure): How can I get into presentations, mixers and meetups without paying the entry fee? on Quora

Speak to the organisers and volunteer to help out at the event. This works for all different sizes of events and is a very effective way of getting in to an event for free. As a volunteer you also get a great excuse to interact more with the attendees and speakers.

Tags: conferences, events, speaking, quora, meetups

Product Demonstrations: What's the best way to view/demo a website offline at an event?

2012-09-03T15:17:00+00:00

My answer to Product Demonstrations: What's the best way to view/demo a website offline at an event? on Quora

If this is a static website (just HTML, images, CSS and a bit of JavaScript) you might be able to get it running on your laptop using a web server. OS X prior to Mountain Lion had a built in Apache which could be turned on using the "Web Sharing" option in the Sharing preference page, but it looks like they've now removed that option - a way of turning it back on again is described here: http://clickontyler.com/blog/201...

I don't know what the state-of-the-art for this kind of thing on Windows is these days - you can certainly download a Windows build of Apache and use that.

A simpler option is to just have the web pages and all of their contents available on your local disk, and load them in your browser using the "Open File" menu item. Getting this up and running requires you to save the files in a way that correctly re-wires the CSS/Image references to be local paths. Your site might already be built for that to work, but if it's not you can either use a webpage archiver tool (wget is a basic command-line one, more advanced apps are available for various operating systems) or use your browser's equivalent of Google Chrome's "Save Page as ... Webpage, Complete" feature. You'll need to repeat that for every page that you want available offline though, and you'll then have to edit the pages to get the links between pages to work - which will be a lot of hassle.

The simplest option might be to take screenshots of every page and combine them in a PDF file or a Keynote/Powerpoint presentation. If you want to get fancy, you can even set up "click" areas in the presentation around the important links which cause a slide with the other page to be displayed.

Another simple option is to open-in-new-tab all of the pages that you want to demo and just switch between them in a browser. The downside of this is that if your computer crashes or someone closes the window or closes a tab you'll lose the ability to display the page!

Tags: conferences, meetings, speaking, quora, meetups

How do I keep service providers and consultants out of my meetup or conference?

2012-08-24T13:50:00+00:00

My answer to How do I keep service providers and consultants out of my meetup or conference? on Quora

If it's that important to you, make the conference apply-to-attend and get people to submit linkedin / github profiles or whatever to demonstrate that they are a founder/builder. Then only send invitations to the people you are sure aren't service providers or consultants.

I've seen plenty of events that do this and the model seems to work very well. It also adds an air of exclusivity which some attendees will appreciate.

Tags: conferences, quora, meetups

What are some good startup events/meetups in LA during February and March 2012?

2012-02-15T18:19:00+00:00

My answer to What are some good startup events/meetups in LA during February and March 2012? on Quora

The next LA Hacker News Meetup is on the 25th of Feb in Santa Monica: http://www.meetup.com/Los-Angele...

We have a list of upcoming LA events (biased towards tech) stuff on Lanyrd here: http://lanyrd.com/places/la-county/ - you can filter by topic (e.g. http://lanyrd.com/topics/startup... ) and subscribe to iCal and RSS feeds.

Tags: events, quora, meetups, losangeles

What are the best sites to find events by location?

2012-02-15T09:45:00+00:00

My answer to What are the best sites to find events by location? on Quora

It depends on what kind of event you are looking for.

For general events, Eventful and Plancast are worth a look. If you're looking for gigs and music, Songkick have what I believe is the most comprehensive database. For interest-based meetup groups, try Meetup. Our site http://lanyrd.com/ lists conferences and professional events, with a bias towards tech but with more and more other categories showing up all the time.

Tags: events, location, quora, meetups

Are there any large tech conferences/events in Australia?

2011-10-31T13:53:00+00:00

My answer to Are there any large tech conferences/events in Australia? on Quora

Web Directions South is a big Australian web event - you've just missed it though, it was a couple of weeks ago: http://south11.webdirections.org/ ( http://lanyrd.com/2011/web-direc... on Lanyrd). It's along the lines you describe, although tends to be more developer-focused than business-focused.

We have a list of upcoming conferences in Australia here, most of which are technology related - you might find something interesting in there: http://lanyrd.com/places/australia/

Tags: australia, conferences, networking, startups, sydney, quora, meetups

What are some good ways to search for an event?

2011-10-11T10:27:00+00:00

My answer to What are some good ways to search for an event? on Quora

Our site, http://lanyrd.com/ aims to solve this problem. We have over 13,000 conferences and other professional events listed (including seminars, meetups etc) - you can search them, but you can also sign in using your Twitter account to see which events your contacts are speaking at or attending.

You can also see events listed by topic or place, for example:

http://lanyrd.com/topics/java/ http://lanyrd.com/topics/social-... http://lanyrd.com/places/london/

Tags: conferences, events, quora, meetups

What are the best websites for finding out about events in San Francisco in advance, i.e., before they take place?

2010-10-14T18:45:00+00:00

My answer to What are the best websites for finding out about events in San Francisco in advance, i.e., before they take place? on Quora

PlanCast is your best bet for general events, but if you're interested in conferences we have a growing list on http://lanyrd.com/places/san-fra...

Tags: events, san-francisco, quora, sanfranciscobayarea, meetups