The old days were great for tech events. Amazing speakers in every major city. All tech cos and startups fighting to sponsor and host events in their offices. I remember getting some great meals and bridge views at Google in SF at the HTML5 group, hah. If you were a poor, bootstrapped hacker in the city those days, you could pretty much get fed for free and begged to quit your startup and take a job most days of the week.
I’ve just been given the reins myself to be the organizer for a large (defunct) tech group. I’m still figuring out exactly what will bring people back and kickstart things. From my discussions with organizers in other groups, they are having a difficult time finding companies willing to host. Concerns about liability even though the pandemic scare is over still persist, time demand on internal employees and lack of rapid hiring are big blockers. The environment has definitely changed.
I’ve just been given the reins myself to be the organizer for a large (defunct) tech group. I’m still figuring out exactly what will bring people back and kickstart things. From my discussions with organizers in other groups, they are having a difficult time finding companies willing to host. Concerns about liability even though the pandemic scare is over still persist, time demand on internal employees and lack of rapid hiring are big blockers. The environment has definitely changed.
I really hope the pendulum will swing back again.