Tech Meetups all around us

[Sam Collins]

It’s becoming apparent that Tech Meetup Edinburgh is really doing some good. About 80 techies are coming along each month – we’re all learning more about tech, the tech projects going on around us, and who’s involved.

I wrote here several months ago about the Tech Meetup in Edinburgh. The videos and blogs are on the site, which is currently in public alpha (because it would be just too sincere to wait for a beta). If you want to check out what we’ve been up to, follow the slightly buggy and raw path through www.techmeetup.co.uk.

That’s a longer intro than I would have cared for. In closing, Tech Meetup Glasgow is on the cards. Interested? Here’s my spiel:

The UK tech and startup industry is far too segregated in my opinion to be able to function as well as it could. We don’t know that many people, we read the news and hear about things happening but that’s not very close to us. When you have something you want to demo for feedback, or run by a whole bundle of techies, how do you do it? If you need some extra work or are looking for a good project to get stuck into, how do you find it? If you look at America (forgive my comparison, but it is valid here), everyone knows everyone – there’s garages and workshops and purely tech focused events every evening in a different corner of any city. We need that – we need to know who’s who and where is the help when we need it, and who has got contacts to push things further afield.

And to me, the entrepreneur-VC events don’t do this – I’m watching every word I say and how it must sound to my future investors and I don’t meet the tech network there, I meet entrepreneurs from a diverse range of backgrounds, which is nice, but doesn’t really provide much use for me. If I may be honest.

Here’s the Tech Meetup:

No name badges. Beer and pizza. No ties or polished shoes. A room full of techies talking about tech and laughing about the absence of a business model (don’t worry, we’ll figure that out!). Presentations on some new startups, talks on some new app or tech that makes your work 40 times more productive. After a couple of months, an ecosystem. This is a good thing, and very much needed. New ideas and enthusiasm can grow, adjust and deliver.

We’re almost ready with the organising of Glasgow Tech Meetup, I’ll post here when I know dates and I hope a bunch of you tech space peeps can make it. For note, tech = web apps, web design, software engineering, hardware, games dev, mobile apps - the whole industry. You'll be surprised at the overlap. Any questions or thoughts, post a comment and I'll get back to you.

[Sam Collins]

@Ewan your theory is bang on, I'm working that direction too.
It has been a common note across Edinburgh Tech Meetup, that while it's a fantastic thing in it's own right, there is also demand for something a little more practical - think workshop/"dev house". Nothing to report right now, but I'm bringing some stuff together. It also won't be entirely directed at 4iP, but there will be some suitable stuff.

@Elgar, it's great to see the enthusiasm, will keep you and 38minutes in the loop.

[Elgar Finlay]

Sounds really good we can definitely make the Glasgow meet up when your ready....

[David Hamill]

That sounds interesting Ewan. I'd be up for that. Where do I sign?

[Ewan McIntosh]

One thought - the work you've done in curating the Edinburgh Tech Meetup is invaluable, and to be congratulated. I'd like to see more propositions coming through 4iP from it, of course :-) but that's just my bias. My main struggle is getting ideas that are both useful, entertaining, beautiful and technically sophisticated.

I'm setting up a small trial in Belfast of getting 12 different backgrounds around a table to talk ideas and see what can run from such a venture. I'd love to do one in Edinburgh (preferably in Leith, actually, to take up another corner of the city that's more commonly associated with games and marketing cos). I think the Glasgow Coffee Morning could be expanded upon, too, with its nice mix of backgrounds, with Tech Meetups feeding some of their tech possibilities into groups who have kernels of ideas that could benefit from that potential.