I've been putting off writing this, though I know this feeling in my gut is true: my work on We Make the Internet, my seven-year-old tech meetup, is done.
What started seven years ago as an idea from an ambitious and younger me to discover stories about internet makers in Northeast Ohio turned into a beautiful blossoming community right in my backyard.
Now, as a dad of two and an adult trying to make sense of… <gestures broadly> it's time to step down and focus my energy on new efforts.
So… that’s it? You’re just done? All those events are just a faint memory?
It’s pretty weird to let something go that’s doing well. I had the same feeling when I sold Vimeography. What? Why?
Why would you disband something that’s working?
It’s simple: there’s no room for new growth. We only have eleven lifetimes. What are you going to do with them?
I perceive the projects I work on like an old growth forest. The lessons stretch tall towards the sky, the presence of thriving wisdom and gnarled burls of failure towering and swaying in the wind. A striking view. You can feel the grandiosity.
But it was never meant to be forever.
Sometimes, the best way to make space for new growth is to strike a match and let it all burn. Allow the experiences to provide fertile ground for new and incoming growth, eagerly waiting to prove its worth.
Was running a meetup for 7 years worth it?
I met some really incredible, impressive people through the work I put into the meetup. But I’m going to take this space to be completely honest: the meetup always gave more to those around me than it ever gave to me. And that’s okay.
Part of what makes your life’s work special is that you don’t have to always be the beneficiary of your efforts. It’s a privilege to have had the free time and available energy to surface stories and create connections in the community that surrounds me.
Also, sometimes, I do things just to prove that I can do them well. This might have been a subtle influence in this group being born to begin with. Prove to who? Well… I dunno. To me, I guess.
That’s not to say the meetup didn’t move me. There were two moments from the time I invested that I’ll never forget:
- An attendee approached me at one of our holiday socials saying that they broke into tech through the meetup, and that I’d changed the trajectory of their life
- Two attendees met, began dating, and are now engaged to be married
It’s humbling to have made this kind of lifelong impact from something that came of nothing.
Wtf? You had no memorable tech moments?
Well, no, not really. Tech is temporary. It’s the means to an end. It’s how we get to where we are going.
Sure, there were interesting stories, like how we learned about how the Cleveland baseball team uses analytics to make signing and trade decisions, or how they’ve archived video for every single pitch for the past 20+ years. But even those decisions were means to an end.
On the other end, a rookie inked their first big league contract. A mom cried. A family celebrated.
Tech is just tech. It was always about the stories.
Wait, so there will be no more meetups?
I doubt that's true. But I don't wanna pay, support, or manage meetup.com anymore, so my group page is going away. If someone really wants to step in and take over, you're welcome to. But just know that running a meetup group takes a leader and a commitment.
Okay, so maybe more meetups?
What I have in me is sporadic, impromptu, and minimal. Except for the holiday party. That one's a winner.
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Thank you to the years of stories, the countless conversations, the lessons learned, the one-too-many beers, and the friendships we've made along the way. This meetup changed my life for the better; I hope it did for you, too.
Twitter is @davekiss; Bluesky is @davekiss.com