Growing a successful meetup… during a pandemic
Louise Powell co-founder of the BA Crowd meetup explains how she helped to create and build the community, despite Covid:
It’s a special moment for me to celebrate the second anniversary of the meetup which I helped co-found — particularly as that milestone has arrived despite a significant period of turmoil for the entire business networking scene due to Covid.
We set up the BA Crowd in 2019 for anyone interested in business analysis. We meet regularly (in person when allowed), virtually for the last year, and run sessions to bring like-minded people together to learn and share their knowledge.
With 385 members, the BA Crowd has become a knowledge bank of skills and expertise that is shared and supported by guest speakers, insightful presentations and lightening talks to help anyone who has an interest in business analysis or wants to learn what it’s all about.
The pandemic has not stopped the group meeting and sharing interests, with seven online sessions held during the last year.
One of the most popular items is a wellbeing session, usually held at the start of the meetup and been conducted by Lesley Edwards from Calmer Life hypnotherapy. We also had an interesting session with leadership and confidence expert Alison Reid on how to manage your mind for success, which was well-received by members. Another highlight was a talk by Pardeep Dhanda from the IIBA, Pardeep hosted a session about creating and maintaining a successful BA community of practice.
To give you more of a flavour of what the meet-ups are all about, watch the most recent BA Crowd event hosted by David Beckham (no, not the footballer) but someone as equally skilled!
In this session, David blends lessons from Samurai Japan with his extensive BA experience to introduce a philosophy of business analysis. This philosophy is based on the premise of the business analyst working and leading from the middle, whilst remaining in a neutral state of mind. He proposes principles of business analysis that can be adopted and used within change initiatives as required and goes on to suggest and explain a mindset that is useful when dealing with difficult stakeholders, conflict or crisis situations.
I think maintaining the frequency of the meetups during the last year has helped us continue to grow our membership. Each session is tailored and continues to evolve thanks to the feedback from our audience. Offering the sessions virtually also provided the community with the opportunity to exchange tips on working from home etc. I’ve definitely enjoyed working with the other BA Crowd admin team to keep these events happening.
If you’re interested in joining the BA Crowd or would like further information, see here.
