How To Set Up A Framer (Or Any) Meetup
Format, ticketing and checklists — everything you need to host your own Framer meetup.
Hi, I’m Ashley Adamson a product designer at data startup InfluxDB and an avid Framer fan. In case you haven’t heard of Framer, it’s a design tool used by product designers to prototype their ideas. Prototyping is all the rage these days because it helps designers actualize complex interactions that couldn’t otherwise be expressed, making it incredibly powerful in the right hands.
Backstory
I decided to learn Framer back in March, but as a designer, found it incredibly heavy to learn so much coffeescript. So, as any Framer fan would do, I posted in the Framer group, asking for help. As the comments grew into the hundreds, I realized there was a huge demand for an event so I decided to produce one.
For those interested in producing their own technical event, here’s what I’ve learned so far.
Framer Sessions
So what is a Framer Session? It’s an informal gathering where beginners to expert can meet up to learn and discuss Framer. I strongly believe anyone can learn Framer on their own, but it’s a lot more fun with a little help from others. This guide is to help you organize an event in your city.
Why should you arrange a Framer Session?
Prototyping is fun to do and fun to learn. While prototyping will be the norm, today, it’s fairly avant garde. You’ll meet a lot of interesting people and make connections with cutting-edge designers and develop a strength in a niche that’s exploding in popularity. Expect to spend about 10 hours executing and another 6 hours of thought time. A lot of energy goes into getting an event off the ground. Interested in starting a Framer Session? Let’s get started…
Here’s what we’ll cover.
- Mentors
- Finding a Space
- Choosing a Space
- Setup
- Production Checklist
- Event ticketing
- Pre-Event
- During Event
- Post-Event
- Tools
Mentors
You need experienced Framer users as candidates for mentors. Ideally, they could be professionals in the design field and knowledgeable about Framer. You’ll likely find them in the framer group, but if not, ask around. Alternatively, you can teach Framer yourself or have an experienced designer/coder pick it up. It’s a great opportunity to learn how to teach and further develop your knowledge.
Finding a space
Finding a space can be tough on your own. The best place to start is to ask the Framer group and reach out to local startups and co-working spaces to see if they’re interested. Design and prototyping are hot topics. Companies are always looking to increase their profile with sought-after designers. If you still can’t lock-in a space don’t give up! Timing is everything, be patient.
Choosing the space
When choosing a space look for a good learning environment that sets the “mood” and is fun to hang for beer or after at nearby pub. Avoid cafes, or other non-professional places for learning. Keep in mind you’ll need plenty of seating, tables, and power-strips for laptops. Also, be sure to weigh out your options with amenities. Will the space provide drinks/food/cleaning fees?
Setup
How you setup is up to you, but you should be aiming to achieve intimacy. I recommend a ratio of 1 mentor to 5–8 students. This is very helpful because it helps the students feel comfortable to ask questions and for mentors to be able to read their audience and make sure everyone’s on the same page.
Production Checklist
A production checklist is key to organizing any event. As the date nears things can become chaotic with last minute surprises. Be sure to keep your checklist handy and go through it every time to keep consistency.
- Food — If you have a fancy sponsor, great. If not, don’t worry. People are here to learn, not for the buffet. Some basic food, drinks and water is handy to keep concentration up, and Framer will happily support. In the very least, you can provide snacks for the mentors so they can think clearly.
- Drink — Normally, some beer will do great, but don’t forget water.
- Projector — For presentation. Great to open with some show and tell to inspire attendees.
- Tables — Large enough to seat a 5–8 with laptops. Make sure that the groups are not too close together, or the noise will make it hard to hear.
- Large Monitors — Dividing into smaller groups by skill level is a must. Having monitors gives mentors a larger presentation screen for their small groups.
- Nametags — I only provide name tags for the mentors so they’re easily recognizable. I don’t do name tags for attendees because I don’t want to make it feel like a networking event. Personal choice.
- Guestlist checkin — Guestlist check-in can be tough if you’re the only one, because there will be smaller things you’ll need to attend to. It would be best to get a volunteer to help with this. I normally leave a ticket or two open for volunteers to help out. Get them to show up 15 minutes early to setup and also to move things away after event. Take care of volunteers by getting things to drink/eat, and assigning them helpful roles that they are interested in and introduce them to mentors.
- Powerstrips / extension chords for Monitors & laptops
Event Creation
Eventbrite is perfect for organizing events like this. They have a checkin app and also a fairly simple way of exporting tickets into a cvs, so you can add them to your framer email list for a recap after the event.
Separate the tickets into categories because you’ll want to continue to collect emails if you sell out so they might come to the next one. I have since removed Mentor and Volunteer on the eventbrite since I now have a steady stream of mentors and volunteers, but good to have initially when you’re starting out.
Learner — a designer that’s here to learn
Mentor — a person who’s comfortable with volunteering to teach
Volunteer — You need one reliable volunteer. The volunteer is your go-to to help fill any gaps with production or help out on the digital front. The day of the event, they’re at the front door checking people in with a smile.
Email list — for people who can’t attend. Send them the recap email after. This you can build an email list with for future events.
Make sure you set a capacity and communicate this with the venue in advance. About 60% of RSVPs show up. I aim for 30 attendees and open up 50 tickets. If this is your first one I recommend to go smaller over bigger. Make sure you set a limit of 1 ticket per ticket order or else you might have individuals sucking up all the available tickets.
Pre-event
Once you’ve locked in a space, communicate all your production needs upfront with the office coordinator or whoever’s your point of contact with the space. Make sure to work with the coordinator in overcoming any issues with the space such as helping them find additional resources, cleaning up the space, etc.
Let the mentors know what to expect the day of so they can prepare. It’s best if mentors prepare content, but at the very least they can wing it by making a new project on the fly. Koen Bok put up some example projects, tutorials and lessons here.
Below are some teaching suggestions for mentors, experiment, and tell us what worked well for you :)
Learning activities
There is no one way to teach best. Generally you have “let’s make something right now” vs. “these are the syntax and building block basics, let’s apply them step by step” directions. Both work well for different students and teachers.
Code-a-long — A simple code-along keynote breaking down the basics in a step-by-step guide. Koen has some great examples to walkthrough. You can do this on a projector, big monitor or one big google hangout with a screen-share. Remember to speak up and zoom in a bit as people in the back will have a harder time seeing that itty-bitty code.
Watch code — Have a small demo in mind, or ask the attendees for a challenge to code. Here the mentor will be coding while everyone looks over her shoulder. This is a great opportunity to share pro-tips and the process of debugging. This exercise helps build confidence to newbies since most current examples on the Framer site are super polished. At the end you’ll have a great new example to share with the group. This has been most popular in the post-event wrap up.
Meta Discussion — This is great for experienced users to talk about their professional experience and how it works with their process. It’s also a bit of a design bonding group for some and a great place to talk about new methods or how to overcome obstacles. You only need one moderator for this group.
Ideally, it would be great to run multiple sessions of different skill levels concurrently, but can be hard if your groups are too small or you don’t have enough mentors.
Once the event starts
Be friendly and welcoming. Try to do your best effort to meet everyone, and attend to any of the mentors needs as soon as they arrive ( ideally 15 minutes before the event).
Start with gathering everyone together, and summarizing why everyone’s here, what’s exciting about it (hint: the future of designer tools, prototyping, new learning etc) and then ask questions from the attendees about their experience level. I have found the most success with telling the audience what learning activities we have and polling them on what they want to do.
Have the mentors spaced out and let them raise their hands for different activities. For example “If you’d like to watch our mentor code, go over to George over there.” There will be momentary awkwardness as everyone shuffles, but this is a good thing. :)
Now sit back and let the mentors do their thing. Take some photos and make sure you get a shot of every mentor so you can tag them later and they have a nice pic of themselves teaching. Make sure to get some big group shots too for sharing :)
Post Event
Follow up with your mentors for feedback and to ask if they have any documents or information they shared with their groups that you could share in an email recap. Linking to projects done or resources is a great start. Send a recap no more than a week later with all this info in a nice little email. Less is more, keep it brief! I use mailchimp for emailing.
So that’s it! With all this knowledge, all you need to do is execute. Good luck!
Special Thanks goes out to
