Democratizing events: Part I
When events create expectations, and why they don’t need to
It can be hard to make new friends in a big city. One way people solve the problem is by going to events where they think they’ll meet like-minded people. Zojul offers such events, along with several other platforms including Meetup, City Socializer and Thinking Bob.
Meetup, the big player in the market, invites their users to join groups created by their users. Their move, in 2005, to get group organizers to pay a subscription fee was fine for hosts wanting to create events that brought them value, in terms of revenue or marketing, but it created a barrier to entry for people who simply wanted to socialize — users left in droves. The result was that host engagement and event quality went up, but it also created a much clearer distinction between hosts and attendees. Today the platform has become a marketplace connecting purveyors of events with consumers of events, and put the focus firmly on the events themselves, rather than who you meet, ramping up expectations on the quality of events, and further increasing the barrier to hosting.
When people choose an event for the activity, expectations increase, putting off potential hosts.
It’s not that organizing a great event is hard, it’s that nobody wants the responsibility — high expectations mean the host is taken for granted, or maligned when things don’t go so well. Nor is it the case that reducing expectations means that events are lower quality or that attendees have less fun — if anything, they enjoy themselves more because the bar for comparison was lower.
When you place the focus of an event on who you meet, rather than what you do, the activity is of lower importance, and expectations in that regard go down.
As I mentioned when explaining what sets Zojul apart, this is precisely the focus of our events. Our hope is that this, alongside the benefits of hosting (having a much greater say on who’s invited as well as what they get up to) will encourage more people to host, benefitting the community.
But we don’t want to stop there.
We want to bring the barrier to organizing events down further, by democratizing events — giving everyone a share in the responsibility, and a stake in the outcome.
How do you democratize events?
Aside from actually inviting people and keeping tabs on who’s coming, the tasks involved in organizing an event look something like this:
- Shortlist some activities (including time and place)
- Choose one
- Make arrangements (place reservations, etc.)
- Host the event
Those are all fairly distinct tasks; they could each be done by different people. And why shouldn’t they be? After all, the person who was born to host might hate the admin of arranging, and the person full of good ideas might be terribly indecisive. In fact, they could each be done by several people. Choosing is something a group of people can do collectively, right? And so is suggesting some activities. You get where I’m going with this…
Introducing Zojul Circles
To address this, we have a feature on Zojul called circles. A circle is a time-limited group in which members are put together by our smart technology, and set the goal of meeting up. It’s a reversal of a normal Zojul event, where a member proposes an event, then we choose a suitable set of invitees based on the hosts preferences and the event itself. Here we choose the people first, and they choose the event second.
On Sundays we send out circle invitations to those of our members we think would get on well. These members then have access to their circle, which looks like the page below.
The circle page shows who’s in the circle, what activities are popular amongst the members, and when in the week they tend to be free (members update these settings on their account page). It also provides a message board to chat. It’s a great idea for members to introduce themselves via the board, both to build community spirit, but also so they get notified when other people post.
Members use the tools to collectively suggest event ideas, choose one, then step up and arrange it by clicking the “Propose an event” button, which opens the event creation wizard. The reason that creating an event in a circle is called “proposing an event” is that at least 3 people (including the host) must confirm attendance within 2 days, otherwise the event is cancelled. Furthermore, if 3 events in a row fail to get sufficient numbers, the circle expires. The circle also expires when the time limit is reached, or after a successful event.
The reason we retire old circles is to make way for new ones; this allows our members to iterate on who they hang out with, enjoying the company of their fellow circle members more as they go.
If you’d like to meet new people you’ll get on with, join the Zojul community today!
