Christine Arnold Chicago's Co-Organizer, EXPLAINS HOW TECH IN MOTION PUTs ON AWESOME EVENTS tHROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY TO HELP tECH COMMUNITIES Meet, Learn, and Innovate
Chicago co-organizers Chirstine & Jen Thanks for inviting me and Tech in Motion to your blog, Will! For those of you that don’t know us, Tech in Motion is a (free of charge) tech and networking meetup group. Currently, we have over 16,000 members nationwide, or continent-wide, I suppose, as we started a branch up in Toronto this last spring. 1,700 of those members are located in Chicago. And to think, this is where it all started. Because Chicago is awesome.
My co-organizer Jen Diaferio and I run the Chicago division, and have both gotten to witness (and fuel) the amazing transformation Tech in Motion: Chicago has taken in becoming the success it is today. The initial idea was born out of Chicago Tech Week back in 2011. Both Jen and I work in marketing for local tech recruiting agencies, Workbridge Associates and Jobspring Partners. Being genuinely interested in the Chicago tech scene, we decided to join forces so that we could get more involved. From there, it just sort of took off, and now Tech in Motion is a prominent meetup group in 10 cities.
My co-organizer Jen Diaferio and I run the Chicago division, and have both gotten to witness (and fuel) the amazing transformation Tech in Motion: Chicago has taken in becoming the success it is today. The initial idea was born out of Chicago Tech Week back in 2011. Both Jen and I work in marketing for local tech recruiting agencies, Workbridge Associates and Jobspring Partners. Being genuinely interested in the Chicago tech scene, we decided to join forces so that we could get more involved. From there, it just sort of took off, and now Tech in Motion is a prominent meetup group in 10 cities.
Recent Tech in Motion event at 1871 It’s been sort of a wild ride. I don’t think any of us realized what it would turn into when we started, and maybe we still don’t. Every month, our membership continues to grow and we’re constantly brainstorming ways on how to keep our audience engaged. For example, we’ve started an email newsletter to keep people up to date with relevant events across the country. And we’ve recently started accepting external sponsorships (previously, Workbridge and Jobspring were the exclusive sponsors for our events) so that we can host bigger and better events.
I think some of our favorite events have been with the tech guys from Obama for America, and the talk with Divvy and the representative from the Chicago Department of Transportation. The Obama event was HUGE. We actually had to cap our RSVPs at 400 because the venue wasn’t big enough to accommodate all the interest.
Divvy was a lot of fun, too. At this point, the blue bikes were sort of a new addition to the city, so everyone brought bunches of questions to the event. Scott and Elliot were really good sports about it. It was definitely more casual, and you could really tell those two had a great working relationship.
For our December event on Thursday, we’re trying out a new format. We’re calling it a Demos & Drinks (accurately named, because we’re having a lot of both!). Four food-based app companies are going to be setting up tables to demo their apps and products, and maybe even share some tasty samples! Ale Syndicate will be there sampling their beer. We’re hoping it’ll be pretty informal, a lot of networking, and very informational for people interested in seeing how these companies managed to create an app and launch a company. We hope to see you all there! Also, we’re always open to featuring new and interesting startups at our events! Feel free to reach out if you have one, or even if there’s a topic you’d like to see us cover in one of our future events.
I think some of our favorite events have been with the tech guys from Obama for America, and the talk with Divvy and the representative from the Chicago Department of Transportation. The Obama event was HUGE. We actually had to cap our RSVPs at 400 because the venue wasn’t big enough to accommodate all the interest.
Divvy was a lot of fun, too. At this point, the blue bikes were sort of a new addition to the city, so everyone brought bunches of questions to the event. Scott and Elliot were really good sports about it. It was definitely more casual, and you could really tell those two had a great working relationship.
For our December event on Thursday, we’re trying out a new format. We’re calling it a Demos & Drinks (accurately named, because we’re having a lot of both!). Four food-based app companies are going to be setting up tables to demo their apps and products, and maybe even share some tasty samples! Ale Syndicate will be there sampling their beer. We’re hoping it’ll be pretty informal, a lot of networking, and very informational for people interested in seeing how these companies managed to create an app and launch a company. We hope to see you all there! Also, we’re always open to featuring new and interesting startups at our events! Feel free to reach out if you have one, or even if there’s a topic you’d like to see us cover in one of our future events.
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