Breaking Cliques at Events: The Snowball Rule¶

I’ve been going to professional events for a number of years, and one of the trickiest dynamics I have seen is that most events develop an “insiders” group who has been going for a long time. These groups tend to feel like exclusionary cliques for first-time attendees, and actively hurt the community’s goal of inclusion.

I’d like to propose a simple rule that we have at the events I run, which I think makes inclusion easier for everyone.

Difficulty meeting new people¶ Meeting new people is scary, especially if you’re new to a community and you’re not sure if you belong. People that have been attending an event for years are much more firmly planted in the community. They are able to help newcomers understand the norms and standards of a place. This means that long-time attendees should be the ones introducing themselves to first-time attendees. With that in mind, I came up with a new rule that properly assigns the responsibility.

The Snowball Rule¶ The rule is: For every year you have attended an event, you should try to meet that many new people each day. An example makes it clear: If you have attended an event for three years, you should try to meet three new people each day. See also My original post on the The Pac-Man Rule for another useful event rule

The organizer’s responsibility¶ As an organizer, you’re asking a lot of the long-time attendees. Particularly in the software industry, a lot of people (including me!) have anxiety around meeting new people. By using the Katamari Rule, it’s the organizer’s responsibility to make meeting new people easier. So here are a few ideas for how to make meeting new folks easier: Organize lunches and dinners around topics so that people know they have shared interests

Give folks “Ask me about ____” stickers to wear, so that breaking the ice is easy!

Have an Unconference or open space, where there are tables or rooms labeled by topic in 30 minute blocks

Have a Welcome Wagon, which is a few folks who are designated friendly faces for the event