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I'm an IET member and attend their lectures occasionally. It's part of
the the Institute of Engineering Technology's mission to put on the
sort of presentations and lectures we'd like. So we're helping with
their mission. If you don't know it, the IET is the engineer's
equivalent of the institute of chartered accountants or the law
society. It's the body which puts C. Eng after your name. But a
lot more too. The venue is great, both location and facilities. The London group puts on a free evening lecture once per month and monthly lunchtime lecture. We would add to these, not replace them. Take a look at the current programme (and by all means pay it a visit!): http://www.theiet.org/events/calendar/ Check the box for "Include events from Local Networks" A typical evening lecture has pre-lecture food & soft drinks from 5:30. Then about an hour of lecture. Then a glass and a bit of networking after the event. All (usually) free. The IET is the very essence of the 19th century learned society, a forum for techies to get together, share ideas and do some networking. This would be a completely different kind of event from the pub meet-ups. It's up to us to propose the format. It doesn't have to be the same as what the IET already does. We could put on lectures. Or we could put on tutorials, where everyone's asked to bring a laptop and the material's distributed through their wireless network so we can try it out during the tutorial. Or we could stage discussion meetings. Or some mix of the above. The style is up to us. If you're giving a talk, advertising isn't allowed. By all means hand out your business card over a glass during the networking part of the event. And of course you have the platform because of what you're doing in the real world, no need to hide it. The lecture notes and codes samples which the IET customarily posts on its web site after the talk might even include your company contact details. But don't give a sales pitch. We'd probably want to have our sessions clash with some other stream of lectures: it costs money to keep the building open during an evening. But there's a huge capacity, so space and numbers are not a problem. We can take over a different lecture theatre from the other event. The professional networks present their budgets at the end of this month, so we need to sketch out what we want to do quickly. |
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