SEASON 2 - EPISODE 126 - OCTOBER 9, 2024

Preparing for Meet-up

Twice a year, 37signals brings the entire team together for a company meet-up. In this week’s episode of The REWORK Podcast, co-founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson reflect on how these meet-ups began and how they’ve evolved over time. They also discuss how they prepare for the meet-ups and the importance of the venue selection.

Watch the full video episode on YouTube

Key Takeaways

00:50 - Jason shares the early history of 37signals’ meet-ups
02:18 - Why in-person conferences build deeper connections than online meetings
06:57 - How the location and architecture of meeting spaces can elevate the experience
15:30 - Weighing the financial cost of a meet-up against the value it delivers
18:48 - Memories from the company’s Atlanta gathering
22:17 - An inside look at the meet-up agenda

Links & Resources

Transcript

Kimberly (00:00): Welcome to Rework, a podcast by 37signals about the better way to work and run your business. I’m your host, Kimberly Rhodes, joined as always by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, co-founders of 37signals. Well, this week we are in our separate locations, but soon we will be in person for our company meetup. We do this twice a year. We’ve had a couple of episodes about the meetup, after the fact, like thinking about it in retrospect. This time I thought we’d start ahead of it, like what we’re looking forward to, how we prepare for it and everything that’s going to be going on when we meet up as a company in just a couple weeks. So you guys want to get us started? Actually, you know what, before we talk about this specific meetup, I’d love to kind of hear a little bit about the history of meetups over the time that we’ve been at the company. Surely they weren’t as international, and travel, and everything that we do now when you guys first started.

Jason (00:50): We used to do them in Chicago mostly because we had an office in Chicago, which we had for 10 years. We had a big office that was much bigger than we needed, primarily because we had room for everyone to come twice a year, basically. Actually, we may have done it more than that at some point, but Chicago is what we did for a good 10 years. And then after that lease ended, we started going to other places. That said, prior to the Chicago office, we went to other places. So we went to Maine. Once we went to Kohler, Wisconsin, which is a neat town. We went to some other spots. Then we did Chicago, and now every, twice a year we’re going to different cities. So we’ve been kind of swapping between basically North America and Europe for the most part. This time we’re doing two in North America back to back and then we’ll probably go back to Europe next time. And now we roughly, not quite but 50-50 let’s say, Europe / U.S., although there’s some people in Asia as well, but it’s a small number, so it sort of makes sense to fluctuate because travel’s of course travel and it’s hard to ask everyone to come to the U.S. for example, all the time. So that’s sort of how it all got going.

Kimberly (01:55): So our next one coming up is in Montreal, and I know our HR team does most of the logistics behind it, but I’m curious from your perspective, the two of you leading an all hands in person. To me it always feels very different than just the all hands we do online or virtually. So talk me through what your hopes are when you get everyone in the same room together for a meetup.

David (02:18): So for me, I think the most important thing about being together is a shared experience that is more than communicating some updates on projects or announcing some policies or any of the other factual things that we can do just as well online. If you are simply conveying some facts or conveying some updates, it barely even needs to be a video call. We could just write that up. We’re looking for something more than that. We’re looking to establish and re-up a connection, both a connection between Jason and I and all the employees at the company and the employees together and just the whole vibe of where are we going, how do we feel about where we work, how do we feel about the projects that we’re working on? Lifting the spirit, that’s ultimately the most important thing when we get together. It’s not about the practicality, it’s not about getting work done.

(03:10): I mean we will usually do work at the meetups. We’ll sit down in groups and we’ll talk about projects and it’ll all matter, but that part, the productivity part, that could happen anywhere else. Is it marginally better in person? It probably is, but we don’t need to squeeze out those 5-10%. We are looking to get the stuff that simply isn’t accessible at all online. You cannot recharge human batteries through a Zoom call. In fact, you can deplete them. That Zoom is very efficient at doing. I would say, and this is one of the reasons why we do so few of them, why for example, the all hands that we do is once every eight weeks and I always think, you know what? We need to do this. We need to have some cadence where we are looking at each other, but also these have goddamn awful.

(03:58): They’re not awful. Well, actually, they’re awful when contrasted with the bi-yearly meetups that we do because when you do those, it doesn’t feel like a drag. It does not feel like a drag to talk about what we’re working on when you are together in person because it’s serving more of a purpose than just information relaying. It’s serving for that connectedness, it’s serving for those recharging of the batteries. And I think you need to be quite clear when you do these things that that’s the point. That’s the purpose. We’re not looking back afterwards and going like, okay, so in this week that just passed, what did we get checked off? What got checked off the list? No, how did it make people feel? And it sounds like such a sappy thing to say, oh, how did you feel? That’s not, it is really motivation. It is inspiration, it is connectedness, and all of these things are not just about the little fleety, isolated emotion that everyone sits with afterwards.

(04:59): It’s the fact that it’s what allows us to sustain all the other stuff. It is when you’ve just spent a week with someone, whether a lot of time or even just a little time, you have a different relationship afterwards. When we then are online, we do so much of our work in Basecamp or in a campfire thread or somewhere else where you’re just an avatar and that avatar has to be animated in person frequently to remind us, now do you know what? That’s a human and it’s a human where I’m going to assume good faith when they make an argument that I perhaps raise a little brow to. They’re not just floating around out there. I’m not just taking everything the way I would someone on Twitter, that’s a bunch of avatars that are scrolling in my feed. I have a casual acquaintanceship with some of them.

(05:50): That’s not the relationship I want with people who work at this company. We need it to be more, deeper, stronger, and I have found a better way to create that than to spend time together occasionally at the meetup. Now the funny thing about the one week twice a year is I like it in the moment and then I’m also glad when it’s done. And it’s not that I don’t like working with people, it’s just that, you know what if I had to do this every week, no, I don’t think I would enjoy it nearly as much. There’s some refined value in it being a little rare, being a treat actually. It’s a treat for us to be able to spend this time in person and we can dedicate it just to those sappy feely things and then the rest of the time I can go back in my little cave here and do my work. That also sustains me. So I think that mix and match to me has just proven to be incredibly powerful and why we’ve kept this cadence for as long as we have.

Kimberly (06:49): Okay. Right before we hit record, Jason, you said have high hopes about this Montreal meetup. Tell me why you’re so excited about it.

Jason (06:56): I think this will be one of our better meetups because the venue is exceptional and the city is fantastic. I am a big fan of architecture and place and landscape and location. I think architecture is the highest human art form personally. That’s my take on it. And it does affect how you feel. A space affects how you feel. It affects how you interact. I remember walking into the venue where we were at in Atlanta and the outside of the building was alright, it was kind of an old historic hotel, but this space we chose was a conference room basically with round tables, with white tablecloth things and there’s pads of paper. I remember walking in there the first time and going, fucking hell, is this what we’ve become? I’m just being honest. Is this what we’ve become? We’re now this in this space that feels like a hotel ballroom, which is everything I’ve always wanted to try to avoid because whenever I’ve gone to a place like that, there is a vibe.

(07:56): There’s like, oh, it’s another conference I don’t want to be at and no one else here wants to be at. And there’s the pitcher of water on the table and there’s the hard candies and it’s like, now I don’t want to throw shade on the people who set this up because that was the venue we had, we chose and that was a space that there is and that’s how it’s laid out. There’s only so much you can do. Okay, so that’s fine. But I do think that choosing the place you’re going to be, choosing the way you want it to feel has a huge amount to do with how it’s going to end up. You can’t put lipstick on a pig basically, and whether or not it’s the city or the location or whatever, I think it’s very important for us. Historically, we’ve done a really wonderful job with this and you’re going to miss sometimes. It’s fine, it happens, but I think this next one, Montreal is a wonderful city.

(08:45): I’ve been there many times. This venue is an old bank. It’s extraordinarily beautiful. It’s in the old quarter of Montreal, which is a wonderful thing. It’s near some water, it’s near some parks, it’s cobblestone streets. It’s an old thing. It’s just perfect and I think it’s going to go really well, primarily because the tone is going to be set early that this is going to be an elevated experience. It’s an awe-inspiring room. The materials are awe inspiring, it’s like the whole thing is made of granite. It’s an old bank. It just has that vibe to it and I think that matters. So that’s why I’m particularly excited about it besides the things we’ll talk about and the people who will be there, but I like to think about space and place and this is a good one, a really good one.

David (09:26): I did not use to think about that at all. And in fact I say Jason delivered that sermon to me at an earlier stage, I would’ve been like, that sounds like some hippie dippy bullshit to me.

Jason (09:39): The thing is, if I could say you care about your house design, why wouldn’t you think that that would’ve extended beyond is an interesting question I think.

David (09:48): Oh, ignorance because I mean I was about to say I am fully converted now to the truth of that observation. Both the importance of architecture in general and most specifically about how it influences a group of people meeting in that space. I just came off Rails World that was held in another Canadian city in Toronto in an absolutely incredible venue, an old brick factory where they were burning all the bricks and laying them together that built all Toronto. That was a neat detail, but even more so, it was this indoor/outdoor space, trees in the middle. It was just magnificent. And it was the second time we’d held that Rails World and it was the second time I’d been in a venue like that that was completely different from every other programming conference venue I have ever been to. So some of this, I think the appearance of hippie dippy bullshit, it comes from when you hear this and you haven’t actually felt it.

(10:52): I’ve been at a bunch of drab Sheraton hotels in my time because do you know what? It’s not that easy to find room for a thousand people. It’s not that easy to make all the logistics works. Usually all the cool venues require you to actually outfit them. This all brick factory was not made for tech conferences. You have to bring in literally everything. That’s expensive and it seems like an extravagant expense that is sort of superfluous, like luxurious in all the negative terms of that. But coming off this Rails World I was just at, it was undeniable how big of an influence that venue had on the entire experience. I think Jason, you used the word elevated and I think that’s exactly correct. If we had gathered the same people in one of those drab Sheraton hotels, do you know what? It probably would have been fine.

(11:45): We could have shared the same conference talks, we could have relayed the same information, but it would not have been elevated. In fact, it would’ve been dragged down. Putting all of that in a space that seems not just worthy but almost more worthy, we have something to live up to. That’s what I felt when I walked into that space. Holy shit, I better bring my damn A game. I can’t just like, no, no, no, this has got to be good. The venue demands that this is good. It demands that we’re fully present and we make it count because otherwise we’re smirking its honor, almost like this is doing a disservice to it. And really, I mean transformational is a big word, but I’d say it was such a stark contrast to I have, I don’t know, 10, 12, 20 appearances at different conferences that were not that. And I could hold it in contrast to what it was, and I go like, holy shit, this is really different.

(12:44): And I think what I really took away from it was, every one I’ve talked to about that specific conference afterwards talked about how that elevation made them feel, just how incredible it was, how in awe they were. And I would then ask about the specifics. So which talk did you like? And they were like, I don’t know. They would just grab something, they’d say something and they would’ve said the same thing if they’d been in a drab environment, but they walked away from those two days inspired. And that’s also one of those dangerous words that have been almost worn out by people just throwing it about in vain. But I’d literally talk to people who were like, I can’t wait to get back and program some Ruby on Rails. I just like, that energy it’s still literally flowing through me and I don’t know if it’s going to be as transformational in Montreal, but I do know now that after, again, we’re ragging on Atlanta here, I’m sure there are some lovely venues in Atlanta and we just did not end up with one of those. But the contrast is actually quite helpful. I think sometimes you can take it both for granted at the lower level. Oh, we’re doing drab Sheraton’s all the time, whatever. What’s the big deal? It’s fine. No, no, no, totally contrast. Do the drab and compare it with the magnificent and it’ll be very clear. It doesn’t even require the sermon we’re delivering here for you to know it, you will just feel it and it will be overwhelming.

Jason (14:06): I also think there’s a general message that’s sent. I wasn’t at Rails World, but I saw pictures and I’ve heard this too, which is like, and hopefully the same thing is true for our upcoming meetup, which is like someone cared enough about this event and experience to choose a place that is special where there’s deference and respect and like awe because it says that we, in your case, Rails was worthy of being in this space. There’s something about that that matters and I don’t know how to measure it. This is the whole thing. I don’t care about that shit. I just, you know it, you feel it and you know it, and then you try to live up to it and I think everyone lives up to it in a subtle way, even if it’s not an obvious, you just do. You raise your game. And the one thing I’m worried about with this new venue is echo. I’m very curious about how that’s handled. So we’ll see how that plays out. But I think in general, people walk into this space and go, oh wow, versus where we were before. It’s like, oh, one of those.

Kimberly (15:02): So let me ask you this because obviously it is more cost effective or more affordable to do the whole hotel ballroom situation with the candies on the table versus bringing in everything for a very unique space. From your perspective is that like, it’s worth it? It’s worth it to put the money into those sorts of things where you have to bring everything in and maybe you have to have more AV because it’s not in-house, those sorts of logistics things.

Jason (15:30): Part of it is, I’ll go back to your question was it costs more? Well, does it?

Kimberly (15:35): Generally yes.

Jason (15:36): Financially it might cost more. Yeah, yeah. But there’s a cost. I think there was a significant cost to, in my opinion, decreased morale.

Kimberly (15:47): Mmmm

Jason (15:47): In Atlanta.

Kimberly (15:48): You’re saying beyond monetary cost.

Jason (15:52): It costs something. So that’s why I think you got to be careful not to just focus on the price. Obviously if you can’t afford it, you can’t afford, a different story, but if you can afford it, there is a cost to not going for it also. So I don’t know what the cost comparisons are. I’ve not looked at the cost comparisons. I’m not sure they’re that far off though actually. But I don’t know. We typically are within a general budget range. I think we’re fitting in that too, roughly here, but I don’t know for sure. But I think there are significant costs incurred when the experience is not what it should be and I think it’s important to pay very close attention to those. Those can last for months. The bills you pay off and they’re kind of done. But how people felt, it’s been six months, this is the last time we all got together was in not a great place. I don’t know.

David (16:43): This is where you really have to look at your fundamentals. What are you trying to buy? And you might get a great deal on something you don’t want. That’s not a great deal, right? I go, oh, we saved a little here to buy something we weren’t interested in. That’s a stupid waste of money. So I think of what are we trying to buy? What are we trying to invest in? We’re trying to invest in elevation, in spirit, in motivation, in all of those things that may not just be a difference in kind, but may there be a difference in binary yes or no. Were we elevated? Again, I feel a little bad about it. We keep ragging on Atlanta, but now it’s sort of just become the place over here and think of Atlanta as just all the uninspiring places we could be, not necessarily this specific venue, but in that venue, are we getting any of the things we were hoping to get? And if not, then it’s way more expensive. I mean I don’t forget what we spent on the last one, but let’s just say it was, I don’t know,

Jason (17:48): Quarter million

David (17:49): Quarter of a million. You paid a quarter of a million for nothing. Holy shit, that’s expensive. Or you could pay $325 for something transcendental

Jason (18:00): And David got food poisoning too.

David (18:02): You got food poisoning that didn’t help. This is, I mean I’ve fair disclosure here. I should actually add one of the reasons I personally hated Atlanta with such a passion was that I ordered room service from that damn hotel. It wasn’t from somewhere from other place, and I literally spent eight hours chained to the porcelain ball in my room.

Kimberly (18:24): We didn’t see you for two days.

David (18:26): And that was a very unenjoyable experience. I will say one of, I don’t remember a lot of, I don’t know, medical situations I have, but those eight hours are quite vivid. They haven’t yet compressed through time. They still kind of feel like eight hours when I think back upon being that burger reappear in all it parts.

Kimberly (18:51): We’re hoping we don’t have a redo of that.

Jason (18:52): No, let throw this out to you. There’s more to it too, which is it’s not just the venue and it’s not just the place in a sense, it’s also what surrounds the place. So I think the other issue with, and by the way we’re saying the word Atlanta here. This is not against the city of Atlanta. We’re calling Atlanta. That was the name of the meetup Atlanta, but this particular venue was downtown. It was kind of frankly a pretty crappy area. It didn’t feel safe and you walk out to go somewhere and you’re not really in a place that you want to be either.

Kimberly (19:24): I would say that about New Orleans too. I just feel like there’s not a lot of major cities in the US where you can go downtown and walk out and feel safe.

Jason (19:33): Yeah, I would say New Orleans though. I think the New Orleans meetup was quite good. Personally. I think the venue, the hotel I think was the Ace Hotel there was quite good. It was in a nice space. That city has a lot of character that is its own, and to me it was a different vibe than Atlanta, which felt like a wasn’t character.

David (19:53): That’s exactly where I was going to say when I think in New Orleans, I think, do you know what, it’s got to have a little of that.

Jason (19:59): It’s all shady.

David (19:59): A little of the grittiness got to have a little of the almost drunkenness whatever. Do you know what? It just goes with that vibe. That was not when we’re in the financial district or something in Atlanta, it’s just like we had these high rises and then the contrast to those surrounding feeling not so great, it was just unsettling in ways that weren’t endearing and you can do, as you say, if we right now we’re going to do something in downtown LA, do you know what? That also wouldn’t have been great, but LA is a lot more than just downtown LA. You could also pick another part of the city or adjacent areas where you can do something in. So I think some of it is almost block by block. You could say the same thing about Chicago. There’s a lot of places in Chicago we would never dream of putting a meetup. Don’t do that. This is some of, I think sometimes the challenge when we do traveling meetups Chicago, we knew very well the people organized it obviously lived there, so kind of knew what was what, when we were planning something in a different location, you’re a little bit more luck of the draw

(21:01): And we just came up blank in Atlanta on that account. It happens too. Totally happens.

Jason (21:07): Our record is like, we’re like 98% great. So it happens.

David (21:12): I’m not glad because I did get food poisoning and that was pretty miserable. But the contrast, I think contrast is good. I think occasionally you elevate everything else if you get a reminder of what it could also be, and we did.

Kimberly (21:26): Okay. Last question before we wrap it up. We talked a couple weeks ago about public speaking and how much or little the two of you prepare. So tell me about this for Meetup, when you’re getting up in front of the company and sharing updates, is that something you write an agenda for, put bullet points for, or are you just winging it.

Jason (21:45): For this sort of event? There’s an agenda. There’s an order of events that are going to happen. We only do, basically the only talk we give that’s really formal is Monday morning and it’s for a few hours until lunch basically. So call from 9:00 AM to noon-ish or whatever, and there’s an agenda and a few different people speak. And then David and I talk about a variety of different things. I usually give some product demos for things we’re working on. David might talk about some technical stuff or a philosophical point of view on something. It’s a loose conversation. It’s not like slides and a rigid keynote sort of thing. It’s more like showing things, which I think is really kind of the nice thing to be able to do when we’re all together. It’s about having this sort of shared experience together of here’s what we’re working on, here’s what we’re thinking about, here’s where it’s at. This also brings up another thought. Maybe we could talk about this. And then you kind of go in some different directions and then people ask questions and it’s very open in that way. I think every time we’ve tried to lock this down, we end up not having enough time. This happens all the time. People are actually curious to converse and so we kind of keep it loose for that reason.

Kimberly (22:47): Okay, well the next time I see you guys, we’ll be in person and hopefully we’ll record a couple of podcast episode with us all in the same room. Fingers crossed that we can make that happen. With that, we’re going to wrap it up. Rework is a production of 37signals. You can find show notes and transcripts on our website at 37signals.com/podcast. Full video episodes are on YouTube and Twitter. And if you have a question for Jason or David about a better way to work and run your business, leave us a voicemail at 7 0 8 6 2 8 7 8 5 0. You can also text that number or email us at rework@37signals.com.