Papers We Love has gained strong traction and sustained incredible growth over just three years. It is clear that this community's success is not a coincidence. There’s a desire to understand and relate to academic and industry research. Elaine Greenberg explains how the community aims to build a body of resources to help practitioners refine and explore ideas and their connections.

1. Scaling a local meetup into an
international conference
Meetups We Love
Elaine Greenberg | Fastly

2. Hi, I’m Elaine

7. This is the story of
how PWL started
and grew.

8. This isn’t just about
a meetup.

9. This is the story of
how I was conned
into this.

10. WTF is PWL?

11. Now

13. February 2014

14. Lesson 1
Fill a void.
Lesson 1

15. Caveat
Learn to read a
paper.

16. Papers are not
implementation
guidelines.
Another caveat

17. SF immediately
followed suit.

19. A note about
organizers.

20. March 2014

21. Record scratch.
Freeze frame.

23. #alternativefacts

24. But if I was going to be
conned into running a
meetup, it was going to
be my way.

25. Here are some things I
don’t like about
conferences and
tradeshows.

26. But the tide is turning.

27. It’s about the attendee
experience.

28. Lesson 2
Diversity.

29. Audience diversity: two
audiences are better
than one.

30. A story.
The guy in the
back.

31. A quick story: the
smarter monkey

33. November 2014

34. Hm, what else can
we do differently?

35. Not a lesson,
more of a
prerequisite:
codes of conduct.

36. Lesson 3
Mix your experts.

37. But never mix
your quality.

38. We definitely
fucked up
occasionally.

39. December 2014

40. “I have a question. Well,
it’s more of a comment.”

42. Lesson 4
Change the
format.

43. May 2015

44. Content diversity.

45. We have to question
our own biases, too.

47. Lesson 5
Keep and share
the content.

48. Caveat
Get the content.

49. Sometimes we sneak
into library archives.

50. Sometimes we have
to deal with NDAs.

51. We don't have a
perfect solution,
but it never
hurts to ask.

52. Lesson 6
Give people the
tools.

53. A quick primer.
How to start
a meet up.

54. Back to the story.

57. A plan was devised.

58. All together now.

59. Hello, is this
Seoul?

60. PWLCore was born.

61. The PWLConf story.

62. May 2015

63. PWL Conf

64. Lesson 7
Lean on your
friends.

65. PWLConf had to
reflect PWL.

66. Lesson 8
Diversity.

67. We fulfilled our
wish lists.

68. It was a cross-
country effort, which
wasn’t easy.

69. Similar to growing
distributed teams and
working on big
projects.

70. “Observable candor.”

71. The result

72. The gossip story.

73. But we still have room
for improvement.

74. No egos.

75. People are scared to
ask “dumb questions”.

76. Everything in
moderation.

77. No pitches.

78. Curation is still hard.

79. But we carry on.

80. “Good job, keep going.”

82. Find a paper (or
anything) you love.

83. Join your local chapter.
And follow us on Twitter @papers_we_love

84. papersweloveslack.heroku.app.com
Join the PWL Slack!

85. September 28, 2017
Come to PWLConf!

86. @ejgreenberg
Thanks!
Questions?