I’m editor on this portal as well as the lead organizer for Abu Dhabi Twestival. I wanted drop you my thoughts about it.
Abu Dhabi Twestival was a real challenge and I mean it. Basically, the low number of Abu Dhabi tweeps was the first challenge and the culture is not yet prepared for virtual friends to meet in person is the second one. I mean, there is a social life in Abu Dhabi, but not the one that is a result of virtual to physical process. An example would be that there has never been any technology user groups event or tweet-up that I’m aware of, even there are so many web developers, web designers, and some digital marketeers who are on Abu Dhabi online forums, yet they never met (or couldn’t) meet in person.
But you know what? I took this challenge since I know that Abu Dhabi is like any city, the above challenges are not persistent, they are only challenges of the first time event, and they will be resolved after a certain period of time:
1. Abu Dhabi Tweeps are now just a few but they will grow by time; check out Dubai, Beirut, and Amman now.
2. Meeting virtually then meeting physically process requires only breaking the ice for the first time and others will follow. Since first time event means “Never happened before, scary, and might fail” and second time event means “already happened before, why not doing it again”.
Therefore, I honestly say that the challenges were for the first time and first event only. And shouldn’t be anymore a challenge to any of Abu Dhabi Tweeps/Technology community who would like to meet in person or organize an event. And I’m planning to have a tweet-up after 2 months with no worries.
It simply requires from you now to answer on some core questions like the below, and gain some event management 101 skills (or even hire a volunteer with experience to help:
1. What is the purpose? set a good one (topic, cause, or anything that is useful to the community).
2. What is the deadline? set initial deadline and allow yourself to move it not more than once.
3. Whom to invite? invite only the most-related people to the purpose, even if they are a few, and expect a slightly pessimistic number of attendees.
That’s it, as simple as it is, and Abu Dhabi will continue with the way forward.