Technology and social skills

At the beginning of 2020, I’m writing my 20th (what a coincidence!) story from My 52 problems series. This time it’s about people, technology and social skills…

People are saying that technology is making us more lonely. In some cases, it’s true (addictive attention hijackers!) but in others, I would say it’s the opposite. There are few apps/websites which are designed to connect people and they’re nailing it.

No, I won’t be talking about dating apps. (I actually never used any)

Let’s meet

When I moved to Bristol I didn't know anyone.

I knew I wanted to pursue my career in web design. To get used to the language and get comfortable in the web design world I started an apprenticeship in a little digital studio, but I knew it’s not enough to start a “new life”.

I wasn't also good at making friends. Most of the people I knew in my family town I met at school, university, work or at the climbing wall. In Bristol, I was bit lost in that matter.

Meeting new people, learning new things and talking about something we’re all passionate about seemed to be the easiest way to do. But how to meet like-minded people?

Online communities

At the time when I join this platform, I was working as a web designer and developer, but more on the development side. In the beginning, I used meetups to learn and get help and support when I was coming across coding problems. The support of the dev community was great, but I wasn;t regular and after a year or two I understood that development is not my thing, I wanted to have a say in the design process to make things more usable.

As I was drifting from dev to design I realized that what I’ve been doing all that time as a part of my every project was User Experience design. Not full-on but had its spirit. When I named it I’ve decided to go for a meetup dedicated to this topic. Luckily Bristol is a city with a thriving UX community so I had few meetups to choose from. I went to each of them. I’ve learned loads and made friends.
It was about 4 years ago. During these years I was coming across people who were showing me different types of careers coming from different walks of life, experienced in UX or just discovering this fascinating field.

The general scenario of every UX meetup was similar: we were starting with 30 min mingle and drinks and then listening to interesting talks or taking part in engaging workshops.

Emotional challenge

I’m not a team player and I’m shy- or I was. Attending to meetups I had to leave my comfort zone, break my shyness and talk to people…
After few months I realized how my confidence grew and how it was easier not only talk to new people at the meetups I was attending regularly but also people I didn’t know but came across in everyday life.

Now coming to the room full of strangers doesn't freak me out. Whether it’s a meetup gathering, a meeting at work with various stakeholders, I know how to act or how to improvise.

Meetups gave me not only technical knowledge but also build up my social skills. I felt I discovered my voice and was able to ask questions, (thing which I was stressed about even at school) gave me confidence in talking to people and breaking the awkward silence.

After 5 years in Bristol, I can say that Meetup was something that helped me to be where I am now.

When “impossible” becomes the reality

These little discoveries and the way how these meetups and people affected my life I gave myself a challenge for 2020. This is something I’ve been thinking of for about a year…

I let Ladies that UX organisers know that I want to give a talk about Designing online forms- something I’ve been doing for the last 3 years and despite my initial skepticism, I’ve found exciting.

Meetup seems to be one of very few platforms which are not torturing us with ads just showing this what we’re looking for. It’s not an ideal platform but in my opinion one of the best on the market. Its business model shifting the cost to the organiser, not the user, is smart and both the platform and users benefit from such an arrangement.

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