You gotta give it away

Due to the fact that I have a full-time job now, I’ve been passing the torch to others on some initiatives I previously helped organize. I’ll still be organizing DemoCamp, StartupDrinks and other things, I love this stuff, but time is finite. Last week I attended and last weekend I mentored at Startup Weekend Hamilton 4 – both of which are events I co-founded and helped organize for the last few years.

It’s been odd. On the one hand it’s really awesome watching other people pick up the torch and run with it. On other hand it’s sad and confusing because I’m a sentimental wuss that becomes emotionally attached to things like these.

It’s all been a learning experience for me.

A big motivation for me personally when it comes to “doing stuff” is how much I can learn in the process. When you start organizing a series of events you know you’re going to learn certain things you never would staring down a mountain of C++ code or writing a research paper. Like how to MC an event, how to promote an event, what ticket / registration platform to use, etc.

There’s also “unexpected learnings” – the things you didn’t even know you would learn in the process of doing stuff. This has been my favourite part of doing new stuff.

My unexpected lesson in torch passing is that the right people will emerge to carry the torch. When you start doing something, if you’re lucky, you’ll get some great people responding to it and becoming involved, whether it’s an event, a startup or some cool new project at work. But realistically, what are the odds when you start performing some particular task or carrying out some particular role that you’re the best person to drive it forever? Most of the time it’ll turn out that you’re just the first to do x,y,z tasks or carry out a,b,c role, and that ultimately another person can do it better, or at the very least take it and give it a fresh new spin.

The meetups lately have been among the best ever, with discussions that carried on well past event end. And Startup Weekend, now organized by a group of Startup Weekend veterans, went absolutely spectacular last weekend.

Getting the ball rolling on an initiative ends up being a great way for really awesome people to emerge to continue to carry out that initiative, and from the looks of things take it to the next level too!