My First ThirdTuesday

There are some local blogger meetups that happen on a regular basis here in Vancouver. One of which is called ThirdTuesday.

ThirdTuesday normally happens on the third Tuesday of every month, though sometimes it can happen on other days of the week. It is a free meetup of Vancouver’s communications and marketing sector who are interested in social media. Typically there is a guest speaker who will talk about a particular interesting topic. A large aspect of ThirdTuesday’s, in my opinion, would be social networking, the meet and greet of other people who share similar interests in social media.

Tuesday the 19th of May was the first time I attended a Vancouver ThirdTuesday. Recently they have been held at Republic, a bar/lounge located in the entertainment district of the downtown core, between Smithe and Nelson on Granville Street. I arrived just before 7:00pm and glad that the doors to Republic were open.

John Chow talks to the attendees

This particular ThirdTuesday’s guest speaker was John Chow who talked about running a million dollar business on 2 hours per day. He gave examples of how he earns the majority of his income through his primary company TTZ Media. His blog (www.johnchow.com) does earn a hefty amount of money but, to John, it still is a hobby of his.

One of the main points I took away from my first ThirdTuesday meetup was that you should not trade time for money. Working X amount of hours for X amount of dollars will rarely get someone a wealthy income. His example was roughly a web developer earning $200 per hour, working 8 hours a day would make roughly $416,000 in a year working 8 hours a day. Not quite the $1,000,000 per year income right? Of couse that developer would have to minus expenses, so really, the take home pay would be less. On the other hand though, $400,000 per year is a pretty nice annual income that I wouldn’t say no to.

John likes to be the middle man too, which requires less work on his part. An example would be how John charges $500 for a review on his blog. John doesn’t write the review himself, he outsources that review to someone at a lower rate. John does get a share though. He also does a lot of affiliate work, well not physical work, but he refers a large amount of people to various Ad Affiliates Networks (such as Market Leverage) who pay John a percentage on advertising that his referees earn. Small amounts can add up quickly.

Anyway, there was some great information that John gave out. I’ve heard most of it before from his other talks but that’s beside the point. Overall I thought this particular ThirdTuesday was successful. Republic as a venue for this sort of meetup I think is a bit lacking. There was nearly not enough seating; 90 % of the people there were standing. It was dimly lit; some people mentioned to me they had troubles seeing while talking to people, and it was a bit too dark to take photos. The above photos were shot at ISO 1600, f1.8 and a really slow shutter speed, also bumped the levels up using Lightroom. Though the photos of course, weren’t the main point of the meetup.

Plenty of options for Conversation Starters

A lot of networking did go on before and after the talk by John. I meet a few new faces and talked to people I’ve previously met. I would think more people might attend if it was at a larger venue with more seating and perhaps available appetizers. Being a free meetup one can’t complain right? Unfortunately I will be out of town for the next one, but I’m sure it will also be successful. If you are interested, I would recommend heading over to the Meetup.com website and attending the next upcoming free ThirdTuesdays in Vancouver.