Todd Jordan is a man with many and varied interests. Dip a toe in his Twitter stream and you are likely to hear talk of movies, books, technology, blogging, origami, food, St. Louis, photography, hats, Facebook, and Mafia Wars, just to name a few. At the core of all of them, Todd is someone that loves social media and loves bringing people together, and for evidence of that you need to look no further than BATTL, or Bring a Tweep To Lunch, which were a series of lunchtime tweetups Todd organized over the summer. Now that they are over, and since we talked about them so much here, I thought a fitting final chapter would be to talk to Todd and get his reflections.
Todd, what was the original impetus behind BATTL, or Bring a Tweep To Lunch?
Opportunity – in the form of unique summer hours at work. I was off work every Friday by lunch time from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Plus, putting St. Louis on the map for social networking is an ongoing goal and effort. Meeting a couple of other twitter users for lunches prior to formally organizing BATTL got me thinking and kind of pulled it all together.
How do you think they went?
A success. New friendships, new business relationships, and the conversation and good food were a bonus. There were a couple of the locations with low attendance or poor service (ahem…Schneidhorst’s) but overall BATTL was well received. The steam for them didn’t pick up at first though, they took a while to get some momentum.
Would you do anything different looking back?
Yes, I’d actually schedule them using Eventbrite or a similar tool. This would encourage formal registration. Having an accurate count both smooths things out at the restaurant and gives everyone a sense of who is attending.
Also, I’d make sure sites like this one have the events listed on the calendars and are helping promote them. Finally, I think planning the locations further ahead of time would be beneficial. I did this rarely over the summer and now that I’ve seen how that plays out, I’ll definitely pick several locations early, giving people more than a few days notice.
Can you give me a few of your favorite moments?
-Getting the wings at Sybergs – quite delish and well received by everyone at the table. We bought a couple sets of the house specialities.
-Shark bites at Sybergs – everyone was curious but I was the only one to try them. Quite tasty.
-Spring rolls at Pho Long – my wife had her first experience with spring rolls, and she loved them. She’s still talking about them.
-The ever expanding tweetup group at Chevy’s lunch – 3 to 5 to 10 to 18/19. Best turn out and lots of fun and conversation. The wait staff rocked here as well.
-Locations I’d repeat – Feraro’s Pizza, Tortillaria, Sybergs, but each location is a unique experience. I love the speed of service and generous portions at Dickeys. I loved sitting out front of Feraro’s eating New Jersey style pizza and the fried dough dessert.
Anything else you want to add?
Heck yeah! Don’t wait on others to host an event, tweetup, etc. Just do it.
Don’t waste a ton of time planning. Plot a general course, schedule things you must, but let the rest take care of itself.
Invite everyone but be joyous when even three show up.
Advertise every event on all the channels you can. And don’t be surprised when folks are still asking about the time/location/purpose 30 minutes before hand.
Get your friends involved. Some of my best memories aren’t about the food, the restaurants, and such but about growing friendships. You, Dave, Karen Goodman, Joe High, and others.
Will BATTL Be Back?
It’s really too soon to say, but I hope so. I guess you will just have to stay tuned to find out!
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