Workshop Meeting Minutes: Offline Experiences

Hi all! Please see attached the meeting notes from our latest workshop which was all about Offline Experiences.

We want to build on these initial ideas, suggestions and feedback with your contributions before we decide on next steps. Let us know your thoughts, ask questions and discuss at length!

We’ll update this post with feedback from the below discussion and add/confirm next steps in a weeks’ time!

A big thanks to @alexs @Avishai @RichardR @anon44204028 and @anon4562461 for kicking things off!

We believe unique, regular and engaging events play a big part in turning Monzo customers into members of our community. Whether it’s shared learning, discussion or just getting to know each other, we want to pencil in a varied programme of events in 2017.

Open Office +Workshop Feedback

Workshop timings:
-There has been discussion over whether hosting the Workshop on a Tuesdy afternoon limits attendance.
-If it’s brief (<2hrs), holding the workshop before the Open Office makes sense, as it means people travelling from outside of London can enjoy both events in one trip.
-For larger groups,longer agendas or bigger workshops a weekend day could work well.

Open Office Feedback:
Talk could be longer and subject matter more detailed. Anything from 15-30 minutes could work.

Streaming + Podcasts

We want to start streaming all Open Office talks along with the occasional AMA or team update.

Youtube is preferred platform for video streaming events
Could we set up a way for people to watch this back via the Community page?

Community Room

The plan is to designate a room in the new office for our community to host, work, collaborate and hang out. How do you see us making the most of a dedicated community space? What kinds of things can you see community members using this for?

-In a similar format to our bimonthly workshops, regular community led meetups on all things Monzo.
-Bring back the hackathon! Mini hackathons based around a new releases. For example when Google Home arrives on home turf what cool customisations can people build for it using the Monzo API.
-Constant live stream (without sound) from the community room, with dedicated slack thread on display in the for all those tuned in.
-A great opportunity to for coders and developers to share their knowledge and run sessions to help those who want to learn a new skill.
-Some sort of weekly ‘Surgery’ for new Monzo users to drop in for practical advice and to get to know what the Monzo community is all about.
-Hot desking space to work on personal projects

Hardware
-Large screen to people can plug their computers and devices into
-Tripod for phone or Camera - record presentations, introductions, your own sneak peeks and snippets of cool things you’re working on. We’ll make it as easy as possible to share this video with us, and at the end of each month we’ll cut together a ‘Month in Community’ video with some of the highlights!

Cardholder only experiences

We’d love to curate experiences for Monzo cardholders and their friends, simply for the joy of getting together and having a good time!

-Things like:
Rooftop Cinema
Supper Club
Summer Parties

Is this at odds with our generally all inclusive approach to community events?

-It would make more sense to frame this as a purely community focused activity and not an opportunity to push people to sign up.
-There’s a big advantage of being able to do this anywhere in the country, people could submit suggestions and tips for where we should pop up next.
-There is definitely room for events focused on promoting financial inclusion and financial education, maybe partnering with other advisory institutions and charities. Citizans Advice Bureau for example.

Workshops - for small businesses that don’t accept debit cards
-Partnerships with other techonology companies supporting small and independent business
-Training for independents- (Highlight the benefits of accepting card, explain card systems a little more)

Looking at this from a small enterprise perspective, there may be some initial reservations about taking part in something like this (“whats in it for you guys??”). How can we package all the above in an easy to digest, accessible way?

Current Account ‘Launch’

Although the rollout of current accounts will be a gradual and staggered process, there is the general feeling that we need to do something to mark such a big milestone for our community and for new customers who want to climb aboard for a current account.

-This event should be at or just before launch of accounts- something special for the existing community
-What special experiences and perks can we offer for those who are new to Monzo? How do we get them engaged and excited before they have access to a current account? Should there be a special event just for this purpose?
-Monzo assembly: A huge festival style event with demos, talks, live music food and drink. A celebration of everything great about the Monzo community. (This might not be something we have the capacity to do as well as we’d like to in time for summer. We’d need to investigate further.)

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I really like the community room idea and also things like HotDesk’s :wink:
I don’t think a constant live stream would be needet but a Slack channel sounds great.

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This all sounds incredible!! :grin:

This kind of stuff is part of the reason I think :monzo: is so awesome!! As @marcel_w mentioned, the community room sounds great…for those customers based in London :sob:

I’d like to see a push to engage customers outside of the London area and who can’t make it to London based events. The live streaming is great but more events around the country would be wonderful (perhaps not within your capacity right now though).

YouTube could definitely get utilised some more, not just for the live streaming but for video content too. I know you’ve just started posting tutorials and it would be great to see some more video on there with behind-the-scenes, discussions and lectures, that type of thing.

All great stuff though, and this community focus will really help set you apart :+1:

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It’s already started :heart_eyes: vote for your area here -

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Thanks for this, I knew I had heard about this happening! I think that London is closer for me than all the suggestions so far though. Next time I’ll just have to travel down to London and get involved! :smile:

Also, additional suggestion: any thoughts towards university based events? Plenty of talent and a great source of potential customers too? Hackathons, talks, workshops, etc. I’m sure there was an event in Cambridge not too long ago, but any plans for more of this?

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I fully agree here. I’d love to see Monzo build out their capabilities and willingness to produce more video content as a way of feeding back out what’s going on in the bank as well as useful general financial content.

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It’s well worth it, I definitely want to come back for another things happening, despite 1,5h on the train one way. :smiley:

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A couple of updates on the above…

We think the existing format works well for bi-monthly workshops but we’d like to try quarterly workshops on a weekend to make it easier for people to join us ( a lot of people can’t make the Tuesday
due to work commitments). These workshops would cover a few topics instead of just one area of focus, possibly with talks hosted by other relevant and complimentary organisations experts and interesting people :slightly_smiling_face: What’s the general preference for timing, could this new Saturday half day format work for you?

We’re already exploring different formats for the Open Office which we hope will offer greater variety and depth of content. The first version of this being our March Open Office.

Streaming and Podcasts

Some of the content is a bit rough and ready but we’re looking forward to refining our video content and pushing plenty more of it to the Youtube channel in the coming weeks. This will include live streams of events, tutorials, and a behind the scenes mini series we’re excited to share with you soon :eyes:

Community Room

Congratulations to @warriner for naming the Community Room! It’s difficult for us to commit to all the plans here until we’re in the Office but we’ll be sure to update. We’re particularly excited to explore how we can support community led meetups and workshops hosted here.

It’s a project which deserves a good chunk of time and attention to do well so we’ll most likely revisit this at a later date.

Current Account Launch

We determined to do something for the community to celebrate this. Once we have some concrete idea of timeframes for the rollout of current accounts and the bigger plan we’ll be able to discuss this and swap suggestions with you guys.

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I think if held at the weekend and a half day not a full day then it is best in mornings not afternoons so you can travel home during the afternoon rather than have to stay somewhere or drive in the evening

That question was really hidden in this wall of text! :smiley:
I said my bit during the workshop, but I’m really interested if there are more people keen on weekend meetings like I was. :slight_smile:

@Naji I have one more suggestion regarding number of people. I really enjoyed being in small environment and that’s something I wouldn’t like to change.

But… if you were to organise 2 concurrent groups, you could interrogate one group as you see fit :grin:, while ‘borrow’ other group to other Monzo employee/s who’d like feedback on specific things they work on?
I kinda got that feeling after our chat with Irina and support system - that this could be like whole different 2h meeting (unless there was one and I’m just late to the party, again! :confounded:). But there are probably more, and I’ve heard some user testing was also happening before… not sure if any more is planned?
If you have to spend Saturday at work, while not try to make the most of it? :sunglasses:

You can then throw both groups into one room so they can discuss together and have a socialising bit. :slight_smile:

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It would be good if everything wasn’t London centric, I know you are going on the road, but at the moment you seem to be fixated on the southern end of the country with London and now Bristol as the first meetup.

The community room idea sounds very much like the Virgin Money lounges, where if you hold a Virgin Money account, you can go in and use the facilities to use for work or just for a cup of coffee, and they have boardrooms and bowling alleys that charities can use, so how about letting charities use the Communtiy room for meetings etc?

Card Only Experiences,

Again seem very London Centric, and offer no incentives pr real benefit to Monzo users who live an 1hr+ outside London, and I feel would alienate community and card holders… alike.

The Youtube stream for the last open office was amateurish im afraid, with sound been poor and no interaction with those watching the stream… the content was good.

As much as I like Monzo, i feel its turning into another Metro Bank and in that I mean if you live in London you get everything and sod you if you live beyond the Watford Gap…

Well, offices are in London, that’s one thing that can’t be easily avoided. Monzo teleports money easily, but it’s a bit more complicated with people. :smile:

@mozzauk, what initiatives you would like to see from Monzo? I live in Brighton, so while I can get a Monzo fix with some train travel involved, I’m probably just on the edge of ‘acceptable travel’ involved… many users are further away or without decent travel options (and or time/money for such endeavour).

There’s always the option for the community to organise our own events in various places and hopefully Monzo would then be able to at least send representatives.

Would obviously need some kind of coordination, probably through here, but anything that helps close the North/South divide I’m all for.

Hi Marta,

I hear the Floo Network is an ideal alternative to Teleportation. :slight_smile:

I agree the offices are in London, so most events are held in London, and is not unique to Monzo… I have had these discussions with numerous IT suppliers, you are also never going to please everyone.

To get to Old Street, from Sheffield is at least 2hrs 30mins away so a 5hr round trip…

It might be good to get a few community orgainised events with as @thebuat has said monzo representatives to give an overview and allow us to give feedback as well such as the has been happening in London. I can think of something along the lines of User Groups in IT as as Office 365 users groups, although MUGS doesnt sound too good :slight_smile:

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Definitely! If we went with the half day/day workshop on a weekend, we’d be able to get more into depth with not only the community but other aspects of the team.

We definitely want to start doing more things outside of London and Bristol is just our first step in expanding our horizons. Even with these “cardholder experiences”, we will find a way to recreate them in other cities - with a little testing in London first. :hammer_and_pick:

In regards, to the YouTube stream, thank you for the feedback! That will help us to improve, we’re doing them in-house and it might take a couple of tries with feedback from our community to perfect. :muscle:

I think this is great. I envision that with the meetups, we will get more and more community members to help organise them and hopefully this can provide a base for people to re-create their own in time too. If you have any other ideas of how we could do this, please do share! Maybe you’d like to hold the first community-run Monzo meetup :wink:

I’d love to if I have the time, but with a wedding to organise this year I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on my weekends looking at chair covers and flowers.:confused:

Given @mozzauk’s costing of his journey to London I nominate him as, given he looks to live close to me, I’d be able to attend at least :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Monzofest would be awesome, especially if it became an annual WWDC, I/O esque event :grin:

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This, sir, is an awesome name. :smiley:

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