[a_shane]

I want to add a bit to your comment - it's important to try and identify the kind of meetups you'd like to attend that will help you meet your desired customer base, and the kinds that will help you get known in your local community (ie: meetups for web devs to connect).

I find that meetups can sometimes become circle-jerks for people in a similar field to just get together and talk/humblebrag. Which is fine, but if that's not your goal you need to look at different meetups which serve that goal.

[peterbsmith]

Good point.

Some meetups I went to were the exact circle-jerk/humblebragfests you're talking about.

The one I consistently go to (shameless plug [OpenHack Syracuse](http://www.openhacksyr.com) is a monthly meetup for developers to talk about what projects they're working on and to spend time together working on projects, ideas, and sharing info. It's really just an organized hangout/hack session. And it's these types of meetups which are best for getting contract work (because contract work isn't the goal)

[brokencog]

sounds like sex ... the best way to get a date is to be out not looking for a date.

[JshWright]

Interesting... I'll stop by the next one (I'm from the FM area).