The Ohours Blog

Ohours Debriefings (without losing your pants)

nahurst — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:13:59 -0400

We’re excited to launch a new Ohours feature to help you:

learn what others think are your best topics
tell others about your awesome conversation(s)
stay in touch with each other over time
let Ohours know if issues arise

After your Ohours meeting, you’ll receive an email request for feedback. You can then send a follow-up message, share appreciation with your host/guest, or inform Ohours of any issues.

When you share appreciation, Ohours showcases the recipient’s relevant Ohours interests more prominently!

We’ve also made it easy to stay in touch with a host or guest after your meeting. With just one click, you can follow each other on Ohours or Twitter, connect on LinkedIn, or opt to receive a follow up reminder from Ohours in a few weeks.

We’re always thrilled to hear from you! We’ve received a ton of help from the Ocommunity (special thanks to Anni, Net Impact, and Andrew) and we’d love to know your thoughts too. Contact us any time at feedback@ohours.org.

Promote your open hours with Widgets, Buttons, and Links

nahurst — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 10:47:53 -0400

Thanks to feedback from dedicated Ohours members, we’ve created a few tools to help you share your open office hours more easily with your community.

Visit your Ohours widgets page to grab the code for a widget, button, or link to include on your own website, blog, or event. Let us know if you run into any trouble or would like help customizing your widgets.

The Next Phase for Ohours

innonate — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:39:00 -0400

Hi Ohours Friends, Hosts and Attendees!

I wanted to share some exciting news with you today.

Hirelite, the “speed interviewing” platform doing amazing things in the developer job search industry, has acquired Ohours and is now dedicating itself to supporting and growing this incredible community you all are a part of.

What does this mean for you? Great, great things, of course!

For instance, if you head over to Ohours.org today, you’ll notice a super fun, easier to navigate, new design, and a number of the longest lasting bugs cleaned up.

With Hirelite now taking custody of Ohours, you’ll only see more improvements in the coming weeks. Finally, someone will be loving this community back in the way that it deserves, and I couldn’t be more excited.

As for my ongoing involvement, I’m not going anywhere. While Nathan Hurst and team take full ownership of the community (go meet Nathan!) I’ll still be around hosting Ohours myself and helping Hirelite and you all in our collective efforts to promote the Open Hours revolution.

Lastly, let me take the opportunity to thank all of you. Your support of this community and belief in the power of opening our doors for others have been why this community is what it is today. I’m thankful to have you a part of Ohours’ first chapter, and I can’t wait to be a part of its second chapter right along side you as a user of the platform.

Many thanks,

Nate Westheimer

Hosting my first Ohours

innonate — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 13:19:58 -0500

garychou:

I held my first Ohours last Friday.

What did I get out of it?

- Some great blogging tips
- The opportunity (and fun) of participating in some product brainstorms
- Stories of lessons learned from some entrepreneurs
- A ton of great restaurant recommendations that I look forward to trying out.

Thanks to everyone who came out—as someone relatively new to NYC, I genuinely enjoyed meeting you all.

My First Ohours

innonate — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:17:45 -0500

reecepacheco:

…

I’m not super successful, nor am I even some sort of expert (yet), but I’ve been in the game long enough to have learned a lesson or two and I can at least help you avoid making the same mistakes I did. Hit me up, it’ll be fun.

Say hi to Reece here.

Office Hours Post Mortem

innonate — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 14:53:57 -0500

brycedotvc:

…

Turns out, I haven’t met all of the awesome people in the world yet and I had a chance to meet 5 more of them over the course of an hour.

…

Read Bryce’s entire post. It’s great!

Office Hours

innonate — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:23:30 -0500

sitarteli:

I don’t completely understand the trend of VCs having office hours - meeting entrepreneurs, etc on a regular basis is what I’m supposed to do all the time, so having a dedicated time for it seems a bit strange. That said, I appreciate that approaching a VC at a networking event or emailing them without an intro is hard for a lot of people (as a self-diagnosed introvert, I particularly appreciate it) and having open office hours is one solution. So I’m going to give it a go - sign up here. Looking forward to meeting you!

Sitar touches on one of the issues I’ve heard from several VCs: “Shouldn’t we be open and available without Ohours?”

Yes, of course. But Sitar also gets it right here: Not everyone feels like they’re entitled to an hour of your time. They’d love to meet, and so office hours contextualizes that interaction.

It’s not an either or. It’s both.

Tickled like crazy to look at this map. The European expansion...

innonate — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 10:29:25 -0500

Tickled like crazy to look at this map. The European expansion is upon us :)

How to Have a 20 Minute Meeting

innonate — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 10:15:26 -0500

Since launching Ohours, I’ve been enjoying hearing from hosts and attendees alike about their experiences.

It’s been nothing short of inspiring.

One of the areas in which I find people most having “issues” is figuring out what the right length of time is for their Ohours “slots.”

I’m a big fan of the 20 minute Ohours slots, but you have to be well practiced to make the most out of them, so here are a few tips I’ve picked up over the past few years to help you do 20 min meetings correctly:

Get to their Point

You have a meeting and the first thing you want to do is start with small-talk, right? Who you connections are; the traffic or weather for the day; how much you love the cafe where you’re hosting or attending your Ohours (or even how much you love Ohours ;)

Usually being upfront and asking people to “get to the point” is considered rude. But when you’ve set up 20 minute slots and they’ve signed up for them, you’ve already signed a social contract that allows you to help people make the most of your time together.

By immediately diving into the meat of your Ohours, you’ll have plenty of time to cover everything on the attendee’s agenda, and everyone will walk away satisfied.

Simply put, just diving in is both respectful and helpful. Of course it helps if you explain yourself, so first order of business is setting the ground rules.

First Order of Business: The Ground Rules

Well, since you’ve already decided to Get to the Point, the first order of business is laying out on the table how your attendee can get the most of your time together.

I start by reminding people that we don’t have to cover everything in the 20 short minutes we have together. I make it clear that I’m available for follow-up emails and Skype on any of the points we cover in the Ohours session, and that today is about getting to know one another and diving in on a few of the topics they really want to cover.

Using Ohours and then inviting people to schedule more time with you may seem counter-intuitive if, like me, you’re first drawn to the platform as a way to meet more people and shorten your meetings.

However, the dirty little secret is is that most people don’t follow up.

If you use your 20 minutes effectively, usually you can cover everything the attendee is looking for, and only sometimes people follow up on the meeting really requiring more time (though incredibly so many people follow up saying “thanks” and sending updates).

Meet in the Open

The last thing that helps run a 20 minute meeting is meeting out in the open, like at a cafe or public space in your office. This way, you can see when other people start arriving for their slots, and you 1) can remind yourself of the time, and 2) it contextualizes your need to wrap up the conversation.

The “O” in Ohours is more about being Open than being in an Office. Aside from the time management benefits, meeting in the Open displays an important energy that’s created when two or more people get together to share ideas.

Thanks for using Ohours. I hope this post helps you make the most of it.

Nate gave us a facelift this week!

innonate — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:38:04 -0500

Nate gave us a facelift this week!

Go Meet Someone New (in CA): Issue #2

innonate — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 11:59:04 -0500

After over 100 Ohours in NYC, our friend out in CA are starting to catch on and are hosting Ohours themselves.

If you’re out in either the SF area or Irvine, think about getting out of your office, hopping in your car, and going to meet one of these people!

Eric Busby, CTO-turned-entrepreneur from Irvine, CA, is meeting up with people Monday at 10AM PST, at a Starbucks in Irvine.
Adam D’Augelli, VC at True Ventures in San Francisco, is seeing people on Monday at 6PM PST, at the True Ventures offices on The Embarcadero.
Eran Shir, Former physicist, Founder of Dapper (one of my favorite early Semantic Web companies) and now currently a Yahoo! in Sunnyvale, is hosting Ohours Tuesday the 18th at 4PM PST.

I’m pumped to see people taking up Ohours outside of NY already. NYC is just in its early stage of the Ohours revolution, and so these folks in CA are quite the frontiersmen.

Thanks to all the hosts and attendees!

Go Meet Someone New: Issue #1

innonate — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:22:36 -0500

Ohours is all about getting people face to face, meeting people they wouldn’t ordinarily get to meet in their busy lives. Here are a few folks hosting Ohours this week and next. Head to this link for a list of everyone hosting Office Hours.

New York City:

Adam Schwartz, startup Business Development up-and-comer and NY Tech Meetup’s sponsorship chief, is hosting Ohours tomorrow, January 6th and has 3 slots left.

Jeff Novich, Michael Cera look-alike and (more importantly) Perl programmer and creator of VocabSushi, FareShare, VocabBomb.com, and IngeniousOwl.com, is hosting Ohours on January 10th and has 3 slots left.

Amit Avner, Founder and CEO of TayKey, a revolutionary Big-Data ad tech company backed by Sequoia, is hosting Ohours on Tuesday, January 11th, and has 3 slots left.

AJ Vaynerchuk, the real man behind VaynerMedia ;-), is hosting Ohours next Tuesday, January 11th, and has 1 slot left.

David Baker, designer extraordinaire, hacker, and the man behind Spins.FM, is hosting Ohours on Friday, January 14th, and has 2 slots left.

London:

Spencer Lazar is holding up the international side of things. Spencer works at Accel Ventures and is hosting Ohours tomorrow, January 6th.

How to Add Your Cal Feed to iCal

innonate — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 00:38:00 -0500

Step 1: Copy your iCal Feed URL on Ohours.org

Step 2: Select “Subscribe…” in the “Calendar” menu

Step 3: Paste in your iCal Feed URL

Step 4: Set the “Auto-refresh” settings to the desired time (recommended: every hour)

How to Add Your Cal Feed to Google Calendar

innonate — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 00:37:00 -0500

The Ohours Blog

Ohours Debriefings (without losing your pants)

Promote your open hours with Widgets, Buttons, and Links

The Next Phase for Ohours

Hosting my first Ohours

My First Ohours

Office Hours Post Mortem

Office Hours

Tickled like crazy to look at this map. The European expansion...

How to Have a 20 Minute Meeting

Get to their Point

First Order of Business: The Ground Rules

Meet in the Open

Nate gave us a facelift this week!

Go Meet Someone New (in CA): Issue #2

Go Meet Someone New: Issue #1

New York City:

London:

How to Add Your Cal Feed to iCal

Step 1: Copy your iCal Feed URL on Ohours.org

Step 2: Select “Subscribe…” in the “Calendar” menu

Step 3: Paste in your iCal Feed URL

Step 4: Set the “Auto-refresh” settings to the desired time (recommended: every hour)

How to Add Your Cal Feed to Google Calendar

Step 1: Copy your iCal Feed URL on Ohours.org

Step 2: Click “Add” —> “Add by URL” below your calendar list on the left side of Google Calendar

Step 3: Paste in your iCal Feed URL