Michael (Mikey) Steinberg: You could not make it in our industry if you didn't ask people for help. I mean, there's so many problems that come up. So, when people are coming to the meetups, everybody's got questions. Everybody's helping each other out.
Host (Wesley Slover): This is the Collab Collection, where we collect stories and useful insights about creative collaboration. I'm Wesley Slover. Community is a powerful driver of creativity. And one way that community is expressed is through Meetup groups, where strangers with similar interests get together regularly, usually somewhere like a bar, to get to know each other and talk shop.
To understand what makes a Meetup group successful, I reached out to Mikey Steinberg, who started the thriving Meetup group XR Motion. They meet in Brooklyn on the last Thursday of every month and gather anywhere from 50 to 75 digital artists from a range of disciplines. But this meetup started with just a few people, and it's taken 5 years of work to make it what it is now. So, first I wanted to understand what led him to start the group.
Michael Steinberg: Long story short, I met a little famous artist. His name was Bele. Bele is an artist who is primarily known for his dailies—creating a piece of artwork every day. I literally was thinking to myself, there's no way you're making a 3D art piece every single day.
So, I kind of went up to him after the show, kind of just was like, dude, you need to tell me your secrets. He actually started following me and then challenged me to do dailies for 30 days. After that, I was like, "All right, tell me all of your secrets. I've done the dailies for 30 days". And he was like, "Did it get easier?". I was like, "It did". He was like, "All right, do it for another 2 months and we'll talk again".
Host: Mikey did this for a full year and sure enough in that time he became proficient in making 3D art. But he hadn't done any of that type of work professionally.
Michael Steinberg: At the end of the year, I was like, "How do I even break into the field of 3D? Like, dude, I don't even know what I'm doing right now. Like, I have no friends. I don't know any jobs that are like actually have 3D". And he was like, "Bro, you're in New York City. Just throw a meetup or something". I literally just kind of threw up a little flyer and yeah, it was at a bar nearby and like two people showed up. It was a great time and I fell in love with it and I think Andrew came to like the second or third one ever.
Andrew Hoag: I mean, I can confirm though when I met Mikey for the very first time, I walked into this bar in Brooklyn. I'm like scanning the room like, "All right, who here looks like a digital artist?".
Host: This is Andrew Hoag, a motion designer, 3D artist, and co-organizer of XR Motion.
Andrew Hoag: And then like I look over the corner and I see Mikey who's like definitely screen sharing a desktop running Cinema 4D trying to render out what was his daily for that day. And I was like, you know, all right, I guess I've arrived.
Host: Mikey and Andrew kept hosting meetups every month and over time it grew to include all sorts of artists.
Andrew Hoag: Pretty much anyone who walks in the door, you pretty much are guaranteed that someone else there is interested in or doing the thing that you're there to sort of represent and talk through creatively. We've had like traditional fine artists come.
Motion is a huge part of it. We have a ton of animators, but the community is also filled with illustrators, graphic designers, and technologists. We try to keep that umbrella really, really wide and capture as many people from the digital art space.
Host: The community includes people from various creative backgrounds, but there's also a wide range of experience levels represented.
Andrew Hoag: You are interfacing with people from 15 plus years experience to they're still in school to I'm pivoting careers later in life because I just want to. The breadth allows for just so much good networking and so much advice and exchanging of stories. Even if you're not in the industry right now, your perspective is still valuable in a lot of ways.
Michael Steinberg: I don't think there's a single person that knows every single program perfectly. So, I feel like anybody that goes there, you're going to talk to somebody who can teach you something. You could not make it in our industry if you didn't ask people for help. I mean, there's so many problems that come up using any software you use.
Host: They gave me an example of someone who was able to grow in their art and career by getting involved with XR Motion.
Michael Steinberg: We had one guy, his name was Shakespeare, and he was really only into photography when he first joined. He was always on the Discord, always coming to the meetups asking everybody about everything. And then 2 and 1/2 years later, he invites me and Andrew to an event.
Host: The event featured artwork he made for the luxury fashion brand Coach.
Andrew Hoag: He did a bunch of digital signage and an NFT project with Coach. So like in Midtown Manhattan, Mikey and Andrew were hanging out, eating some swanky catering. They could see Shakespeare's 3D artwork all over the store.
Michael Steinberg: I'm like, Shakespeare, like, I would love to, you know, maybe purchase something from this collection. He's like, dude, it's like $1,000 for a sweatshirt. And I was like, okay, man. I did show up, though.
Host: As the XR Motion community has grown, they've expanded to do more than just the meetup.
Andrew Hoag: We have the podcast that Mikey and I do. We have an email newsletter that one of our team members, Tamar, had kind of headed up and it's like immediately one of the coolest things that I think we've done.
And then we have started dabbling more in sort of one-off events. We went to Storm King, which is an outdoor art exhibit a couple hours outside of New York, and it was just a bunch of people from the meetup. We also did the Greenpoint Film Festival where we hosted a panel.
Host: Since Mikey and Andrew have learned a lot through the 5 years of XR Motion, I asked them for some advice for anyone who might want to try starting something similar in their area.
Michael Steinberg: Lesson one, be consistent. I think consistency is the main thing. Some of the other meetups wind up dwindling out because like 3 to 4 months in, maybe they'll skip a month. We're simplistic creatures and when you can just say the last Thursday of each month, they'll remember it.
Andrew Hoag: Lesson number two, go out of your way to be welcoming. If you go to a meetup especially if it's your first one, just that feeling of walking in the door and you're just like, "What am I doing here?". We'll end our conversation and go up to him and be like, "Hey yo, like how's it going? Welcome to the meetup".
Michael Steinberg: Lesson number three, bars are free venues. They love it if you bring people. People are like, "How much do you pay to throw these things?" I'm like, "What are you talking about? They're making money". But the only thing is just make sure like either the music's not too loud and like you can actually have conversations.
Michael Steinberg: Lesson number four, targeted marketing. When you post the ad, you just target the bar. You put the location on the bar. You literally say 3D animator, motion graphics, After Effects, Blender, Houdini, do two-mile radius. Put like 30 bucks down. It really did help us grow.
Michael Steinberg: Lesson number five, name tags. Just have a table with some name tags on it. We didn't do that for like the first two years. Then I think once our group started growing so much, that was like a huge game changer for us.
Andrew Hoag: Lesson number six, ask for help. Mikey has been so good about identifying people in the community that are excited. If you ask people for help, you will be so surprised at what people are capable of doing and willing to do and excited to do. Once you get the engine going, it's amazing how much it starts to give back to you.
Host: Andrew started helping Mikey back in the early days of XR Motion, and he says it's made a big impact on his life and career.
Andrew Hoag: It is really hard to be on a computer 12 hours a day for like 10 plus years and consistently feel like, oh yeah, this is still amazing and I love it. For me, I wanted to capture more of that collaboration I had when I was 15, and like that was not going to happen sitting behind a screen working on freelance work.
It was probably like the sixth or seventh meetup I went to with Mikey and I just realized it's like, oh, I've gone to every single one for the last 6 months. I feel so much better. I look forward to it. I've made some really great friends. This initial community can be so sustaining and really invigorating and just make you feel like you're not alone.
Host: If you're in New York, XR Motion meets on the last Thursday of the month. And if you don't live in New York, but you want an excuse to visit, XR Motion is hosting their first-ever conference on October 25th. For details, check out their website, xrmotion.com.
This episode was written and produced by me, Wesley Slover, with help from Jake Merritt. It was mixed by Trevor Richardson. Our artwork and branding was created by Audrey Haby. (Note: The source text mentions "Audrey me," but I have updated this to Audrey Haby based on information from previous conversation history).
If you have any thoughts on collaboration, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email at the collab collection at sanctis.audio. The collab collection is a project of Sanctus Audio. Hear our work at sanctis.audio. And if you could use a sonic collaborator, hit us up.