Yes, I did the math 😬 . It was a total of 118 guests, or 80 unique trekkers, joining me across the first 60 sessions!
So….#TechWalks was something that I thought up one random night. I wanted to have a platform that started with positivity, and then extended towards an enjoyable style of networking! (Making it beneficial to everyone by adding the element of exercising, while keeping the topics interesting!)
To commemorate the 60 times I’ve set out on this journey, I want to take you on a look back at some interesting trends/data of these 60 walks, and other results along the way.
Let’s go 🏃!
Trends
Overall
Let’s start with overall walk and guest stats. It is mostly the same as mentioned in the introduction — 118 guests, or 80 unique persons, across 60 iterations which I have invited someone to join me in these walks:
“Average guests per walk” stands at 2.19, which means that if including myself, it is an average of around 3.19 humans per walk.
This number is interesting, as my philosophy on these walks has always been the following:
- Pairs work better — along park walkways, it can be narrow enough that usually 2 can talk to each other comfortably, not leaving 1 other person out.
- 1 guest and 3 guests are my favorite configurations for inclusive interactions. 1 if I’m trying to get to know the other party better.
- No more than groups of 6 — I try to keep to 5 guests or less (6 including myself), which is manageable.
Best places
Moving on the location. Finding the right places to walk is crucial! When walking towards a destination, stopping for lunch/dinner with good food spots can be a good morale boost 😋
If walking in Singapore, Marina Barrage will be my consistent top choice — it’s a walk that spans around 2 hours, at around 8km. What’s notable about this location, is that it covers scenic spots like Marina Barrage, MBS, and Singapore Flyer.
There is also a popular food spot along the route, “Army Market” or Golden Mile Food Centre, which is a great place for tech friends who are not familiar with Singapore cuisine. See the full route here — https://goo.gl/maps/8VMjCUH96k3TqLtg9
Best timings
Moving on to timings — As compared to locations before which I curate and select carefully, timing wise, I try not to dictate 😬 and leave it to the group . As long as the timing works for everyone, that would be for the best. Here are everyone’s main preferences for these walks:
Morning walks dominated here — at 75%!
My best guess here is that mornings in Singapore are much cooler than other times, making it the most favored timing. Having lunch right after each walk was also enjoyable, though the same can also be emulated with dinnertime during walks later in the day.
Interestingly, 1 single overnight walk was done, though that was with my wife which was logistically simpler to carry out 🙃
Occupational Inclusivity?
Most of the stats look alright so far, but let’s move on to the “painful” stuff…
Ouch, this is the part where I realized that I need to do better:
In terms of distribution of guests, Software engineers sit at the top, at around 60%! That’s huge! It wasn’t too surprising for me though, considering that this is my domain, and I tend to know more people here.
However, the trends are slowly shifting. In fact, in the last year alone, I made concerted efforts to engage my first 2 designers for these walks!
Product Managers and Data Scientists are also a cornerstone of these engagements to grow my POV, and I will need to be mindful to remain unbiased and continue inviting interesting folks in diverse domains 🙂
IRL outcomes beyond walking metrics
Fitness
Numbers may paint a picture, but “a picture can paint 1000 words” 😂. On fitness, let’s start with a picture of how I looked like before #TechWalks and now:
I did lose some weight along the way, but I have to caution that this is not just due to the walking routines. What these weekend walks “did” for me, was to motivate me to pursue other healthy routines, like daily walks to and from work, and pushing myself to heavy exercise (mainly running and swimming) more regularly.
Contributing to the above motivation is my Runkeeper account, which I love seeing the walking counter tick upwards over time:
My local targets — 500kcal attributed to walking or running daily. Global targets for the rest of my life — 40,000km, or the circumference of the earth!
One day I’ll get there!
Outreach
Social outreach has also grown considerably ever since I started these posts about #TechWalks.
LinkedIn, which is my preferred choice for professional posts like this, has seen an increase in follower count from sub 1k count in 2021, to slightly over 3000 at the end of 2023 🥳 :
However, what I’m more interested in goes beyond just these social media numbers, posts, and likes (which I admit I do aim for to help spread the word and make it interesting for my guests).
The most important thing to me, more so than the metrics or fitness outlook, is my guests. These are folks who have crossed paths with me somewhere in my life. Some of them are ex-coworkers. Some of them are new colleagues. Some DevRel, some vendors, and so on.
But all of them, each of the 80 unique personalities, who have joined my first 60 walks — there are countless stories, knowledge, and anecdotes, that we have shared. It goes even to opportunities in real life.
All these interactions are invaluable to me, and it is something I cannot get from a 5-minute exchange in any meetup event — I wouldn’t give this experience up for anything else 😉
What’s next
With the advent of 2024, the main gist of #TechWalks is that I will remain on course — that is, I still want to interact with people from different walks of life, to learn and grow from them! More non-developer roles are needed as guests too!
To do that, I will earnestly endeavor to continue reaching out and arranging these different walks. I hope to also increase my efforts from last year (2023), of around once every 3–4 weeks, to a schedule of every 2 weeks instead.
There’s going to be more to talk about, more to debate, and to learn from each other. If you are eager to do something together on this front or to figure out how to set up an activity like this — reach out to me and let’s chat and arrange something :)
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this short port, and have a good 2024 ahead!
PS — If you are interested in revisiting the past LinkedIn posts of #TechWalks or looking into the figures in this article, check out this Google Sheets.
