How do you choose a technology leadership community in the UK?

There are more places for a UK technology leader to find their peers than ever. Analyst-run CIO programmes. Paid membership circles with tiers. Vendor-hosted roundtables. Conference networks. LinkedIn groups. Peer forums attached to a coach or a consultancy. Small private rooms like ours. Most of them are worth something to someone. Very few are worth something to everyone, and the marketing rarely helps you tell which is which.

This guide is the set of questions we would ask before joining any of them, including this one. It is written to be useful whether or not you ever ask us for an invitation. Where The Curious Mindset sits against each question is at the end, stated plainly, with the things we don't offer alongside the things we do.

Nine things to judge a community on

1. Peer seniority and relevance

   The value of a room is the people in it. A community that mixes chief information officers with people selling to chief information officers is a marketplace, not a peer group. One that mixes technology leaders with leaders from other functions can be excellent, as long as that is what you want.

   Ask: who exactly is in the room, how is that checked and what happens when someone is there for the wrong reasons?

2. Confidentiality

   You will only say the true thing about your board, your budget or your own doubts if you are certain it goes no further. Look for a stated rule, not an assumption. Chatham House Rule is the common standard. Some rooms go further and record nothing at all.

   Ask: is there a written confidentiality rule, is anything recorded or transcribed and has anyone ever been removed for breaking it?

3. Session format

   A keynote to two hundred people is content. A conversation between twelve is a community. Formats vary from broadcast talks to facilitated peer groups to unstructured socials, and each teaches you something different. The best communities are explicit about which they are.

   Ask: what does a typical session actually look like, minute by minute and how much of it is people like me talking?

4. Commercial pressure

   Somebody pays for every community. The question is whether that money shows up in the room. Sponsor-funded groups often give sponsors the floor. Vendor-run groups exist to build pipeline, however well they are run. Fee-funded groups can be cleaner but pass the cost to you. None of these is wrong. Hidden versions of them are.

   Ask: who funds this, what do they get for it and will anyone in the room ever try to sell me something?

5. Frequency and time commitment

   An annual dinner will not change how you lead. A weekly obligation will not survive a bad quarter. Look for a rhythm you can actually keep, and for a community that understands you will miss some of it.

   Ask: how often does this meet, how long is each session and what happens if I can only make half of them?

6. Online versus in person

   Virtual sessions are easy to attend and easy to forget. In-person dinners build the relationships that make a virtual room work. The strongest communities use both and are honest that they do different jobs. Location matters too. A London-only community is a different proposition if you lead technology in Warrington or Glasgow.

   Ask: what is virtual, what is in person and where, and can I get value from the virtual part alone?

7. Cost and membership model

   Prices for UK technology leadership memberships run from nothing to several thousand pounds a year, and tiered models often reserve the useful parts for the top tier. Free is not automatically better. Expensive is not automatically more serious. What matters is whether the model is clear and whether the money, if any, buys what you actually want.

   Ask: what does it cost, what is included at each level and is there anything I will find myself paying extra for later?

8. Quality of contributors

   Guests and speakers are the easiest thing to market and the hardest to judge from a website. A big name who reads a talk is worth less than a lesser-known person who will take questions honestly for an hour. Look for range, and for evidence that the guests are there to give rather than to promote.

   Ask: who has been in the room in the last year, what did they leave people with and did they take unscripted questions?

9. What it is really for

   Communities have a centre of gravity, whatever the brochure says: reflection, practical leadership development or transactional networking. Reflection rooms help you think and feel less alone. Development rooms give you tools. Networking rooms get you a job, a supplier or a customer. You may want all three in your life. You will rarely get them from one place, so decide which one you are choosing for.

   Ask: if I am honest, what do I want from this and is that what the people who run it are honestly offering?

Where The Curious Mindset sits

Against those nine questions, this is us, without the marketing.

We are technology leaders only, and every request is vetted by a person. The two rules are that you lead technology or the people who do, and that you are not in it to sell, recruit or perform. People who turn out to be are removed. The room runs under Chatham House rules and goes further: nothing a member says is recorded, quoted or attributed anywhere, which is why our insight pages carry what the guest brought and never what members said.

The format is a 60 minute virtual session every fortnight, usually a Friday lunchtime, with a guest, a host who runs the room and a Q&A. Around it sit a monthly dinner for twelve and quarterly live events, both in person. There is no membership fee, for the sessions, the dinners or the books we post to members afterwards. There is no fee because the community is underwritten by its founder rather than by sponsors or vendors, and the rule in the room is that nothing is sold, by anyone, to anyone.

What we don't offer is just as useful to know. There are no tiers and nothing to upgrade to. There is no open networking and no member directory to mine. We don't run large conferences. The dinners and events are in person, so a leader further from them gets the virtual room every fortnight and joins the rest when they can. And membership is not guaranteed: it is invitation only and we turn people down. On the last question, our centre of gravity is reflection with a practical edge. Guests bring frameworks and stories. Members bring what they are carrying. If what you want is a room to make deals in, we are honestly not it.

If that sounds like the room you have been looking for, here is how to request an invitation. If it doesn't, we hope the nine questions help you find the one that is.