alt Hacker News> I think the biggest factor for us was that most attendees already had some technical baseline. That makes it way easier to pick papers and have productive discussions.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
How do you suss out peoples technical aptitude, and what was the minimum level you were looking for?
How were your discussions structured?
The group is open to anyone at Microsoft and I don't gatekeep. The papers themselves act as a natural filter. If someone finds the material interesting, they attend and keep coming back. If it's not their thing, they self-select out. Over time, it's led to a core group of regular attendees as well as many who will join ad-hoc.