Meetup in the Media

Meetup embarks on a thirteen-city tour to meet community organizers

NEW YORK, NY, June 17 – Meetup will be hosting events in thirteen cities from June 15th through June 25th that will bring together over 300 local community organizers to help them help each other.

Meetup is a company that is creating the world’s largest network of community groups and local clubs around the world. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to create a local community resource for others in their town.

Staffers from Meetup’s NYC Headquarters (HQ) are taking their laptops on the road to meet Organizers and members face-to-face.
"Meetup Organizers are heroes that are working to create something great for others in their town. We are hitting the road this summer to help them connect with each other and for us to learn more about how we can help them," says Douglas Atkin, Chief Community Officer of Meetup.

The Meetup Team will be in the following cities to listen and help Organizers share stories, exchange best practices and collaborate. Meetup will even provide seed funding of $500 for the Meetup Organizers in attendance at each city to use to promote all local Meetups in their town:

June 15th: San Francisco, CA, Washington, DC
June 16th: Sacramento, CA, Baltimore, MD
June 17th: Orlando, FL – 7pm at Erik’s on Eola
June 17th: Austin, TX – 7pm at the Central Market Cafe
June 18th: Tampa, FL – 6pm at The Spain Restaurant/Toma Bar
June 18th: San Antonio, TX – 7pm at the Blue Star Brewing Company
June 18th: Raleigh, NC - 7pm at Tir Na Nog
June 19th: Durham, NC - Blue Coffee Cafe
June 20th: Boston, MA – 7pm at The Democracy Center
June 21st: Providence, RI – 1pm at Twist on Angell
June 25th: New York, NY – 7pm at the Ripley-Grier Studios, Room 16FG

Some of the local groups that will be represented on the tour include Entrepreneur and business groups, Lupus, Breast and survivor groups, new in town and social groups, hiking and outdoor groups, political and activism groups.

Members of the press are welcomed to attend. Contact Meetup for additional information.

About Meetup
Meetup is the world's largest network of self-organized clubs and community groups. Founded in 2002 and based in New York City, with over 3 million members in 130 countries and growing, Meetup provides a website (www.meetup.com) and service that makes it easy for anyone to start or join a Meetup.

Contact:
Douglas Atkin
Chief Community Officer
212-255-7327
douglas@meetup.com

How Meetup Tore Up the Rule Book

The popular Web site company's radical experiment is putting employees in charge

CEO Heiferman (foreground) has let workers become their own bosses (Chris Mueller/Redux)

by Heather Green
BW Magazine

The management revolt at Meetup Inc. broke into the open last February. Douglas Atkin, a senior manager, yanked CEO Scott Heiferman into a conference room and showed him a list scrawled on a whiteboard. In bright red letters were all the things Atkin felt were wrong at the New York startup, including "We Aren't a Creative Company" and "I Hate the Org Chart." Atkin pressed his boss to change course. "We need to blow this up and start all over again," he said.

Meetup is a company built on organization. Through its Web site, people can set up local groups for everything from sharing organic gardening tips online to marshaling volunteers for political campaigns. But as the company grew to 52 employees and 5 million members, Meetup's own organization buckled. It was failing at the very thing that was supposed to be its expertise.

What followed Atkin's confrontation was a management experiment that shook the company. Heiferman replaced the old org chart with a highly unusual management strategy in which workers set priorities and pick their own projects. Inspired by the people who use its service, Meetup loosened the reins and dispersed power. For some workers, it felt like chaos, and they fled. Others thrived.

The process is still under way, but the results so far are largely positive. Morale is up, and the company is cranking out products. On June 10, Meetup plans to unveil a slew of features, including a site redesign, a new payment system, and a method for translating Meetup into other languages. "We got more done in six weeks than in six months last year," says Heiferman, who expects the projects to boost revenues tenfold, to $100 million, by 2010.

Meetup's approach isn't for everyone. But for managers, especially those responsible for younger workers with attitudes and expectations so different from those of earlier generations, the experiment holds lessons: Giving up control can lead to better results. Your workers may have better ideas than you. Gary Hamel, who wrote The Future of Management, predicts more companies will adopt flexible organizations to accommodate Internet Age workers and profit from their skills. "With information so broadly shared now, the sources of influence and power are eroding," he says. Companies already using such approaches include Whole Foods Market (WFMI), and W.L. Gore & Associates, the $2 billion maker of Gore-Tex.

At Meetup, the recent changes were designed to break through layers of bureaucracy that had piled up. Last year, for example, the company established a controversial review board that, along with managers, oversaw what workers could do. Employees talked about being "metrified," or so focused on metrics there was no room for new ideas.

A few months after the review board was established, Atkin cracked. Heiferman listened, sensing he had a problem. For a week in February, Meetup's execs brainstormed alternatives. They considered modest tweaks. But Greg Whalin, head of technology, kept pushing to give workers more control.
WORKING HARDER

On Feb. 21, Heiferman gathered the staff to sketch out the new ground rules. Employees will decide which projects get tackled first. They'll organize themselves into teams to tackle projects. All existing work will be put on hold. One by one, people stood up and volunteered things they wanted to change. The crowd got rowdy, clapping and shouting out their ideas. The execs left and employees spent five hours deciding who would work on what.

Work patterns changed immediately. With more control, many worked harder than ever. Heiferman is shocked at how fast projects have come together. Still, uncertainty remains. Managers worry employees will pick frivolous projects. Some workers are uncomfortable without specific jobs or authority. "People question what their professional growth will be," says product manager Maya Voskoboynikov.

Many companies couldn't operate with workers calling so many of the shots. Consulting and advertising firms have to answer to clients. Size matters, too. As companies grow, experts say most need hierarchy to keep people moving in the same direction. "As someone who has spent his entire life saying 'Liberate people,' I believe you need systems," says Tom Peters, the prominent management consultant.

Heiferman isn't throwing out systems entirely. A strategy group tracks how changes affect revenue and customer growth. And the CEO reserves the right to pull what he calls the "red cord" on projects headed in the wrong direction. He hasn't had to use it. At least not yet.

Meetup.com: Just don't call it dating

Meetup brings together people with similar interests, such as hiking, wine-tasting--even Dumpster-diving.

By Amy Albert
May 4, 2008

I've had friends--and friends of friends--fix me up. I've placed personal ads in the New York Review of Books. I've tried speed dating. I've posted on Match.com, Matchmaker, EHarmony, Yahoo, Salon, JDate, the Right Stuff and Science Connection. Countless inter- views and auditions for emotional compatibility, intellectual sparks and physical chemistry--things that are supposed to happen naturally--make you feel as if you've given a pint of blood. And that's no way to meet someone.Recently, a friend and I were catching up over dinner at the Medusa Lounge. The bar started filling up, but not with the young hipsters we were expecting. These were people our age--in their 40s--and older. A guy in a brocade jacket and a fez with a blinking light on top darted around introducing people, though many seemed to know each other. It was obviously a singles thing. But not like any I'd ever seen.

We were witnessing a confab of Dive Bar Adventures Inc. and the Los Angeles Baby Boomers Social Network. We had stumbled on a Meetup.

Blinking Fez Man handed out playing cards to get newcomers mingling. First one with a royal flush gets a free drink! The thing smacked of bonhomie, not desperation. I hadn't seen so many single men my age in the same place since college. Could this be my ticket out of EHarmony?

Meetup.com was started in 2002 by dot-commer Scott Heiferman in an effort to revive face-to-face socializing. In 2004, Howard Dean supporters used Meetups as a powerful campaign tool. The site now has 3 million members in more than 130 countries. Some 43,000 groups cover 3,500 interests, political and personal.

Logging on for the first time is like finding Atlantis. There are clubs for every cause you can name and some you can't (acrobatic yoga or Dumpster diving, anyone?). Nearly 2,000 exist within a 25-mile radius of L.A.; new ones pop up daily. Drinking and hiking Meetups are the most popular.

Finally, I did it. I went to a Meetup. At a cafe around the corner, the Los Angeles French Language Meetup was having a Sunday brunch. Easy enough: If I hated it, I could walk home.

The dozen attendees, most in their 20s and 30s, were a friendly mix of native speakers and beginners. We took over a couch-lined alcove; those with similar fluency found each other naturally. I ended up next to Charlie Keenan, a 43-year-old financial writer with whom I shared a lively, wide-ranging, two-hour-long gabfest. He mentioned a girlfriend, but so what? I was having a blast jabbering in French.

At the Los Angeles Wine (& Food) Meetup, 15 budding oenophiles showed up for a tasting at Monsieur Marcel in the Farmers Market at 3rd and Fairfax, led by 30-year-old wine importer Jean-Baptiste Dhalluin. His selections were good--a surprisingly complex Muscadet, a soft, earthy, Côtes de Nuits-Villages. I sat next to Sang Muthui, a computer software designer in her early 30s who's a regular. Was she here to find someone? Nope. It's about the wine, she said. Lucky and Ian, two guys in their early 30s, said the same thing.

Really?

Bret Hampton, 58, a film and video editor and one of the organizers of the French-speakers group, explains: "If a guy showed up to meet women and was too forward, other members might run interference. It becomes a community." Is Hampton in it to meet women? "That would be nice," he says, "but it's not why I joined."

Well, if a stranger asked if I were there to meet guys, I'm not sure I'd cop to it either. But people, come on! We're talking about rooms full of friendly, like-minded souls.

Dhalluin says socializing--to meet both friends and dates--is as much a part of his Meetups as is the wine.

"I won't say I've seen people getting married," he says, "but I've seen them find dates." Members post their photos online, he points out, so if there's someone interesting you didn't get to talk to, it's easy to see the next Meetup he or she signed up for or send a message.

Chris Kaufman--he of the blinking fez--is married, 43, and an organizer of Dive Bar Adventures as well as Culture Sponges and a Gen-X support group. So, I ask him, are people hooking up at Meetups?

"It's to make pals and explore the city," he says. "But the straight answer is yes."

A former software entrepreneur now studying sociology at UCLA, Kaufman advises members looking for love to proceed with caution. "See the person on a few more Meetup dates and get to know them first," he says. "If there's an intense spark, great. If not, at least you've built a friendship. And ask if they have any friends outside of the Meetup. It's a small community."

Again, the C word: community. It reminds me of how isolating Internet dating has been in all its single-minded efficiency. But when you're doing your thing--and for every thing there is a Meetup--the pressure is off. You're not auditioning for anything. You're opening yourself up to serendipity. And that is a way to meet someone.

This isn't news. But it's easy to forget when you're shopping hard for love.

Dhalluin has delicious wines to introduce me to. It's great to be speaking French again, and I can't wait to see what kind of surfing Meetups are out there. As for Financial Writer Guy from the French-speakers' Meetup, he's adorable and we have tons in common. Yeah, I know, he has a girlfriend. But if there's one like him out there, there must be more. *

At Meetups, the pressure is off. You're not auditioning for anything. You're opening yourself up to serendipity.

Amy Albert is a senior associate editor at Bon Appetit magazine. Contact her at magazine@latimes.com.

A Social Game

Networking through Meetup.com, a website that enables people to start similar interest groups with local enthusiasts, the Lower Mainland Golfers Meetup Group started in the fall of 2007 and now boasts 242 members.

Bill, who lives in Agassiz, is one those members. He has a disability stemming from a lung disease that forced him out of work. A long-time golf enthusiast, Bill was recommended by his doctor to exercise as much as possible. During the weekdays, while his friends are at work, Bill golfs at Harrison by himself, and says he looks forward to meetup group tournaments because it enables him to socialize and play golf at the same time.

"For myself, I'll golf before I do anything else," he said. "It gives me the opportunity to golf with other people. The more exercise I get the longer I'm going to last, at least that's what the doctor says."

Saturday's tournament at The Falls, marked the group's 11th since current organizer Ray Nielsen took over. He and fellow members enjoyed blue skies on the links--a rare sight for the group.

"This is our 11th Meetup event since I started and the first time we've had sunshine," he chuckled. "It has poured every other day."

Since Nielsen took over, the group has increased by more than 200 members in just eight months. The Delta resident took on the role of organizer because he was fed up with the lack of information and accessibility provided on the Internet for golfers looking to try new golf courses.

"There really isn't an easy way to find what you're looking for," he said. "Collaborative marketing efforts on the part of the courses to provide the consumer with information, that should be their priority."

Taking it upon himself, he started BCGolfPages.com six months ago, a site dedicated to providing the casual or everyday golfer detailed information and discounts. His goal is to have access to every golf course in B.C.

"Once we get even more members, they'll realize how serious I am about this project," he said. "I'm not here to make money; I'm not making any now. I just want people to go golfing, meet people and have fun."

© Chilliwack Times 2008

A Meet-Up, Brought to You by Huggies

THE company whose tissue brand “pops up one at a time,” as the old ad slogan proclaimed, is popping up on a leading social networking site.

The Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the maker of Kleenex tissues, is joining forces with Meetup for an initiative sponsored by the company’s baby brands, like Huggies and Pull-Ups. The effort, aimed at mothers of young children, represents Meetup’s first foray into sponsorship. The site is known as a facilitator of offline meetings of computer users who share interests like politics or parenthood.

Kimberly-Clark is one of two marketers that have signed sponsorship agreements with Meetup, on undisclosed financial terms. The other is the American Express Company, whose Open division is collaborating on an initiative aimed at entrepreneurs and owners of small businesses.

The sponsorships are indicative of the increasing interest on Madison Avenue in a wide variety of online tactics that include social networking, blogs, virtual worlds, community Web sites, social media and word-of-mouth marketing.

All are part of what is known as Web 2.0, the efforts to encourage two-way conversations between brands and consumers rather than the traditional top-down method of corporations talking at — or down to — potential customers.

“Brands can network like people network,” said Kirk Cheyfitz, chief executive at Story Worldwide in New York, an agency that has worked for marketers like A&E Networks, Nestlé, Toyota Motor and Unilever.

There is, however, a danger for advertisers who turn up on a Web site like meetup.com or at the meetings that Meetup helps people arrange. If consumers perceive that Web 2.0 activities are being overly commercialized, they will decry the involvement of the marketers and mark down the value of the efforts to a big fat 0.

Kimberly-Clark executives say they are aware of those risks.

“We started with feedback from Meetup members and organizers as to whether they would want a sponsor and what they would find of value from a sponsor,” said Brad Santeler, director for media and relationship marketing at the Neenah, Wis., office of Kimberly-Clark.

“It’s very transparent,” he added. “We asked them what they wanted, and we’re providing that.” For instance, Kimberly-Clark is paying the monthly fees that organizers of affinity groups usually pay to Meetup.

Likewise, at American Express, said Marcy Shinder, vice president for brand strategy and marketing at the Open division in New York, “we don’t impose” anything on the Meetup members.

Rather, she added, “we generate something together that’s meaningful to them.”

“This group is honest,” Ms. Shinder said of entrepreneurs. “They’ll tell you what they think.” And so far, she added, the feedback from the 30 Meetup organizers with whom the company is working has been encouraging.

In its foray into Meetup, Ms. Shinder said, the Open division is using as a template its “authentic relationships” with other organizations like Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, which helps female entrepreneurs. Open is a founding sponsor of an online program called Make Mine a Million-Dollar Business (makemineamillion.org), introduced by Count Me In, which offers money, mentors and marketing assistance to fledgling firms run by women.

Meetup has more than 37,000 groups with more than five million regular users, said Dominic Preuss, vice president for marketplace at Meetup in New York, and helps arrange about 80,000 physical get-togethers each month.

“If the organizers of groups feel ‘sold to,’ it would not be in our interest” to make deals with marketers, Mr. Preuss said.

“It’s not just about throwing money at them,” he added. “They have to see value in the sponsorship.”

“With any new program, there are things that work and things that don’t work,” Mr. Preuss said. What seems to work best so far, he added, are “offers that are specific to groups, targeted and customized, that increase the value of their meet-ups.”

For example, Kimberly-Clark is offering expectant mothers a “Huggies Baby Countdown” widget, which calculates how much longer their pregnancies will last based on their due dates. The widget can be downloaded from more than 20 Web sites like Facebook, Freewebs, iGoogle and MySpace.

“It’s about creating opportunities for consumers who want to engage with our brands and giving them the tools to do that,” Mr. Santeler of Kimberly-Clark said.

His colleague, Kate Johnson, consumer relationship marketing manager, praised the Meetup sponsorship as a way for Kimberly-Clark to influence “that over-the-fence decision” made after one neighbor tells another about a product she likes — or dislikes.

“When you have one mom talking to another, it’s powerful,” Ms. Johnson said. “So we’re offering them information and tools and activities; we’re not in their face with advertising.”

Similarly, said Ms. Shinder at American Express Open, the deal with Meetup would provide “access and support.” The access is to experts who can help with tasks like developing business plans and managing cash flow, she added, and the support is for “Meetup organizers on how to put together great events.”

“If you look at entrepreneurs, they’ve been doing social networking before it had a name,” Ms. Shinder said. “We’ve learned that you reach them where they are.”

The American Express Open sponsorship is scheduled to continue with the 30 Meetup groups through the end of the year, Ms. Shinder said, at which time “we’ll see how we can scale it out even more broadly.”

“Before we take it from 30 to 500,” she added, “we want to make the model as strong as possible.”

The Kimberly-Clark sponsorship is a six-month pilot program with 100 Meetup groups, Mr. Santeler said, and is planned to run through June.

Both companies also have extensive online presences. American Express Open has a Web site called openforum.com.

Kimberly-Clark Web sites include huggiesbabynetwork.com, happyhealthypregnancy.com and huggieshappybaby.com.

Kimberly-Clark intends to devote about 35 percent of its overall marketing spending this year to nontraditional media like the Internet, said a spokesman, Joey Mooring, compared with about 25 percent in 2007 and 10 percent in 2004.