Meetup's Scott Heifermann

Scott Heiferman of Meetup quotes Robert Putnam: "Joining one group cuts your odds of dying in the next year and a half."

"We're in the emergent organization business." He says we're on the verge of a new species of what multi-chapter organizations are. He points to progressive muslim meetups around the world.

This is a time for invention and change, he says. You don't need to have an organizational structure to start an organization any more.

Somebody on the IRC points out: "one of the interesting issues that confronts use of meetup for minority groups is the fact that Meetup makes it easy for the government to have undercover agents monitor the group by attending meetings, joining mailing list, etc." True. And in China if you're organizing a dissident meeting the last thing you want to do is talk about it online.

Comments

[Bob Jacobson]

The issue, Scott, isn't how many organizations you can set up, but how many survive the initial thrill of "community" to actually get something done. Neither Meet-Up nor any other entity has yet moved the technology beyond its abiity to organize meetings so that it teaches how to manage, and supports, continuous organization and mobilization.