The Official Meetup HQ Blog

Who's behind Meetup.com? Episode #30: Andres Glusman

by Davide

Like Keith, you are a Meetup fixture (and I don't use that word lightly). How long have you been hanging out here and how did your position transform throughout the years?
I've been with Meetup a long long time.  I was involved as Meetup was getting off the ground and actually brought in Meetup's very first dollar of revenue. Over the years I've played marketing, partnership, strategy & community roles. My first job here was to help us figure out our business model. Five years later... I lead our strategy and community teams.

How old do you think your children will be when they register on a social networking site for the first time? My mom in Italy has never had a computer, so I'm not sure what it's like to have parent-child internet friendships. What's your stance on this?
Actually, my girls (ages 1&4) already have Wee-Web profiles! It's like Facebook for kids. I get photo & video updates about them a few times a day (thanks to my wife). While I'd rather be hanging out with the girls at the park, the updates help me feel connected to them during the day.

Shavanna and I are about to start running in the morning before coming into work. We think Meetup HQ people look quite healthy and in shape considering the field we're all in. We were just wondering, how do you stay so handsome?
It must be my diet. If you want to stay this trim, all you have to do is eat 3+ massive burritos a week and drink a beer before bed. 

You rarely hear about startups and internet companies investing in marketing and promotion, at least not in a conventional way. In 180 words, can you tell me about the differences between working in old-fashioned marketing and advertising vs being a strategy guy for an internet company?
Many companies spend loads of money trying to get people to visit their website. Our approach is to invest that money into things that make customers happier & more successful. When we do that well we grow. For example every Organizer of a new Meetup Group (MUG) gets personalized advice from a member of our community team to help them get going. It's a nice thing to do and we know that it ups the odds of new MUG success by 11%. On the tech side, we release functionality all the time that makes it easier for people to find MUGs, to get involved and organize them. For a strategy guy it means my role is to help us understand how people use Meetup, where they struggle and what we can do about it.

Staff people from Meetup HQ are soon going to tour a bunch of cities to meet and greet Organizers. It's something that we've done before... can you tell me about this upcoming tour and about its purpose?
That's right! It's our Second Annual Tour. This year we are meeting with Meetup Organizers in 6 cities (New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Las Vegas, Portland & Raleigh). Its an awesome opportunity for us to hear Organizers' stories, goals, and struggles.

More importantly... we want to help them meet each other. Meetup Organizers know better than anyone what it takes to build strong local groups. Lots of cities around the world have Organizer Meetups that bring Organizers together throughout the year. We are actually teaming up with 6 of the biggest local Organizer Meetups to organize the tour. If we aren't coming to your city, I'd encourage you to join an Organizer MUG near you or start one.

Davide is on Meetup's Community team.

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In the News: Business Networking in Baton Rouge

by Tegan

The Baton Rouge Business Report did a lovely piece recently on how folks in that city are using Meetup to come together, especially when it comes to business networking. 

Andres, our VP of Strategy, weighed in on how Southeastern Louisianans and folks around the world are using Meetup to help each other navigate the difficulties of starting a business or working independently, especially in tough times.

“People don’t want to wait for other people to create solutions for them, so they’re turning to each other and creating solutions for themselves.”

The Business Report article made special note of the Baton Rouge Business Networking Meetup Group, the Baton Rouge Real Estate Investor Group, and the Baton Rouge Film, TV, Theatre, and Music Industry Meetup Group. 

Congratulations to Cindy, Richard, and Susie for organizing fantastic Meetups that make their community a better place! We're proud. :) 

Tegan is on Meetup's Community team.

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Vote for Meetup's SXSW panels!

by Tegan

Earlier this year, Greg and Andres hosted a talk at SXSW 2009 about the way things get done here at Meetup HQ: we self-organize our work the way Meetup Groups self organize real world communities.

Now, the folks who organize SXSW want people to do some self organizing for deciding who will present at SXSW 2010. 

They asked people to submit proposals, and now they want folks to vote up or down on things they'd actually like to see. This year, Meetup had 4 proposals for presentations accepted for consideration by the community! We're really excited.

But in order to make the presentations a reality, we're going to need your help. 

You can see the proposals and give them your thumbs up here:

Go! Go right now! And tell all of your friends to go vote, too! 

Anyone can vote. You don't have to have attended SXSW in the past to go, and you don't have to be planning on going this spring -- though we'd love to see you there.

Tegan is on Meetup's Community Support team.

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Turning a booth into a soapbox

by Andres

Most conference booths are lame.

Why else would they bribe you with schwag just to come by?

So when we were given a booth space at Personal Democracy Forum (we are a sponsor of the conference), we decided to have some fun with it.

We chucked the usual table and created a meeting space at the conference. Then we invited a handful of Meetup Organizers related to the conference to tell their stories and promote their Meetup Group.

Why? Because we are a platform for great local Groups. That means showcasing great local Groups whenever we can. If you are at the conference, come by the space and follow Meetup on Twitter to see who is presenting when.

If this works we will do it again in the future. If you are interested in getting involved in future conferences, let us know! Just email us at organizer@ meetup.com. We'll look forward to hearing from you.

Andres is Meetup's VP of Strategy.

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4th of July Tea Parties Brewing on Meetup

by Andres

Looks like a whole bunch of Tea Party Meetups are brewing for the 4th of July.

The tea-party phenomenon has been a fast growing area of Meetup lately. We saw a huge wave of these locally organized "Tea-Party" Meetups pop up on U.S. Tax Day. From the looks of it U.S. Independence Day may shape up to be just as big.  

There are already 143 Tea Party Meetups scheduled around the United States.

It's fun to see which states have the most activity so far. Let's take a look at the stats.

And the 4th of July is almost a month away. I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops between now and then.

Andres is Meetup's VP of Strategy.

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How we get stuff done at Meetup HQ

by Tegan

Meetup is all about the power of self-organized groups. So if you think about it, it's not all that surprising that our belief in self organization carries over into how we get things done here at Meetup HQ.

Check out this great article on CNN Money about how we work here at Meetup. Basically, here's the idea:

Every new feature on Meetup.com is one pitched by a staff member who has successfully recruited a team to build out the new addition.

So we self-organize our work, the way Meetup Groups self organize real world communities. If this looks a little familiar, Andres and Greg talked about our self-organized structure at SXSW in March. 

It may sound a little out of the ordinary to some folks, but one of the things we learn from looking at Meetup groups is that when people come together with a commitment to a common goal or interest, amazing things happen. 

Tegan is on Meetup's Community Support team.

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Putting New Meetup Maps to the Test

by Andres

People say you know you've built something good if its "so easy your grandma can do it". I'm not a grandma, but I've been called a "young fogey". So, I'll subject myself to the test...

We just launched Meetup Maps that anyone can embed into their own site (like a youtube video). I picked a few fast growing Meetup topics (Glenn Beck, Moms & Hikers) to embed on to this here blog post. Are here are the results....

GLENN BECK MEETUPS AROUND THE WORLD HIKING MEETUPS AROUND THE WORLD STAY AT HOME MOMS MEETUPS AROUND THE WORLD
Not bad for an old man. It was actually easier than I thought. Here's what I did....

1. I went to the map page for the topic (i.e. http://glennbeck.meetup.com) to find the map I wanted to embed.
2. Then I found the link under the map without a hitch. (Go me!).
3. Then pasted that link into this here blog post. (After I figured out how to get the blog into html mode).

That's it. So, if I can do it....

Andres is Meetup's VP of Strategy.

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Catch our talk at SXSW next week

by Andres

Greg and I have been invited to talk at SXSW about Meetup's ongoing experiment in self-organization.  It's hard to believe that it's been a full year since we blew up how we get things done.

For those you not going to Austin, here's the background...

Like most companies we'd spent years tooling and retooling how we decided what to work on. Over time we just got bogged down in bureaucracy and top-down decision making.

The irony is that we are building a platform to help the world's people self-organize. We'd helped unleash massive bottom-up movements (like Ron Paul and Howard Dean). But we ran our own company like an industrial-era factory. We were slow and generally not excited about what we were bringing to the world.

Finally we realized that if we really wanted to be about self-organized groups, we'd have to live it.

So we kicked off a 6-week experiment. It was something of an extended hack-a-thon. Anyone could work on whatever they wanted as long as it helped more Meetup Groups be more successful and they could convince 3 other people to work on it with them. The 6-week hack-a-thon actually turned into 12 weeks. Then following a massive (though rocky) release, we committed ourselves to self-organization.

A year later we are still with it.  At any point in time we've got 5-7 teams cooking up new ideas. It can be chaotic at times as teams form, build, user test, launch, disband, reform, and repeat...

Self-organization may not work for everyone, but it is doing wonders for us. Everything we've launched in the last year was the direct result of a self-organized team making it happen.

It has certainly been a bumpy ride and we've learned our share of lessons along the way.  We'll address questions about it next week at SXSWi and report back any highlights. If you've got a question now, feel free to ask in the comments below.

Hope to see you in Texas.

Also... If you are going to be at SXSW and want to meet, contact me through twitter (@glusman).

Andres is Meetup's VP of Strategy.

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"Let them know we're here"

by Andres

Before reading this story I couldn't find Gillette on a map (even now I would have a little trouble).

But boy am I glad I found this story about the Gillette Moms Meetup.

Like all Meetup's this one started when someone who saw a hole in her community and did something about it. 

"The Gillette Moms Meetup, as it’s officially known, has taken off since it debuted this summer, without the benefit of any official city sponsorship or advertising campaign. It has flourished, quite simply, because it fills a glaring need in Gillette: a place for newly arrived mothers and their children to interact."

And you've got to love her motivation...

“So many mothers say Gillette doesn’t have anything to offer,” Monteleone says. “That’s my motivation: to let them know we’re here.”

Congrats to Shelly on the Meetup's success and for getting recognized for buiding this resource for Moms in Gillette (WY, that is).

Andres is Meetup's VP of Strategy.

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Does watching TV make people less happy?

by Andres

Scientists at the University of Maryland recently published a study that shows that people who watch more TV are generally less happy than people who engage in Meetup-like activity.

"TV doesn't really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does," says University of Maryland sociologist John P. Robinson, the study co-author and a pioneer in time-use studies.

This comes as no suprise to most people who have attended Meetups.

There's a buzz you feel on your way home from spending a few hours with people who really get what you are into. You can't get it any other way. 

So let your couch potato friends & family know that happiness might just be a Meetup away.

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