Nettle Does Meetup

I finally broke down and attended my first Meetup on Thursday night, May 27th. Been meaning to do it for a year at least.

The event? I picked a "Kerry in 2004" Meetup in downtown La Jolla, at the Living Room Coffee House on Prospect Street. (It's in what used to be the Boll Weevil restaurant, which goes to show how many years it's been since I've been to 1010 Prospect Street in La Jolla!)

1. Direct Observations
There were six "Kerry in 2004" Meetups set to happen on the 27th. The Meetup site explained that it was due to a "HIGH LEVEL OF INTEREST". Restaurants and coffee-houses, mostly. Which, it seemed to me, might not be the very best places for these kinds of meetings. Wouldn't it be noisy? And what if too many people show up? By the time I signed up, there were some 50 RSVP confirmations for the La Jolla venue. That's got to be enough to take over the whole coffee house, I thought.

The agenda was pretty light: get posters and collateral material, come up with a plan to get students involved, and expand outreach.

The first thing I expected to see when I got to the Meetup were stacks of posters, flyers, and other Kerry promo materials. Oddly, I saw none of that. Instead I saw a line at the front of the shop, for people buying food and coffee. The place smelled great, and the menu was tempting. I got there early, 6:30pm, so I could get a seat. I bought a hot chocolate and found a seat at a small table for two along the wall towards the back, where the Meetup was already gathering.

There were tables with clipboards and piles of paper. The clipboards held signup sheets. I reluctantly gave my name, email address, and phone number.

A student, who made it clear to people that he was not yet 18 or eligible to vote, sat down at the table. He seemed very nervous. He was asking around trying to find out if he could donate money even though he was not yet eligible to vote. The Meetup coordinator gave him the name of an San Diego attorney who's involved in the Kerry campaign, and assured him that he'd know, since he's been studying the campaign contribution laws carefully.

By 7pm there were about 25-30 people milling around, some seated, some standing, many talking. More people trickled in over the next half hour. I was surprised how many women there were. I'd guess about 75% of the attendees were women, aged 15-65.

An older woman appeared, with a large plate of hummus and pita bread slices. The student offered her his seat, so she could sit down. I thought she was putting the plate down for everyone there to enjoy, but no. It was hers.

She told me she was a school teacher, mad as hell and can't take it anymore. I asked her, how did she hear about this Meetup? She went to the San Diego Democratic Party website, she told me. She knew very little if anything about Meetup and Meetup, Inc. This was her first Meetup. Mine too, I told her.

Fred Rogers, dressed in jeans, t-shirt, and baseball cap, and wearing several Kerry and "ABB" (Anyone But Bush) badges, and who later would identify himself as the "San Diego coordinator" for the Kerry meetups, came up to me and asked if this was my first Meetup. I said yes. I told him I know Scott Heiferman (Meetup's co-founder and CEO) and I've been remiss in not actually going to an actual Meetup, so here I am. He looked at me funny and walked away. I guess he didn't know what or who I was talking about.

There were handouts, a couple of pages of xeroxed papers:

• The first sheet was a list of Upcoming Events.

• The second sheet was a list of San Diego Kerry Campaign Activities, including contact info for "Neighborhood Outreach", "Tabling", "Host a House Party", and "Meetups". Actually there was a fifth one, "Voter Registration Drive" (probably the most important one) but it was not formatted correctly so you had to look closely.

• The next sheet was a Vice Presidential Straw Poll. "Here is your chance to voice your opinion on who John Kerry should select as his running mate. Select and rank your top three VP choices by putting a 1, 2, or 3 on the line to the right of the person's name." There were 21 names listed, the usual suspects -- Senators, Congresspeople, Governors, even McCain was listed. There was also a fill-in-the-blank for write-in suggestions.

• The last sheet in the set of handouts was a Volunteer Registration Form.

Fred Rogers eventually started the meeting, mentioning that there were 11 Meetups going on around San Diego this evening. (Interesting, the Meetup site had said 6 . . . but maybe things had grown in the last 24 hours?). He mentioned that the Kerry campaign had 25 Meetups as its San Diego goal. The campaign was a little under halfway to the goal.

Rogers then pretty much went line by line through the papers I described above. He listed and described the upcoming events, the various contacts, and the vice presidential straw poll. I was expecting more, but there wasn't much more than that. And when he was done going line-by-line through the sheets, there was a brief set of questions-and-answers, and that was it. The Meetup was over. It was now about 7:30pm. I got up and went home.

2. Post-Meetup Thoughts
So I've been thinking about this, my first Meetup, for a couple days now. Here are my thoughts in a nutshell.

First, some comments on the choice of venue:

• On the plus side, the venue had good food and beverages, and the chairs were very cozy. The whole place is cozy and smells of delightful cooking. Note to self: go back to this venue sometime.

• On the negative side, this venue was very, very noisy. Not everyone in the place was there for the meetup. Maybe 2/3 were, but 1/3 weren't. And while most of that 1/3 were generally seated closer to the front of the store, they were chatting up a storm and having a good time. (So were some of the Meetup attendees themselves --- while Fred Rogers was speaking. That wasn't very nice, but it points out that when people are distracted by noise, food, beverages, etc... how else would you expect people to behave?) When there was a brief Q and A at the end, I couldn't hear what the questions were, because of the noise. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who couldn't hear anything.

• To add to the noise problem was the music --- great Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins jazz music -- perfect for a coffee house, terrible for a John Kerry in 2004 Meetup. Especially since there were loudspeakers in the ceiling in the back of the restaurant precisely where the Meetup was taking place. One other thing about the music that was absolutely uncanny. Fred Rogers was standing up there speaking, rattling off information, all the while a vigorous jazz performance was competing with him from the ceiling loudspeaker (and the din coming from customers around the restaurant). Suddenly Fred concluded and said thank you, and the very nanosecond he did that, the jazz music ended, and over the loudspeakers came the sound of an audience clapping. Turns out the jazz recording was made live. Interestingly, nobody at the Meetup clapped for Fred.

• The hummus and pita bread looks good. Don't know how it tastes though. :-)

Some comments about this particular Kerry Meetup:

• The whole thing felt very top-down. I was expecting more involvement from attendees. It felt like an after-school Democrats Club meeting. Not once did Fred ask, "What should we do? What ideas do you have? What are your concerns? How should we do this next time?"

• There was no big take-home message from the meeting. The agenda turne d out to be a line-by-line recitation of handout sheets. All of that could have just been sent out in an email.

• Here were people who felt strongly enough to leave their homes, their workplaces, their schools, wherever they were coming from, to meet together and find out how they can help. Did they feel like they got something out of this meeting? I don't know.

• There was no mention made of Al Gore's now-famous speech that had happened the day before. I'd asked the schoolteacher lady if she'd heard it and she didn't know what I was talking about. I think everyone in that room should have heard about that speech, and news of the speech, the URL of the transcript, and the URL of the actual C-SPAN video of the speech (RealPlayer required) should have been given out to every attendee.

And finally, some general observations:

• No Meetup Branding: Just a guess, but I suspect VERY FEW of the people who attended the Meetup knew much about Meetup, Inc.. The word "meetup" was used often, but you could tell it wasn't being used as a branded thing, just a name.

• Where were the name tags!?!?! This was a MEETUP, right? Why weren't there any Meetup-style name tags handed out? Shouldn't everyone there have been wearing a custom meetup nametag?

• This experience represents a statistical sample of one, so it's not fair to generalize at all --- but I wonder about the degree that Meetup ought to create brand-awareness with attendees of Meetups. Is it important? Not important? Long-term, will it matter? I wonder. (What happens if Yahoo starts Yahoo!Gatherings tomorrow? Will people call gatherings meetings, and meetups gatherings? I suspect so. What will distinguish a Meetup from another kind of meetup-like meeting? Is it important that Meetup.com address that issue or not?)

Next, I'm planning to attend a Republican Meetup in the San Diego area. I am very curious to see how it's run, who attends, and what's on the agenda. I have this assumption it's going to be mostly men, mostly wearing ties and suits, with a very professionally-done agenda. I could be wrong, we'll see.

To Be Continued . . . .

Posted by brian at May 29, 2004 04:02 PM | TrackBack