Topic: Obama’s election and post-election Iran barely scratch the surface of what’s possible when people self-organize. (description)

Presenter: Scot, CEO of Meetup

Movement is a feeling.  People identify themselves as part of it… “environmentalist”, “union member”, “evangelical”.

Fan page – It’s the problem.  Erin is not a fan.  She wants to be part of it.

It is easier than ever to get psudo members, harder than ever to get real members.

Example:
ipledge2protect.org (now offline) – “join the movement against genocide”

But wait… What am I pledging to do?  This isn’t a petition.  What does it mean?  “I pledge to click submit”  :P

Think beyond followers

Followers are over rated – great if you’re starting a cult!  or a dictatorship.  Or a band.   Or a brand.

It’s always, “Get involved” – Watch us, see us, join us, friend us.  What about me?

Fans and followers are wasted for movement making.  Get them to self organize. Connect them.  Give them permission to be amazing.  Distribute tasks.  Distribute responsibility.

Go for accidents, serendipity.  We’re all organizers now.  Leaders will emerge.  Fan the flames and watch what happens after they connect and share stories.  (“Stories of me, turn into stories of we.”)

Let’s do something!

We’ve got 6 million meetups, 60 million rsvps.  Very common word is “Let’s”   284 thousand on public site (not counting private meetups).

Meetup is backbone of the tea party movement.  Lots of tea party meetup groups.  There really is no leader.  Sparticus style “I am the tea party leader” videos.

When running for the US Senate, Obama promised to go to any Meetup that got over a cetain number of rsvps, when running for Senate.

Beppe Grillo Meetups in Itally saying will create an alternative municipality structure.

We had a problem that people were creating meetups that were kind of spamy.  Added a check box to their sign up form that said, “I pledge to create local community” (you had to check the box to sign up).  Thought this would cost us sign ups.   Surprise. More people joined up.  People wanted to pledge, they wanted to create.

Big take away - Be everywhere.  But you can’t.  So crowdsource your everywhereness.

Some tips

Continue the relationship – What happens after the march or the meetup?  Is there a netowrk of local groups, each filled with their own plans and network and internal account ability and energy?

Inspire rather than manage.

Get followers and fans around the mission.

Get them interacting online globally.

Get them to meetup locally everywhere

Use the internet to get off the internet, decentralize.  Networked networks.

Organizing with new kinds of organizations.

People should feel comfortable having small, low key events.  Not everything has to be burning man or the million man march.