“If we could all just borrow 5% of Megan Smith’s positivity and energy and smile, we'd all be better off." Meetup.com Founder / CEO, Scott Heiferman 

On Friday, April 17, 2015, the recently appointed United States Chief Technology Officer, Megan Smith, organized a gathering of tech-focused community organizers at the White House (or, more accurately, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building). Organized with Meetup.com, the platform that facilitates tech (and many other) communities throughout the nation and the world, this first “White House Tech Meetup” celebrated efforts to create jobs and opportunities in the tech industry, especially for women and minorities.

Several hundred leaders from tech Meetups across the country gathered to learn about homegrown efforts to encourage STEM (Science, Technology, Education and Math) education, teach coding, and increase diversity in tech. Following opening remarks by Smith, National Economic Council Director, Jeff Zients, and Meetup CEO, Scott Heiferman, the day started with two dozen spotlight sessions – quick talks by organizers from around the country. Zach Leatherman from NebraskaJS spoke about his efforts to counter “brain drain” of Nebraska developers to Silicon Valley and other tech hotspots. Matti Dupre from Alaska Web Devs spoke of his work supporting Alaska’s web developers.

Ryan Burke, Policy Advisor at the National Economic Council at the White House, spoke of the TechHire initiative to provide training to help meet the employer demand for over 500,000 open IT jobs in the nation. Per Zients, “If we can't fill the jobs, America's leadership in tech innovation won't last.” 

Special Assistant to the President, Michael Smith, spoke of the White House’s “My Brother’s Keeper” program to provide opportunities for African Americans. Brett Greene from Seattle’s New Tech ("Tech is a seed but community is what it's really all about."), Mandy Godown from Shesays Boulder, Jerry Fitzgerald Steele from Iowa Web Devs, and Jamal & Felicia O’Garro from Code Crew NYC were among the other speakers. All described their efforts to support their local tech communities. 

The morning’s talks were followed by an afternoon “unconference,” during which attendees suggested topics and organized our own groups to discuss topical issues. For the first session, a number of us gathered to discuss the issue of how to grow the pipeline of youth interested in tech and what government and corporations could do to provide support, especially for internship programs. For the second, I joined Paola Maldonado from NYC Tech Latinas who organized a session on the challenges of finding mentors for women in tech. 

What struck me about the event was the strong interest that Megan Smith tapped in regular Americans who want to be involved and help. It reminded me of the “Yes We Can” spirit of the ’08 campaign, when millions of Americans felt communal ownership of the ability for our government to work with citizens to help improve America. On Friday, with absolutely no talk of partisanship or politics, several hundred of us flocked to Washington DC when given the chance. As Rafael López, Senior Policy Advisor, Impact Technologies for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy stated, “Everyone in this room and everyone out there watching has a role to play in transforming America.” 

“A competitor asked me to perform a DDoS attack on your website. I can stop the attack for $300 USD. Let me know if you are interested in my offer.” This is the message that Meetup.com CEO and co-founder Scott Heiferman received in his e-mail inbox a few days ago. The source of the message […]

The post Pay a ransom or accept the fate of DDoS? Meetup.com chose the latter appeared first on SecurEncrypt - Encrypt files, emails and SMS. #security

Pay a ransom or accept the fate of DDoS? Meetup.com chose the latter

“A competitor asked me to perform a DDoS attack on your website. I can stop the attack for $300 USD. Let me know if you are interested in my offer.”

This is the message that Meetup.com CEO and co-founder Scott Heiferman received in his e-mail inbox a few days ago. The source of the message is an extortionist that is equipped with the right tools, considering that he can bring some servers on…

Meetup offered Automatic dues extension to all organizers

Meetup CEO announced automatic dues extension to all organizers today.

———- Forwarded message ———- From: Scott Heiferman <[email protected]> Date: Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 12:17 PM Subject: Meetup Organizers: Automatic dues extension Hello Meetup Organizers,

First and foremost, we’re happy to report that Meetup is up, running, and stable.

We’ve issued…

This interview with Scott Heiferman, the CEO of Meetup.com, gives more insight on how their local group organizing website initially launched and gained traction. It's a little long, but useful if you are looking to get people to meetup in real life.

How Meetup initially launched:

They created 1000 topics in 1000 cities to create 1,000,000 different possible event meetups centered around "International Meetup days" (ie pretend holidays, like "International Chihuahua Meetup Day")

They also hand coded 70,000 possible venues for which those events could take place and when people went to check them out they could vote on where it could take place (thus getting people to sign up for the site)

If not enough people signed up for a place then they would email the people to let them know that it wasn't happening

A wonderful email in my inbox this morning from Meetup CEO Scott Heiferman, who shares one story about the lasting effects of September 11 here on this tenth anniversary. I think any event organizer can draw inspiration from Scott's experience.

Fellow Meetuppers,

I don’t write to our whole community often, but this week is special because it’s the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and many people don’t know that Meetup is a 9/11 baby.

Let me tell you the Meetup story. I was living a couple miles from the Twin Towers, and I was the kind of person who thought local community doesn’t matter much if we’ve got the internet and tv. The only time I thought about my neighbors was when I hoped they wouldn’t bother me.

When the towers fell, I found myself talking to more neighbors in the days after 9/11 than ever before. People said hello to neighbors (next-door and across the city) who they’d normally ignore. People were looking after each other, helping each other, and meeting up with each other. You know, being neighborly.

A lot of people were thinking that maybe 9/11 could bring people together in a lasting way. So the idea for Meetup was born: Could we use the internet to get off the internet — and grow local communities?

We didn’t know if it would work. Most people thought it was a crazy idea — especially because terrorism is designed to make people distrust one another.

A small team came together, and we launched Meetup 9 months after 9/11.

Today, almost 10 years and 10 million Meetuppers later, it’s working. Every day, thousands of Meetups happen. Moms Meetups, Small Business Meetups, Fitness Meetups… a wild variety of 100,000 Meetup Groups with not much in common — except one thing.

Every Meetup starts with people simply saying hello to neighbors. And what often happens next is still amazing to me. They grow businesses and bands together, they teach and motivate each other, they babysit each other’s kids and find other ways to work together. They have fun and find solace together. They make friends and form powerful community. It’s powerful stuff.

It’s a wonderful revolution in local community, and it’s thanks to everyone who shows up.

Meetups aren’t about 9/11, but they may not be happening if it weren’t for 9/11.

9/11 didn’t make us too scared to go outside or talk to strangers. 9/11 didn’t rip us apart. No, we’re building new community together!!!!

The towers fell, but we rise up. And we’re just getting started with these Meetups.

Scott Heiferman (on behalf of 80 people at Meetup HQ)

No matter the topic, something wonderful happens when people get together to share the content they are passionate about. And as the guardians of those conversations, organizers should take great joy in the communities they create.

I got this e-mail from Scott Heiferman, Co-Founder and CEO of Meetup.com today. I say kudos to Meetup for creating such a great platform for the people to come together post September 11. 10 years later (can you believe it's been 10 years?), 9/11 still leaves a strong mark in our hearts and it's great to know we have people out there that we can continue to share a part of ourselves with and lead to rebuilding a community together. Great job, Meetup team.