Meeting My Future

Meetup is a social media tool designed to bring people together for meetings, get-togethers, parties, lectures, and more.  They say you can find a meetup on “what matters to you.”

What matters to me is everyone around me and how to make their lives better.   More specifically, my future political career.  Okay, me.  It’s all about me. Toward the end of developing a political career starting from where I’m starting from (not quite square zero but next door to it,) I plan to start using Meetup to reach Arizonans—primarily, but not exclusively, those who vote.

Meetup has 8 million users worldwide.  They have two target markets: organizers and attendees.   Probably, because it’s a type of social media, the voters who use it will skew younger (18-45). 

What makes Meetup unique is its goal is to reach beyond the screen and connect people without 1s and 0s in the middle.  What makes Meetup risky is the same thing:  Anytime you deal with the public, 99.99% of them are wonderful, law-abiding, apple pie loving, cool people you’d be happy to invite into your home and introduce to your eligible daughter.   Then you have the other .01%.  You know, the ‘there’s something about them, will you walk me to my car’ people.   It’s important to keep your eyes open, remember basic personal security, basic internet security, basic id theft security, and to keep a can of pepper spray handy.

I predict Meetup will continue to grow and avoid the pitfalls of some social media in the future because it’s not super trendy.  It’s an invitation to old fashioned people-to-people events.  Or even new-fangled ones but you get the point: People talking to people about subjects they’re interested in wasn’t invented by the internet or social media and isn’t going away.         

I have just recently began using Meetup when I discovered an eco-house group event via Google.  I’m interested in the tiny house movement not because I could ever live in that small a space but because I admire the smart, efficient design.  I have signed up to attend a Meetup event at a tiny house and take a tour.  Although the tour will probably be one person at a time.