The Meetup NW Creative’s Social Group has been in
existence for about five years and has faced some serious challenges during
that time. One of the most serious challenges this group has faced has been the
difficulty of building social capital and participation of group members. While
this group has a large number of members, more than 400 since it began, less
than a quarter of them have been active in the group in the last six months.
Activity is defined, for the terms of this paper, as logging onto the website;
a much smaller number has been active by attending events. The events that I
have attended have had very small attendance, usually 2 people at the
most. Others sometimes say that they
have attempted to meet up with the group, but lack of coordination has
prevented their actually meeting with other group members.
The lack of participation has harmed the cohesion of the
group and has discouraged the group’s leaders. At any given time there are one
or two coordinators who organize and coordinate events and urge members to
participate. A recurring problem has been turn-over of these group leaders.
Every few months the group leader seems to get discouraged by the low turnout
and quits. This leads to an urgent plea for a new leader to step forward and
take control. This last occurred in October 2012. For several days all of the
members of the group who were paying attention were left in suspense whether
the group would continue or not.
Finally a new leader stepped forward and began to
organize new events. The first few events organized by the new leader, although
they have included some new ideas, have not resulted in the turnout he had
hoped for and in reaction he has instituted some new rules. Among the new rules
is the rule that if a member RSVPs for three events and then doesn’t attend
they will lose their membership. This rule has been very controversial and has
resulted in some members withdrawing. This attempt to redefine membership and
to make people stick to their agreements may or may not work, but it is an
attempt to strengthen the group by getting rid of members who do not fully
participate. If this effort works the group could gain some cohesion and social
capital could begin to be built, but if things go the way they have for the
last five years we will see a new group leader by this time next year. That new
leader will have to continue trying to find a way to build social capital among
this group’s members.
Social capital, the investment that each member makes in
his community, is the biggest problem in trying to organize and promote this
group. I interviewed three group members to talk with them about why they
joined this group and what they get out of it. I interviewed two of them by
email and one in person, when I attended a meetup. For anonymity I will refer
to these members by number rather than their names. Member 1 has been a member of
this group since soon after it started in 2007, but has rarely attended any
events. Member 2 joined the group over a year ago and has never attended any
events. Member 3 joined the group about eight months ago and has attended a few
events.
“I like to keep up with the website updates and watch for
interesting events,” said Member 1, “I rarely see an event that interests me
enough to attend, but I do like to email with some of the other members and
keep up with the group” (Member 1). Member 1 represents a large group of Meetup
members who don’t really plan to participate in the face to face meetings, but
are only interested in the on-line part of this group. It is hard to say how
many members are in this group because they lurk on the website and don’t
usually participate. More than 75% of the members of this group joined and then
have not participated by coming to events. The other member who falls into this
group is Member 2, who joined the group and then promptly forgot about it. When
contacted by email this member was surprised to hear about the group. She said
she had joined with the intention of attending events, but then never followed
up.
Member 3, interviewed at the Blitz Bar in November 2012,
expressed some frustration at how the meetup group functioned. We were the only
two people who showed up for a planned meetup to do the monthly First Thursday
Art Walk. He had been to one other event that only had three people attend and
was nearly ready to drop his membership. After the event there was a lot of
talk on the website and supposedly there had been four or five other members at
the Blit Bar that night, but we had not found each other. Frustration about the
lack of organization and communication at these events is one of the highest
factors in people dropping out of the group.
This group will probably survive in some form as long as
the Meetup.com website is available, but unless the problem of organization and
communication can be solved it will never reach the goal it has set for itself
of bringing people together. It is ironic that the communication technology
that makes this group possible seems to break down when it comes to actual
physical meetings. I suspect that there is some degree of social anxiety that
kicks in and keeps people from actually making contact when they do attend
events. Another Member 3 attended was a performance at Lincoln Hall on PSU
campus. Member 3 got a discount on the tickets through Meetup and enjoyed the
performance, but never met any of the other members who said they attended the
same event.
