[Robotgroup] Meetup RSVPs - Thanks

[Robert Carter]

On Jul 10, 2008, at 12:43 PM, Vern Graner wrote:

> Marvin Niebuhr wrote:
>> Can we nix the stupid RSVP in "Meatup" as it is never accurate of  
>> who shows up which makes it meaningless.  I tired of doing my part  
>> when most don't   Prof. C
>
> The RSVP numbers are displayed for people who come to the meetup  
> site for The Robot Group to show whether or not it is an "active"  
> group.
>
> This helps them decide if they want to show up or not. If the RSVP  
> shows "1 person attended last meeting" then they assume that the  
> meetings are poorly attended and then may decide not to show up.
>
> There's no way I know of to "drop" the RSVP portion as it is a  
> pretty central component of the whole "Meetup.com" paradigm.
>
> I guess we could drop MEETUP.COM altogether but its one of the only  
> ways we really find new folks. By having RSVP's and lots of members  
> commenting on how the meetings have gone, we are seen as active and  
> therefore interesting to folks looking for an active group.
>
> Sorry it's problematic for you. For me, I get an email with an RSVP  
> button once a week. I simply hit the button and I'm done.. its like  
> 2 clicks a week to do it. Is it more complex than that for you?
>
> Vern


Yeah, Vern described the problem pretty well. If you look at the  
membership list on Meetup, you'll see an awful lot of Robot Group  
"members", people who joined the Meetup out of a casual interest, but  
who have never attended a meeting. About seven new members join each  
month, but only one (if we're lucky) will actually show up. We seem  
to have trouble encouraging these new Meetup people to take that next  
step and get involved.

At least part of the problem is that, as a Meetup entity, we don't  
appear to be very active. We have a lot of lively discussion on this  
list, but they don't get to see any of that. I've posted a couple of  
messages on the Meetup message board, one to encourage new members to  
join the email list and come to meetings, and another to promote the  
Basic Stamp II SIG. The former got four views, the latter got two, so  
that doesn't seem terribly effective. I tried doing the Wal-Mart  
greeter thing, sending messages to personally encourage new Meetup  
folks to come to meetings, but that was way too time consuming.

All that said, Meetup still brings in a small handful of attendees,  
and it takes less effort than most other outreach methods (i.e. our  
live appearance at things like Maker Faire and SXSW). But there are  
clearly an awful lot of casually interested folks out there, maybe we  
need some new ideas of how to get them to show up...

-- R