Making Meetup

Tech stands up for the little guy at Seattle Interactive Conference

Earlier this month I was fortunate enough to attend the Seattle Interactive Conference, a two-day event “celebrating the convergence of online technology, creativity, and emerging trends in one of the world’s most creative cities.” Traditionally known as home base for two of the world’s tech giants, Seattle now plays host to a multitude of successful online startups, many of whom were represented at this year’s event. I learned a number of concepts I’m excited to bring back to NYC, but one thing I found particularly exhilarating is how tech continues to find new ways to empower those in need of agency or representation, which is something close to our hearts here at Meetup.

The first session I attended at the conference, a talk by Crowd Companies founder Jeremiah Owyang on how new companies are increasingly turning to crowd-based platforms as a basis for their business models, highlighted plenty of instances of the trend. Uber and Airbnb were mentioned (as they were in almost every session of the conference, at one point a speaker asked how many people in the room had taken an Uber to the conference that day and at least half the room indicated they had). But Owyang also highlighted plenty of little-guy-empowering startups that haven’t broken into billion-dollar-valuation visibility. LeftoverSwap helps connect people with extra prepared food with those looking for a bite to eat, helping reduce food waste and making locally-available food more affordable. Boatbound takes the concept of vehicle- and ride-sharing and moves it offshore. Helparound connects diabetics, so that if someone finds they are stuck without a glucose meter or other supplies, they can send a call for help to anyone in the area who might be able to provide them help in a pinch. Here at Meetup, we’re also doing what we can to build the communities of food swappers, boat sharers, and diabetes support.

Janelle Maiocco, CEO of Farmstr also hosted a fantastic session about the work Farmstr does to connect small farmers to sell directly to local produce buyers. This benefits farmers by eliminating a lot of guesswork farmers normally need to do in terms of how to bring to market, and saves them a lot of time because they are delivering to a specific place at a specific time instead of spending all day at market. She also spoke on the unfortunate statistic that only 5% of tech startups are founded by women. Local food and female entrepreneurship are two more topics that we here at Meetup hope to support and help build communities around.

As a side note, one other session at the conference had a bit less to do with tech supporting the little guy, but resonated with me as a Meetup employee nonetheless. It was given by Briar Waterman, the Director of Digital Creative at Starbucks. He touched on the company’s Meet Me At Starbucks, a campaign that sends filmmakers to Starbucks locations around the world to film interactions between communities meeting within, then publishes the footage. One such highlighted community was a Meetup Group, The Long Beach Scrapbooking and Digital Photo Group.

The videos serve to support Starbucks’ assertion that “good things happen when we get together.” Which, to me, sounds just a tad bit familiar.

A big thanks to all the organizers, speakers, and participants at Seattle Interactive for an educational, eye-opening, and supremely enjoyable two days.

Duncan is a QA Engineer at Meetup who thinks the Pacific Northwest is the Pacific Northbest