The Future Of Meetings: Online vs. In-Person vs. Hybrid, with Meetup CEO David Siegel

Amidst a year of web acceleration, changing habits, and questions about what legacy the pandemic will have on our day to day lives, it helps to go back to roots. One company that has both been through its share of web-usage cycles and has an interesting view on the state of the world is Meetup, and on today's episode we speak with their CEO, David Siegel. The company, founded back in 2002, has seen a lot over the years, and saw several years worth of activity in the past 18 months - a divestiture from WeWork (which had bought the company a couple years prior), a pandemic that required reversing a fundamental business policy, and a pandemic that placed more urgency on the need to meet with others, even as it made it harder to do so. We speak with David about the past 12-18 months, the future of meetings, how much of our online meeting environment will stick around, what Clubhouse and the audio bubble might mean for meetings, and the importance and challenge of online moderation and community management. Topics Covered 3:00 minute mark - Background on Meetup’s model 9:00 - The COVID + WeWork period 12:00 - The WeWork relationship/divestiture 15:30 - Why WeWork/Meetup didn’t work 20:30 - What does it mean for Meetup to go all digital 24:00 - Meetup differentiation 27:30 – Modern web moderation and how to tackle that issue 31:00 - Talking through pandemic effect on meetings, and how do the new online tools and in-person integrate? 42:30 - Combinations and SPAC liquidity in the market 44:15 – Advertising/promotion as a business angle Check out David's new podcast here: https://www.meetuppodcast.com/