Meetup Tore Up the Rule Book

I love Meetup.com. It is where the virtual world intersects with the real world. It is where, with absolutely anything you are interested in, you can find others also interested - and actually get together - meet up!

When I first started into the recent BusinessWeek article about Meetup, the news was contrary to my paradigm of Meetup. There was a management revolt - how can that happen in what I saw as a small, flexible, virtual organization? I didn't fathom how big - and structured - the company was.

I couldn't see Meetup as a "corporation" - as a structured organization. Apparently, neither could the managers. One of the managers stormed into the CEO's office and wrote on the whiteboard, "I hate the org chart!"

"Meetup is a company built on organization. Through its Web site, people can set up local groups for everything from sharing organic gardening tips online to marshaling volunteers for political campaigns. But as the company grew to 52 employees and 5 million members, Meetup's own organization buckled. It was failing at the very thing that was supposed to be its expertise."

As a result of that whiteboard messaging (interesting visual, considering the digital nature of Meetup) the company is in the process of implementing chaos. Inspired by the customer, no less!! Meetup is implementing a strategy where workers pick their projects and set their own priorities.

And here is the bottom line - or so far the bottom line...

"We got more done in six weeks than in six months last year," says CEO Scott Heiferman, who expects the projects to boost revenues tenfold, to $100 million, by 2010.

"Meetup's approach isn't for everyone. But for managers, especially those responsible for younger workers with attitudes and expectations so different from those of earlier generations, the experiment holds lessons: Giving up control can lead to better results. Your workers may have better ideas than you. Gary Hamel, who wrote The Future of Management, predicts more companies will adopt flexible organizations to accommodate Internet Age workers and profit from their skills. "With information so broadly shared now, the sources of influence and power are eroding," he says. Companies already using such approaches include Whole Foods Market (WFMI), and W.L. Gore & Associates, the $2 billion maker of Gore-Tex."