if you're into php coding.. not too hard to do a search on users (= members search function) to fetch them via their "interests" metadata values.

If you just add a profile field named "interests" with type "tags" then users are implicitly grouped by having the same tag.  What kind of grouping were you looking for?

I was looking for ways to group employees together for brainstorming sessions based on skills.  Create several small groups (4 people per group) to handle different topics.  Each group having an IT, Marketing, Law, and HR so I can get a good coverage in all aspects of the company in these little focused think tanks.

Wetodid prob wants some funky "grouped" search mechanism.. lolz ;-)

    // search based on tags
    case "search_tags":
        $options = array();
        $options['query'] = "Teenager"; // this will fetch interests marked as "Teenager" lolz
        $options['type'] = "user";
        $options['offset'] = $offset;
        $options['limit'] = $limit;
        $results = trigger_plugin_hook('search', 'tags', $options, array());
        $count = $results['count'];
        $users = $results['entities'];
        $filter_content = elgg_view_entity_list($users, $count, $offset, $limit, false, false, true);
        break;

if he puts this code somewhere and creates a link to it.. he got it 95% done.. yadda yadda yaddda ;-)

   // search based on tags
    case "search_tags":
        $options = array();
        $options['query'] = "Marketing"; // this will fetch interests marked as "Marketing" lolz
        $options['type'] = "user";
        $options['offset'] = $offset;
        $options['limit'] = $limit;
        $results = trigger_plugin_hook('search', 'tags', $options, array());
        $count = $results['count'];
        $users = $results['entities'];
        $filter_content = elgg_view_entity_list($users, $count, $offset, $limit, false, false, true);
        break;

Ty very much, now all I need to do is figure out what and where to do with that code and I'm golden...hehe

lol @ Teenager