[ug-discuss] A few lessons learned (Was: Where do we go from here...)

[Eric Boutilier]

Alan Duboff wrote:

> ... I'd like to know who here has user groups, how they're doing in general, what folks have learned from them so far ...
>

Hi Alan!

Things are starting to take shape with the Great Lakes (Chicago) 
OpenSolairs user group (GLUG). There have been some very useful 
developments and discussions this month -- see:
      
http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/ug-glug/2006-January/thread.html#start

Here are a few things I've learned so far.

1. Online interest surveys are very useful and easy to conduct

        - We used the free service at surveymonkey.com

        - Initial response rate was 25%

                + Nagging people to do the survey boosted it to 35%

                + Reminding them a 2nd time boosted it to 45%


2. The Chicago Field Marketing people, especially Elaine Hepler, have 
been extremely helpful and supportive.

        - They were even willing to cover the $175 for room rental (at a 
community college) for our first meeting.

        - Elaine and her team orginize the (very popular) Chicago 
editions of the Solaris Bootcamps, Deep Dives, etc. Therefore, 
cross-polinating GLUG planning with their planning has proved absolutely 
_invaluable_ (I'm not exagerating).

                + Linda Kateley is the (Minneapolis-based) OS Ambassador 
who teaches the Chicago Boot Camps (as well as making regular 
appearances at Sun accounts in the Chicago area whenever a deep Solaris 
technical discussion is required), and we're taking full advantage of 
her willingness to speak at GLUG meetings too.

                + For more info on Boot Camps, etc. see Bob Netherton's 
blog.


3. If you're lucky someone with access to a good venue will step up. For 
us, that person is Chip Bennett of Laurus Technologies. (As many of you 
know, due to building-security and/or Sun office security and badging 
issues, it's extremely difficult to arrange for an after-hours meeting 
at most major Sun offices.) If you're really lucky, as we were, that 
same person will also be willing/able to do technical presentations at 
meetings. (Chip's a DTrace guy among other things.)


4. Finally, if you're a Sun employee leading or co-leading an 
(Open)Solaris user group, people's expectations of what you should be 
doing are based on their assumptions that it's a major part of your Sun 
job responsibilties (to lead/co-lead the group). It's a good idea to 
clear up that misconception early on. Apart from the obvious reason 
(sanity retention), the biggest reason to do that early is it clears the 
way for people who -- unbeknownst to you -- might be interested in 
volunteering to co-lead (or better yet, _lead_) and co-plan.

Eric