I want to share the list of recommendations we discussed at today's User Group Leaders Network meeting:
- Establish a core leadership team or board who shares responsibility for the event
- Create a dedicated page on the ni.com community
- Establish a regular meeting cadence (quarterly is typical) and post tentative dates on group overview page.
- Post meeting recordings and encourage area-specific discussion on the community site.
- Structure the agendas to encourage network and free-form discussion outside of formal presentations.
- Confirm date and location of future meetings roughly 8 weeks in advance
- Reserve time at the end of every meeting to solicit future topics and presenters
- Encourage in-person as much as possible. Use free food as added incentive
- Use registration to estimate food and space requirement (Registration link is typically ‘owned’ by the organization sponsoring food.)
- Work with NI 7-8 weeks in advance to start promotional activities. Note: go back to the same email thread every time to (re)launch the same promotional activities and coordinate logistics
- Work with [other] partners and distributors to spread the word
- NI has territory-based sellers (again). Get to know them and ensure they attend every meeting. They will help promote and spread the word.
- Make sure attendees know that attendance is applied towards recertification. Turn in the registration ASAP.
- Promote your local page on ni.com at the start and end of every meeting (have a QR code up while people are getting settled)
- Post social promotions on LinkedIn and mention @NI (National Instruments) and/or @ELIJAH Kerry and we will re-share
Elijah Kerry
NI Director, Software Community