DSM Advice: Driving Successful UGMs

[DrewPierce]

My ASM (and Eli) wanted me to share what's been working for me in Austin...

1. Create a User Group Community page with a short URL like ni.com/austin. Maybe even consider adding it to your email signature (I did).
2. Contact tag all your known LV developers in Halo as "LV". Yes, this will take some time. And keep adding. This dynamic list is great for personal DevDay & NIWeek invites too.
3. Initially (and then ~once a year) email all your "LV" contacts reminding them of your User Group Community page & quarterly mtgs. Request they join for updates/announcements.
4. Contact tag folks in Halo as "UGM" if/when they ever express possible interest in attending. Email all "UGM" contacts before every mtg. Yes, I have a mail merge tool for this. Takes less than 5 minutes.
5. Also create an "Announcement" on the User Group Community page advertising upcoming mtgs & their presenters/topics. As the page owner, you can email all members of the group from this interface too.
6. Always provide the registration link "so we know how much food to order".  It's a subtle way of pitching free food, plus I always let only the registered folks go first in line in case we run out.
7. Format wise, consider doing a presentation/demo + panel discussion for each mtg. This will involve more people, greater participation, more interaction, less pressure on presenters.
8. Recruit a steering committee of lead-user customers/partners to propose & vote on topics/questions.  Mention their privileged "advisory group" nomination & explain the power that'd come with it.  Wording is key.    Point being, get more people than just you working & invested.
9. Ideally & eventually your role will simply be to drive awareness/attendance/participation (getting butts in seats).  Over time volunteers & content will be served up by the steering committee per mob request.Yes, MOB.
10. Finally, check out the User Group Resource Center on NITalk.  Lots of good stuff there to pull from.

Hope that helps...  -drew

[nancyj]

Do you have recommendations on how to clone Fab? 

[FabiolaDelaCueva]

Hi Nancy,

You do let me know if you find out how to clone me, I could use that for other things

However, credit where credit is due. Drew is talking about the LabVIEW Users Group Meeting he has been driving and turning around since he came back to Austin. Our Users Group Meeting used to have a handful of attendees and now he gets to have not only more attendees every meeting, but high quality content too.

I second Drew's advise to include advanced LabVIEW users as a steering committee for the User Group meetings and maybe even create an advanced users group meeting. In Austin we have the LabVIEW Architects Forum (btw, shameless plug, we let people join remotely ). Drew has been helping us a lot to get the word out, when he finds intermediate to advanced users, he invites them to attend both the regular Users Group Meeting and the LAF. 

It is important to have a group where beginner to intermediate LabVIEW users don't feel intimidated and are encouraged to learn more about LabVIEW. It is also important to have a meeting for intermediate to advanced users, where we can continue to advance our knowledge of all things LabVIEW. It has been great to have both in Austin.

Thanks,

Fab

[AlRudnick]

In Chicago IL and Rockford IL, we follow very similar practice to get good attendance.  I have not been tagging contacts, which is a great suggestion, just need to start doing that.  Our Chicago committee has several passionate architects that do a great job driving each meeting!

• I would also like to add that instead of having separate meetings for specific experience levels, our committee decided a couple years ago to do the majority of our meetings with a topic in which we address the all experience levels (beginner, intermediate and advance) of that topic throughout the meeting.  We have seen more success in getting new users to come to the meetings with this format.  We start with the introduction to the topic / beginner level, then move into the intermediate and end with the advance.  In some case, we also put these experience levels together and do some coding during the meeting.

• In addition, we try to do our best to have application / end user usage in these topics to speak to how you would use this in the real world and lessons learned.

• We have also been very successful with having an experts panel at the end of these meetings.

• In Rockford IL, for the last year, we have 20 to 30 minutes during the middle of the meeting to ensure networking while we eat.  We have been given feedback that this is very useful.  It allows time for users to ask more questions and get to know other users / applications in the area.

• Lastly, we try to move the locations to different user facilities.  This has been challenging, but has been very successful when done.  This allows our customers to showcase their projects, application and company, usually complimented with a tour during the networking time. We have even had their Human Resources and Management involved since some companies are looking for new hires.

Our meetings run 3 hours.

Al

[nancyj]

After I figure out how to clone Fab, I'll do the same for Mark Balla!

On the beginner/intermediate vs Advanced...

Phoenix has the very creative name PLUG for their user group .  I think they meet every other month.  Their sessions alternate between PLUG and PLUG+.  The PLUG+ tends to cater to the more advanced users.

A consistent theme to these successful advanced groups is that they are driven by our rockstar "Users", the local LabVIEW Champions/CLAs.

[Wire_Warrior]

nhollenback wrote:

After I figure out how to clone Fab, I'll do the same for Mark Balla!

And this will be shown on the big screen at NIWeek as "Orphan Blue".

Wire Warrior

[swatts]

Having people willng to present is my main challenge/success story. When I started CSLUG it was mostly me and Chris Roebuck and various NI guys, and it becomes hard to have the original material. Over time people begin to step-up and we're really lucky to have great people willing to share code and ideas.

It's a brilliant way to learn the craft of presenting too (certainly helped me get over some of my nerves and practice my own style)

Steve

[Nate_Moehring]

I tried to reply to Nancy's post but just got a bounce back email today.  ?  Here's what I tried to say:

  glad to have been a part of it, hope it will continue strong.

in reality plug+ didn't meet that often because we counted the CLD Summit and Dev Days as part of our advanced meetings, plus a joint holiday party at the end of the year.  But having an advanced group was great.