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September 1, 2004
Brian Gough
I wanted to voice
my own little rant concerning User Groups
and just some of the benefits we can all gain
from them, not the least of which is our own
personal sanity. I’m sure that many
of you reading this are expected to wear several
“hats," either at work or on your own time,
which means you can easily find yourself
confronting challenges that you are not sure how
to tackle.
I
have come face to face with these very same
challenges recently and re-discovered just how
critical friends and colleagues from my user
group can be. I am primarily a developer, but,
in addition to my many software development
challenges, I am often called upon to address
issues that are more hardware, security,
database or infrastructure based.
I have to believe
that this is becoming more and more the “norm”
in the business place today.
I
have been fortunate, when faced with some of
these issues, to have access to a group that I am
able to e-mail and give details about my
quandary. In the event that a problem is too
complex or lengthy to type out,
an e-mail with “Ahhhhhhh!”
in the subject line with my phone number has
also been very effective in eliciting a
response.
I
always get some sort of reply, usually made up
of a variety of solutions or potential
solutions.
It
is very helpful to have access to such a
community of talent, for it saves me a lot of
time chasing down false leads or moving in a
wrong direction. With all of the different
forums that are available through the internet,
it can often take enormous amounts of time
sifting through the threads that do not really
address my needs. So, I have found it much more
satisfying to turn to a select group that I have
easy and convenient access to… my colleagues in
my local user group.
"There will remain in the PC
industry for decades a need to pass on certain
'folklore' and 'common law' about technical
matters that cannot be transmitted any other way
than person-to-person. It is 'information at
your fingertips' in the most personal sense, and
user groups are the best forum in which it can
occur."
- Bill Gates, CEO, Microsoft
Corporation
After taking advantage of my fellow user group
members several times, I started thinking about
ways that this process could be more efficient
and how it could be made available to more
people who may have similar concerns.
The thought of
creating yet another forum that people would
have to wade through was not very appealing to
me at first. However, as I talked more with my
friends, and did some digging around, I started
to think that maybe it would not be such a bad
idea after all.
Here
is why…
I
have seen that using a discussion area, or
forum, that is focused on a specific topic
within a specific user group, can have many
benefits as a result; After a time, you find
others who are working in a similar environment
and you can help each other more quickly;
friendships have formed as a result; some groups
have even published “best practices” in
different areas and made them available to their
members; and since you are dealing with local people
it’s easier to get together face to face to
discuss topics in greater detail.
These are just a few of the added benefits I
have seen come from a user group-based
discussion area or forum.
Many
groups are now comprised of one or more SIGS:
Special Interest Groups or Specific Interest
Groups. This is
a great way for people to meet and talk about
whatever specialty that interests them at that
time. A discussion area or forum fits
nicely into this model as well. You can have a
separate discussion area for each interest, and
the SIGS can monitor them (if they want to) and
provide feedback or help for any postings they
see.
With
all this in mind, I was very glad to hear that
discussion groups were already an integral part
of the SharePoint sites that Culminis, Inc. is
providing to all their Member Organizations. I
hope that the Group Leaders will recognize the
potential of these and take advantage of the
feature that comes as part of their free new
site. If the user groups take advantage
of this service, it will be much easier to make
Microsoft aware of the problems or desires that
the Community is confronting. Then the Culminis
Alliance can use a united voice to persuade
Microsoft to help us by getting patches or
releases out that address the concerns of the
Community.
After all, the united voice of 400+ user groups
with hundreds of thousands of members is a lot
louder than just 10 or 20 individuals. Let’s
make it count and continue “Bringing IT
Together."
"The User Group community plays
an important role in educating computer users
and reaching out to those who are new to
technology. They are ideal testers of new
products and serve as one of the most credible
sources for product recommendations within their
communities. Their feedbacks over the years have
helped Adobe build industry-leading products.
Adobe is committed to supporting the User Group
community and maintaining long-term
relationships with them."
- Dr. Charles M. Geschke,
President and Co-Chairman of the Board Adobe
Systems Incorporated
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