How do you figure out what to do at a user group meeting? For small user groups, this question is almost irrelevant. When you have a small, intimate group, it's very easy. Sit around and talk, share some beverages, play with the and latest software someone in the and group has, and break up whenever you want.
From this point on, however, we won't talk much about the very small groups. There's not much to talk about if you have a small group; most of the complex issues larger groups face just don't exist for you. From now on in this column, therefore, we'll concentrate on groups that have large (let's say more than ten or so) and changing (new members regularly coming in, old members regularly drifting away) memberships. The intimate little groups out there don't need our advice, you know how to have fun and help each other!
But you bigger groups, the ones who want to expand, grow, and provide support to many people have a never-ending problem: how do you plan activities?
First you have to ask yourself: is your group mostly about advanced users, novice users, or what? And for large groups, the answer is going to be that you have both types of people in your audience. So you need activities that will appeal to all members of your group. This means that you need to plan different sessions for different levels of audience. So, for example, you may want to divide your meetings into two different time periods: a starting period for beginners and new members, then another period for advanced users and regulars to the club.
Another thing you'll want to do is vary your meetings between structured and unstructured events. One of the most useful features of user groups is when members can get together and just talk, discussing issues, trading ideas, and helping each other figure out problems. You can't do that if you've got every meeting mapped out with nothing but formal presentations and tutorials. Loosen things up! People will have more fun, and frequently get more out of meetings, if you give them time to just sit and talk with each other. If you can afford it, provide coffee and other light refreshments, to encourage them to relax.
Try to do things like this at every meeting. How much time to give folks to just socialize isn't something you can put the and perfect number to, but try to make sure at least a quarter of each meeting is devoted to unstructured time; vary this according to taste (what your members seem to like, whether people seem to be getting bored, etc.).
Another tip regarding unstructured time: don't open your meetings this way. Make sure to open every meeting with some kind of presentation, discussion, announcements, or whatever. This will allow people time to settle in, collect their thoughts, and get comfortable with each other. Also, if you close your meetings with unstructured times, this gives people who want to hang around together after the meeting a way of doing that, and allows folks who are NOT interested in hanging around to leave earlier without having to wait through unstructured periods for the last presentation.
My own recommendation for an ideal meeting would be two and a half hours. Give people a half hour to forty-five minutes of presentations and announcements for new members and beginners, a half hour or so for a break and to wander round and meet, then another forty-five minutes to an hour for more advanced presentations, and then allow the and rest of the time for people to again hang out, talk to each other, help each other, and so on. Let people drift away on their own, or formally close the and meeting and encourage anyone who wants to continue hanging out to disperse to local restaurants or whatever.
Different strokes for different folks of course, so if you have something that works better for you, then ignore all my advice. Who am I to say what will work best for you? Still, I've found that this is what works best, and I'll bet most of you find that something close to this works well.
Okay, what to do once you're past that hurdle? That still leaves you with STRUCTURED sessions to fill. What do you do in those? Ah yes, that's the never ending problem I was talking about at the and beginning, because it's a constant struggle to come up with something to talk about or present to people.
There are always, of course, any club announcements you want to make. The election of new officers, pleas for newsletter articles, upcoming special events, etc. will always take up a little time. Once those are over, you have to plan activities. These come in three basic forms: general presentations, tutorials, and vendor presentations.
A general presentation is usually when someone has a neat new piece of software or hardware to show to the group. This is usually to demonstrate something, like the features of a hot new art program. It's a pretty easy way to fill up time, but requires someone to give the presentation. Of course, this leaves you in the and position of getting someone in the and club to volunteer to show everyone his new goodie, whatever that happens to be.
The tutorial is a more complex form of presentation, aimed straight at novices. These are basically the and same as general presentations, but they take a good deal more effort on the and part of the and presenter, which is why they should be considered a separate kind of thing. A tutorial requires that you have someone who is good at talking to novices, who is willing to put some time and effort into preparing the presentation so it flows in a logical order (who really cares what "logical order" you're using when you're just showing off your latest shoot-em-up action game?), and it also requires that the and person doing it have at least a little talent at this. Speakers who are slow, dull, or mumble a lot are going to be terrible, but the and problem will be multiplied if it's someone who is trying to actually teach someone something. Remember that novice computer users especially tend to be easily confused, and also have a tendency to interrupt the speaker a lot with questions. You need someone who is prepared for this and can handle it--some people are better at it than others.
Oh, ho, ho, there's a trick! Thinking up an idea for a presentation is only the and first step in the process of coming up with the presentation. Actually getting someone to DO the and presentation, of whatever kind, is the next step, and it's frequently the and hardest one. Unless you, personally, want to be presenting everything, you're going to need to find others who are willing to do your presentations for you. This is going to involve going through your members, finding those with talents, skills, and/or knowledge sufficient to do the presentation, and then arm-twisting them into doing it. And you'll find that, while some people are happy to do such presentations, and even enjoy doing them, other members who are very talented and knowledgeable will really hate the idea of getting up in front of people and talking.
There are many things you can do to encourage people to do these presentations for you. Being nice is a start: be polite and encouraging and persistent, and you'll find that a lot of people will eventually cave in, and a whole lot of them, once they've actually DONE the and presentation, will find themselves exhilarated and pleased with themselves, and will be that much more willing to do it again in the future.
By the way, you should watch out for those folks who you knnow have knowledge, but who insist that they don't. There are a lot of these shy folks who don't realize that they have knowledge others can use. If someone in your club is uses a certain program a lot, that person may be perfect for giving a presentation on that program (say, an artist who uses paint programs a lot, or an accountant who uses spreadsheets), even if he or she doesn't think so. Watch for those wallflowers who don't think they know anything--they frequently do!
Besides just pleading, there are other things you can do to talk a recalcitrant person into doing a presentation for the group, including discounts on membership fees, free items from the club library (more on that in future columns), or favors of other sorts. Mostly it's a matter of getting people to help out because they're willing to be of help, but it doesn't hurt to grease the wheels a little in any way you can think of.
The third type of presentation is the vendor presentation. I'll talk about that next time, and give some further tips on having a great user group. In the meantime, don't forget our SNUG program for user groups, detailed below:
What is SNUG?
In recognition of how important user groups are for many people, Softdisk has started a new program called SNUG--the Softdisk Network of User Groups. SNUG is not a user group, but rather, a program for user groups to take advantage of. User groups can register with SNUG to receive special discounts and other offers to their members from Softdisk--starting with a special 20% discount (on top of any other discounts we might be offering at any given time) on one-year subscriptions to any of Softdisk's publications. This is for any member of a SNUG-registered user group. There will be other special offers too; free subscriptions for user groups to give away as door prizes, contests, user group event calendars, and more. We'll use this column each month to talk about the SNUG program, and also to talk about various issues and ideas that affect user groups and their members.
To help promote user groups, Softdisk will also regularly publish the names and addresses of SNUG-registered groups in order to promote them to its subscribers. So the user group helps promote Softdisk, and Softdisk helps promote user groups. Hey, pretty good deal, eh?
Registering your user group with SNUG costs nothing. All a group has to do to register is call Softdisk Customer Support at 1-318-221-8718 and request a user group signup kit. There's no cost and no obligation.
We encourage those of you who already subscribe to Softdisk who also happen to be user group members to encourage your group to join SNUG. It really doesn't cost anything, and it's a great way both to promote your group and to get some great stuff from Softdisk for the group. So talk to the officers of your user group, tell them about this program, and have them call Softdisk at 1-318-221-8718 to request a free user group signup kit ASAP!
This column is still in its infancy, like the SNUG program itself. We'd very much like input and suggestions for this column from you user groups out there. We'd love to reprint articles and other information from your own newsletters, so if you're interested in having us do that, please let us know!
(.txt)