From passion to profession
Yesterday at Microsoft in the UK I think we held a first for a product launch
5 user groups in the UK - Nathan Winters - Messaging and Mobility, Nick Swan - SharePoint, Arthur Pounder – Unified Communications, Jim Moffat - Groove user group (site under construction) and Rod Gordon – Office held a joint EVO user group community launch. Microsoft UK hosted the event, provided the room, teas, coffees and lunch, but the agenda, demos, speakers and content was all User Group led and delivered.
We had 270 people turn up on a day when the UK had some snow which normally grinds the country to a halt. The room only seats 240 but we piped the content into an overflow room and most of the attendees stayed right to the end. Everyone who was left at the end of the day (200+) all said they would want to do another session like this in the not too distant future. We had actually closed the registration tool just after Xmas as we knew we couldn’t get any more in to the room, which was amazing when you consider that we didn’t advertise this event until till early in December.
We had:
• 5 user groups presenting on different technologies working together demonstrated fantastic cross group working which is something we internally could learn from.
• Everyone loved the independent feel and content (though some still thought that they had come to a "Microsoft event") We've obviously got some work to do on positioning this as an event "run by users for users" when we advertise the next event.
• There were real world stories told well in an open and honest style. I think that this had huge value to the user group attendees and certainly something we will encourage the user groups to do for the next event in a few months time)
• This event raised lots of awareness for the user groups which meant that they had lots of sign ups at the event. A big percentage of attendees weren't aware that these groups existed.
• The UG leads and supporters put a HUGE amount of effort into preparing their slides and demos – all unpaid and carried out in addition to their day job.
• We had 9 speakers (I think but I lost count)
• A well know UK journalist and consultant (Jon Honeyball) presented the keynote and added a context and importance to the event itself.
• We found plenty of Microsoft people who were around at break and lunch to talk to the attendees, do Q&A and things like that
So what did we learn?
• We need a Vista user group – that part of the content was very light. Does anyone want to volunteer to create one? Get in touch with me if you're keen to do this...
So all in all I feel really great about the event and we will follow up with our support of these user groups in the future. There are lots of people I need to thank but it was the UG leads who really deserve the praise. They've turned their passion for technology into their profession at work, and are keen to share it with others. Fantastic...
So will we do it again? - YES!...
