So who's heard of Andy Sernovitz? Here is as good a place as any to find out more about him - http://andysernovitz.com/. Andy is one of the key movers and shakers in the hot area of social media, and he will be hosting a "Fireside chat" later this month (the 26th of January) on "Word of Mouth" marketing.
MARKETING??????
Well, if you run a user group, how do you attract new members, tell people about your group, make your members feel that they are doing something that is appreciated? If you are deeply technical and spend your time working on the hard technical challenges of the next "game-changing" technology, how do you get from "guy with a cool idea" to "guy with a cool 300ft yacht"? If you are one of the unfortunate 10% without a job, how do you make sure you aren't going to be one of the 5% when the economy recovers eventually?
To sign up for this or any of the other chats in the series (or to watch previously recorded ones), go to http://chats.msugss.com. Oh, and there are other chats this month as well -
- 01/19/2010: SharePoint services for user group leaders.
Did anyone get a free SharePoint hosted account from GITCA.org?
- 01/21/2010: Welcome to Office Live Meeting.
Did anyone get a free LiveMeeting account from GITCA, INETA or PASS?
- 01/26/2010: Word of Mouth Marketing.
If I've not already convinced you to attend this one, I need to pay more attention to Andy myself!
- 01/28/2010: SysInternals and Windows Internals
Mark Russinovitch - Game Over!
We recently started running a series of Live Meeting sessions where senior Microsoft executives talk about the areas they are working on and where you get the opportunity to pose questions to them. You can pre-submit your questions when you register or ask them live during the chat. The chats are specifically designed with the user group leader and members in mind, together with other technical community experts. Each is an hour in length, repeated at different times of day so you don’t need to attend at 3:00am just because you don't happen to live in Redmond. Upcoming events include Microsoft executives from Windows, Office, Developer Tools, Exchange/OCS, Microsoft Research, Microsoft IT and more. In addition, we'd love to hear from you with suggestions as to who you would to hear from.
If you would like to register for any fire side chat, please go to http://ug.gitca.org/sites/FireSideChats and click on the register link. You can also find the up to date list of Fire Side Chats at the site, as well as a link to a survey so you can give us feedback.
Here are the Fire Side Chats we have scheduled for the remainder of 2009: -
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Dec 1st |
Cloud side chat: Microsoft Online Services and the evolving world of software + services |
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Dec 3rd |
Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 - Solution Accelerator |
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Dec 8th |
SharePoint 2010 for Developers |
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Dec 10th |
What’s new in Office 2010 and Implications for IT Pro’s |
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Dec 15th |
What’s new in Office 2010 for Developers |
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Dec 17th |
SharePoint 2010 for IT Professionals |
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Jan 12th |
Microsoft IT: Chief Architect and CTO |
You can find more details on each of these (and register) at http://ug.gitca.org/sites/FireSideChats - I hope you will join us!
We've just started shipping "User Group Leader Assistance Kits" to user group leaders in the USA. We will be offering these kits to user group leaders in the rest of world starting 1st December. Any user group leader who is registered with UGSS (http://www.usergroupsupportservices.com or http://www.msugss.com) will be able to order a kit. There is quite a lot of stuff in these kits, and we hope that you will find them to be useful. If you order one - they are free by the way- we would love to know what you think and what we can do to make them better in the future. Here is a list of some of the things in the kit: -
- “The Rational Guide to Building Technical User Communities”. This was written by Dr. Greg Low, a user group leader and past president of PASS (the Professional Association for SQL Server). It contains a lot of hard earned experience in running technical communities which is bound to be of value.
- "Word of Mouth Marketing”. The author, Andy Sernovitz, is a renowned expert in the area of using social media and community in general as an advertising and marketing medium, and Andy is also a user group leader himself. We believe that this book will give you a number of ideas to help attract new members, foster community within your user group and build reputation.
- A set of 5 DVDs: -
- Windows 7 Presentations and Videos.
- Windows Server 2008 R2.
- Windows 7 & Server 2008 R2 Zune and Audio content.
- Developer Presentations, Videos and Labs.
- Word of Mouth and Community Best Practices.
- Word of Mouth Marketing from Andy Sernovitz – this was specially recorded for us to go with Andy’s book.
- Conducting Professional Live Meeting Sessions from Dr. Nitin Paranjape – this includes a wealth of tips and trick on how to get the best out of the free Live Meeting account you can get from Culminis, INETA or PASS.
- Concept Visualization from Sanjay Vyas – an interesting presentation on how people learn and how to get complex ideas across.
- Various "surprise items" to use as user group prizes etc.
- An offer for a free Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite subscription, which will provide your user group with SharePoint, Exchange, Office Communications and Live Meeting services.
- An offer for a free copy of TechSmiths “Camtasia”. This tool is something you have been asking for for quite some time, and now TechSmith have very kindly agreed to provide each user group with a single license so that you can edit and share your presentations with other user groups.
A few things about the way these kits are provided -
- They are ONLY available to user group leaders who have registered on UGSS.
- They will ONLY be available to order during December 2009. (If you haven't already, get registered now!)
- If you are registered, you will receive an email from the UGSS system telling you how to order. If your email address isn't valid, you won't get an email!
- We will collect orders in December, then at the beginning of January we will ship the kits to your local Microsoft office, who will in turn send them on to you. This could take up to a month, so it may be February before you receive your kit.
- We are not planning any further kits this year, but we would LOVE to get your feedback on what we could put in future kits when or if we do them. In fact, we'd love to include YOUR content if appropriate! To this end, we will send you a survey on the kit a month or so after you have received it.
- The kit was developed with the assistance of a number of other organizations, including GITCA, INETA, PASS, TechSmith and more. Their help is deeply appreciated, and we will include content in the survey which will allow you to provide feedback to them as well.
Running any community requires a lot of work, as I'm sure every user group leader already knows. Make that a global organization, add in the fact that it's just undergone a major restructure, that many of the board members are newly elected, and that the IT platform has just been totally replaced, and you have a real challenge worthy of the best of the best. Of course, every challenge is just an opportunity in disguise, and the opportunity here is for IT Professionals to get involved in Culminis, help out, possibly learn new technologies, and build business and social contacts. Culminis is looking for a number of people to help them run the organization, including both technical and management positions. If you are interested in helping drive membership, running communications such as newsletters, working on web site, SharePoint, CRM support and development or any of a number of other areas, please do contact Culminis as soon as you can. You can find out more about the volunteer opportunities at
http://culminis.com, then click on the "Get Involved" link...
We are going to be working on a number of global programs over the year in support of the User Group community, and it’s very important that we get as much input as possible from you as to the right way to approach each program. To this end, we have set up a number of “steering groups” including Microsoft, Culminis, INETA, PASS representatives, together with anyone else the group thinks can contribute. And we are looking for volunteers…..
A SharePoint site has been set up at http://ug.culminis.com/sites/microsoft (Yes, it’s a Culminis hosted SharePoint site). The first time you go to the site, you will see a list of projects and a “Volunteer to join a working party….” link. Just click on the link, tell us what you would like to get involved with, and unless we are already swamped with volunteers you’ll get access to the appropriate sub-sites.
Here are the projects currently running or in plan: -
1) Country Community Councils. Country Community Councils are an idea which started earlier in 2009 with the first council being in India. They have had tremendous success, including significant successes at Tech Ed India and with a “Tech Ed on the road” event which lasted a whole month, visiting 21 user groups across India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Several other CCCs have also started, and the aim is to ensure that there is the best possible connection and interaction between the different community groups within a region.
2) User Group Leader Kits. We are planning to send a kit to every user group leader who registers with UGSS each year. These kits will contain anything we can identify as being of value to the user group leaders (that we can afford and is reasonable to ship worldwide!). It’s likely that some Microsoft subsidiaries may want to add local content to the kits as they go out, there may be the possibility of localizing some of the content, and there is certainly the opportunity to include content from other sources, for example INETA, Culminis, PASS, perhaps Microsoft Partners etc. As each leader will only get one kit a year, we will also need to think about how to “add” content part way through the year. In most cases, this will be as online content that can be downloaded. The current state of this project is that we are building a list of potential content to put in the kits, and your input would be very much appreciated.
3) UGSS web site review and development. A separate email has already been sent to selected groups and individuals, but the purpose of this steering group is to provide input into the design of the UGSS web site as changes and improvements are made over the year. It will be focusing on identified and new pain points, feature prioritization, design review and system testing. There is a significant workload here, but if you didn’t get a direct invitation and want to participate, please volunteer as soon as possible.
4) Communications. We want to get a consistent process for communications to take place between Microsoft, the User Group organizations and the community. Some of the things we will be looking at here include (a) A mechanism for the User Group organizations to submit items for possible inclusion in TechNet and MSDN flash, (b) a way for Microsoft to “offer” items to the User Group organizations which they can take (or not!) and use in their newsletters etc. (c) a way of providing metrics on both of these, so everyone knows what is being published, how much it’s being read, and if it’s the right content or not.
5) Recognition. There are a number of different programs out there already, some working very well. Some are global, some are local. This working group will map the significant programs, build a framework where these can work together to everyone’s best advantage, and possibly promote the best of the best with global cross organization recognition.
6) “Virtual Events”. This actually covers several programs each of which are based on video and conference calls.
a. Technical Videos – A set of “How to” videos covering technical topics of value to User Group Leaders – for example, how to make the best possible use of LiveMeeting.
b. Community Videos – A set of “By the Community for the Community” videos, where we identify the best user group leader at recruiting members, for example, and get them to explain their best practice so that other leaders can learn from them.
c. Professional Videos – We intend to identify the world class leaders in areas of value to User Group leaders and produce videos on topics such as “Extending your user group through social media”.
d. Fireside Chats – These will be occasional virtual meetings with key Microsoft leaders which will be invite only for user group leaders. There won’t be much of an agenda, it’s more an opportunity for the leaders to ask questions. Recordings and transcripts will then be made available to the leaders for use in their meetings.
7) Content. During the year we will be producing content specifically for user groups. Rather than us producing the content we think you want, we’d like you to get involved all the way through the content production cycle – from prioritizing what we create, through reviews as the content is developed and through to feedback as it gets published.
8) Web Site and tool development. We will be helping Culminis develop the next version of their web site, hopefully using some cool new technology and hopefully pushing the boundaries of community a little. Of course, this is the Culminis web site, and ownership will be with Culminis, but there are obvious opportunities for others to help here and for everyone to benefit.
9) And more … During the year, additional opportunities to work together will come up – hopefully some of them will be because of ideas these steering groups will have.
Just to repeat – if you are interested in taking part in steering committees on any of the above, just go to http://ug.culminis.com/sites/microsoft, click on the “Volunteer to join a working party….” And then when you get access go to the sub-site(s) for that committee and contribute away!
Many Thanks,
Graham
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There is now a new IT Management Community area on TechNet which IT Managers should find really useful. Amongst many other things, you can find: -
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An IT Manager Chat area with Kevin Remde
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An InformationWeek analytics report addressing the Priorities for the next generation of web applications.
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A discussion between Wayne Applehans and Chris Jackson talking about the latest trends impacting IT and the resources and guidance available to help plan and deploy Microsoft technologies.
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Join the TechNet Events team for an interop roadshow that will help you integrate your heterogeneous IT environment. This 4 hour FREE event will include sessions on: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory Interop with Linux and OS X, Running OSS on Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 and PHP Web Application Infrastructure. For a more detailed agenda and to register visit www.technetevents.com/interop.
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Location City |
Event Start Date/Time |
Event End Date/Time |
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Alpharetta |
28-Apr-2009 08:30 AM |
28-Apr-2009 12:30 PM |
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New York |
30-Apr-2009 08:30 AM |
30-Apr-2009 12:30 PM |
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Waltham, |
05-May-2009 08:30 AM |
05-May-2009 12:30 PM |
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Downers Grove |
06-May-2009 08:30 AM |
06-May-2009 12:30 PM |
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Chicago |
07-May-2009 08:30 AM |
07-May-2009 12:30 PM |
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Mountain View |
04-Jun-2009 08:30 AM |
04-Jun-2009 12:30 PM |
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Phoenix |
09-Jun-2009 08:30 AM |
09-Jun-2009 12:30 PM |
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Bellevue |
11-Jun-2009 08:30 AM |
11-Jun-2009 12:30 PM |
IT professionals and developers who utilize EPM solutions and Project are invited to attend the Microsoft Project 2009 conference. We've extended our early bird rate to Culminis & INETA – register now for just $699. Visit http://www.msprojectconference.com/ and use code CnIPC09mL, limited time offer through June 15th. (You must be a member of a Culminis or INETA user group to use this code)
Our new IT Strategy and Business Alignment track is specially designed to help IT Managers find efficiencies in productivity and cost from Microsoft experts and industry analysts like Art Wittmann, Managing Director of Information Week Analytics. Dive deep into product roadmaps for Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Infrastructure Management and more. Register by April 12 using the URL below, and save $100 on the full conference fee.
Tech-Ed NA 2009
