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Calling all people involved in a SharePoint User Group for Any Kind of Help



So I am somewhat involved in a user group that was started a couple months ago by Jeff Julian.  This user group was created due to a lack of a SharePoint User Group that deals with more developmental and administrative aspects of SharePoint in the Kansas City Area.  (Please stop posting comments about the user group that Daniel Webster hosts.  I have no beef with him or his user group it is great for project leads and business analysts.  I am not trying to spread hate towards anyone.)  So we have some problems getting people to attend our user group meetings as only 2 people are showing up per meeting.  I know that there a couple more SharePoint Admins and Developers in the area.  I have no idea how to coerce these people out of there houses without food or sponsor or a huge hook.  I have no idea what that hook could be.  Maybe it's the way we are advertising.  Maybe it's the design of the site at www.kcoffice.org.  I really have no idea, but I would like some input from anyone who has anything to do with a SharePoint User Group, especially those of you who created one from the ground up and know how it feels to start from scratch.  I appreciate any help in advance.  I am probably going to post something on facebook to see if I can get anyone to respond.

Re-Posted from Old Blog

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posted @ Wednesday, February 27, 2008 6:19 PM |

Comments

Gravatar # re: Calling all people involved in a SharePoint User Group for Any Kind of Help
Posted by Jeff Hunsaker on 2/27/2008 8:40 PM
These are somewhat generic but...
I would contact your local Microsoft office first. It will be difficult to find the right person to speak with but they can help lend some creditability. Next contact your regional developer/architect evangelists. They're hooked into the community and can help get the word out. I believe this is Ron Cundiff. Next, I would find a corporate sponsor involved with MOSS. Typically, this is a regional consulting firm (i.e. under 100 consultants >> dedicated .Net/MOSS practice). They can bring in some funds and, they'll want it to succeed as it is a good recruiting ground and venue for presenting. Finally, I'd contact your local .Net user group. You could deliver a few solid MOSS presentations there and then use that to springboard a MOSS infrastructure/admin/developer group (vs. a MOSS config/analyst/taxonomy group).

Best of luck.
Gravatar # re: Calling all people involved in a SharePoint User Group for Any Kind of Help
Posted by MOSSLover on 2/27/2008 11:43 PM
All good ideas. On my old blog someone posted about how to get a user group started. I need to find the time to do all this stuff. I keep finding myself exhausted by 7 pm and vegging out in front of the tv.
I think we could find a sponsor easy. I want to get a list of the top IT Consulting Firms in the area and see if anyone is interested. I'm sure I could find someone. I'm also going to do something like cold message people with SharePoint as there interest on Facebook and MySpace. I'm definitely going to revamp the website. It doesn't look all that awesome right now, but I want to pimp it up with SharePoint. Thanks for the information man. I am involved as a regular attendee of the .Net User Group and I am sure we could work something out presentation-wise. After all Jeff Julian is one of the guys in charge of the .Net User Group and he has pretty much been running the Office Developer Group.
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