Introduction to the .NET Book Club
The .NET Book Club is an organization to promote reading and discussion amongst professional developers and to also provide a forum for linking publishers, authors, and their respective audiences. What do you get out of this? A community to share thoughts and ideas with your peers and actually communicate with the authors of the books you've have been reading.
Basic membership to the club is free and offers members discounted books, chapter previews to popular books related to .NET technologies, an online forum, author interviews, and book reviews are available for members along with the option to participate in writing your own reviews. Members will also be invited to interact with the authors of certain books in live Web cast.
User Group Model
The User Group model for this club is pretty simple. To start, at the beginning of your meetings, announce the new addition to your group and invite everyone interested in joining the segment of your group to wait after the meeting for more details. After you have everyone together, discuss what the .NET Book Club is and how they can interact. Announce the Featured Book of the following month for the book club and invite them to start reading. Some affiliates offer special discounts on books purchased through the site, so invite your members to sign up for membership on the site, and to purchase their books through the site.
The user group model that I have found to work the best is a pre/post meeting gathering to discuss the topics of the book in a round table. The person running the meeting should have pre-defined topic points to make it work well. The coordinator should announce the topic point and go around the table to start the discussion.
The club will start off slow, just like your user group, but after time you will see your group's interaction jump and a lot of good conversations will begin along with more interaction between user group members. This is when you know you have a successful group.
To start a group, email usergroups@dotnetbookclub.org with your user group name, URL, and main contact and we will get your chapter on its feet and running.