I've recently met a few of the folks leading the
TriNUG group. I'm excited to help out and do what I can to make TriNUG a first-class user group.
I wanted to gather up my thoughts on TriNUG, as well as my vision for where I would like to see it go.
I moved to Raleigh two years ago from Charlotte, home of the
Enterprise Developer's Guild. Meetings ran from 6-8 one Wednesday a month. The Guild kept track of planned attendance numbers through the website, and things really ran quite well.
Attending my first few TriNUG meetings left me feeling quite homesick. Folks at the locations didn't know TriNUG was supposed to be there. Pizza orders weren't delivered. At that point, I couldn't believe how poorly everything was run, and I left. I've attended a few more meetings since then, and there are still problems. The problems are always a result of the details being missed. It's frustrating because the content is great. I think TriNUG is executing really well in that area. But, even if Rocky Lhotka blows folks away, they might not be inclined to return because they're afraid they'll have to eat pizza out of their lap again because no one brought paper plates.
The bottom line is this:
failure to nail the basics is keeping TriNUG from being a first-class developer organization.
I think if TriNUG can consistently hit the basics, and provide a solid experience for the .Net developer community in the RTP, awesome things will happen:
- TriNUG's first group of attendees are going to be the more involved developers. These are the folks that read blogs, subscribe to MSDN or CODE magazine, and are generally plugged in to what's going on with .Net development. If TriNUG can deliver an end-to-end experience for them that is great, those developers will be more likely to tell their co-workers and developer friends, and TriNUG will grow by leaps and bounds. When folks recommend things, they stake some of their reputation on what they are recommending, and they won't be as inclined to do that for a group that doesn't bother to alphabetize a sign-up list for 130-some people. On this front, I'd like to see TriNUG ace the first impression. In addition to hitting the basics, I'd love to see some signage at meetings(I saw more than a few "Is this the right place?" looks out in front of Dreyfus Auditiorium).
- TriNUG needs to make itself THE center of the .Net community in the Triangle. One of the key things that can be done here is to build up the community aspect internally, starting at the meetings. While TriNUG has a very strong community currently, that community is the small core that comes to every meeting. They all know each other, and they all talk together. As an outsider coming to their first TriNUG meeting, this makes it harder to meet folks at the meetings. I'd recommend playing up community at the start of the meetings - introducing nametags, and energizing the pre-speaker time for more socializing. I'd also recommend restarting the TriNUG forums. This would require a big commitment from the core leadership and membership to 'prime the pump' in the discussions until community and participation grow to the point that the forums keep themselves going.
- If the community grows strong and large, TriNUG will be more attractive to sponsors, and hopefully to speakers. I think by executing on the earlier two points, TriNUG can get to this point, whereby it will seem as if good things just keep happening on their own. But in reality it will be because TriNUG covered the basics, ran meetings well, and grew the .Net developer community in the Triangle.
posted @ Thursday, August 09, 2007 9:43 AM