User Group Manager's Meeting 2006

Lisa Heselton
Finding Speakers and Topics to Interest Your Members
Having captivating meetings is not easy - you have to find good speakers and topics to keep your members coming back. How do you find speakers - and ensure that they're good? How can you tell if your members will care about the topic? What do you do when your speaker cancels on the day of the meeting? How can you avoid getting stressed out and overwhelmed by it all? We'll go over some innovative ways to attract engaging speakers that your members will WANT to hear, and what to do if they don't show up. We'll also discuss using Breezos and how to use shared presentations effectively. There will also be tips and techniques for making YOUR presentations better!

This session will be presented by Lisa Heselton , manager of nishmmug (http://www.jrmmug.com). Lisa's background includes marketing, video production, writing, business/project/artist management, design/development, presentations, sales, promotions/events, and training. She is the e-business manager at NISH in Vienna VA, and also works as a part-time Apple specialist.

Eddie Sullivan
Topic: "What You Won't See on the List"

Also, Chat with Adobe and Get the answer to your questions and more!

Simon Horwith
What is new at Adobe?
As always: a lot!. At last years conference, Simon discussed the new products and other endeavors from Macromedia as well as how these products reflected the direction that Macromedia technology was leading us in and how this impacts the development community at large. This year he will update us on what's changed over the past year as well as what's in store for us in the near future. Among the new products discussed and demonstrated will be Flex, ColdFusion MX 6.1, halo, and more! Simon has been using ColdFusion since version 1.5 and is a member of Team Adobe. He is an Adobe Certified Instructor and is an Advanced ColdFusion and Flash Developer as well. In addition to administering the CFDJ-List talk list and regularly presenting at user groups and conferences, Simon is a contributing author of several books and writes a monthly column for ColdFusion Developers Journal, of which he is also the co-technical editor. Simon recently launched cfstandards.org - a site devoted to defining CFML best practices and providing open-source plug and play functionality to the ColdFusion development community.

Josh Adams

Running a UG requires dedication and a sacrifice of your time. If you're going to give of yourself in that way, you want to know that you're acting effectively--and preventing a complete loss of balance in your life in the process. In this presentation, Josh Adams will explain how achieving that aim is possible--if you have a good strategy that includes, among other things, defining the goals of your group, getting others involved and delegating tasks to them, and not biting off more than you can chew while doing well those things you decide to do. Josh's material will be based on his experiences managing the Atlanta ColdFusion User Group (ACFUG) from 2004-2006. He'll talk about the ACFUG of today: a non-profit corporation with an 11-member Board of Directors, monthly meetings that average around 30 in attendance, 5 monthly <cf_lunch> events around the Atlanta area, 4 mailing lists, and a web application that coordinates it all. But he'll also talk about how ACFUG grew to where it is now from humble beginnings as nothing more than a mailing list in 1998. Regardless of whether your group is relatively new or more mature, you'll learn tips to help you take it to the next level!

Charlie Arehart
Roundup of UserGroup Resources for Organizers, Members, and Speakers
There are all kinds of cool resources that we have available (or can obtain) for running a user group, from things to offer our members, to tools and resources to help run the group, and still more to help our speakers. Ed and the folks at Adobe connect us to many, and beyond those are still more. And beyond what I may identify, I'll open the floor for more ideas in each category

Speaker: As some of you know, veteran CFUG speaker Charlie Arehart is now a CF User Group manager again, recently taking the mantle of Atlanta CFUG president. He was previously manager of the Southern Maryland CFUG until 2003, and of course he's been active in the CF community for nearly 10 years as a frequent writer, CFUG speaker, conference presenter, list participant, and trainer. He's delighted to be able to join in the gathering of CFUG managers again.