SWUG Conference

What You Need To Know About User Groups

admin — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

What You Need To Know About User Groups

What Are User Groups And How Do They Affect Culture
Many people confuse user groups with a kind of fraternity or secret elitist club. On the contrary, user groups are a club that concentrates around a specific type of technological feature that is usually related to computers. Two of the most popular user groups in history are UNIX and SHARE. A user group functions autonomously and provides services to the public or corporations.

The History of User Groups And Their Influence Today
Some of the services that user groups provide include technical support, lectures, newsletters, a library of software tools, annual meetings, business conferences, forums, online websites and other social events around the world. Some user groups combines members from many different countries around the world. Further, user groups function on a wide range of different scales. On the one hand, some user groups like UNIX operate on an international basis. However, on the other hand, smaller user groups operate on a local level, which provides a meeting ground for a small group of members. These meetings will revolve around modern technological techniques and Internet technology, for instance.

Famous faces in users’ groups

admin — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 +0000

As we get more involved in social networking, our friend lists become as much of a status symbol as they did when we were younger. It means a lot to your real-life friends if you have a famous face in your friend list or as one of your followers. If you don’t actually know the famous person, it may be able for you to get them to follow you on Twitter.

The first step is to follow the person. Make sure they are a verified user, because having a fake Luke Perry follow you is more embarrassing than having no Luke Perry follow you.

Now you need to make sure this person actually tweets for themselves. If the tweets are personal in nature or carry on conversations with other users, the odds are in your favor of getting followed back.

Spend some time mentioning them in your tweets, and try to engage them in conversation. The trick here is to be genuine and not creepy. Famous people don’t like creeps.

If you can get them to respond to any of your tweets, thank them sincerely and ask if they would consider following you. If they do, then you now have a famous friend!

Promoting new technologies through groups

admin — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

There is a great way to promote new technologies and the most successful way is through groups. This is a powerful method for promoting new things because word spreads quickly. In the world of technology there is a lot that depends on reviews from other people. Groups have the power to make or break a product much faster. Groups also have the ability to test the products easier. This is why the group concept works so well.

Social media groups are great ways to get people interested in new technology. This also works in settings where people are testing software. This can be a wonderful way to quickly find out if a product is working well. A community of testers can find problems much easier than one or two people. This is why it is so important to promote through groups.

Groups also have a neat way for segmenting technology. Teachers, engineers, college students and administrative assistants all represent different groups. These various groups play an important role in segmenting technology. Manufacturers can quickly find out who uses what types of technology according to the groups that they are in. This is why groups are essential to effectively promoting technology.

Communication strategies for users’ groups

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Your users’ groups are more successful if you maintain good solid communication with all the members. Members of most groups want this contact to know what is going on, get updates, and most importantly to feel connected.
There are many ways to accomplish this, with email being a favorite. Emails however can be rejected by spam filtering, left unread, or refused by some members. There are a number of alternatives that may help to meet your users’ group needs.
If you are not yet keeping up communications with your membership in other ways, consider trying a Social Networking site first. Create a page there for your group, and then email the members so that they have a link to that page included in the contact. Members will enjoy the ease of this type of contact, and you can post photos, links and more, while allowing or denying others the opportunity to do the same. You can also make this page private and open only to those who are approved.
Using constant contact messaging is another alternative. You can blast out short messages to the members as needed and keep everyone in the loop.
If you don’t have a dedicated web page for your group, these are easier than ever to set up and maintain, and you can present an elaborate or a simple design that fits the nature of the group. A blog format works well too, and both the web page and the blog can usually be set up for free, and in just minutes.
Then it up to you to keep the lines of communication open.

Planning a users’ group conference

admin — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

In planning any sort of conference, there are generally three important focuses–venue, agenda and guests. To help you in this crucial and demanding stage, you must form a committee preferably 6 to 10 people which will specifically be assigned tasks to accomplish for the conference. It allows more order and concentration on a single task which can lead to perfection rather than just a few people who cannot keep up with all the duties required.

Before anything else is started, there must be careful consideration regarding the purpose of the event and the approaches in which it will be conducted. In this, having a lot of people with you is better for brainstorming for multiple ideas than you alone. Knowing the whys and what’s beforehand will be important so that things will run smoothly in terms of time. The next most important matter is who will speak at the conference. Ensure that the conference will meet the speaker’s schedule and set the date right away.

Now that the foundation of the conference has been established, create a logistics plan. Decide how long you will need the conference to last based on the matters of discussion that it will cover. Think about needing to rent sound systems or catering services. Technology is widely recommended to avoid losing the interest of the audience. Once everything has been carefully considered, you may now sign contracts for venues which should be selected depending on the intended number of guests. When ads are posted or invitations are sent out, ensure that you provide enough information to elicit interest from the user’s group.

Starting your own users’ group

admin — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

With the way the economy is now and these days everyone is on the computer. You can be on the computer if you write your own book, go on a website and chat with friends. You will be able to sign up to business that will help you earn money on the computer and the internet. You will be able to work from the comfort of your own home. Make a website and sell anything that you want to sell and make money that way. Joining clubs will help you sell anything that you want and they will give you ideas to improve yourself so you can possibly go out in the world and talk to people so you won’t have the door slam in your face. Meet up with some of your friends and family to get them involed as well. The more the merrier. The bigger the group is the more results will happen and bigger the company will become. You can start anything on the computer. Go onto facebook that will help you get a lot of people in no time. Make a password where only certain people that you wnat in the group will know and get in.

Major Milestones in Internet History

admin — Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The internet as we know it is an inextricable part of our collective culture : how did we ever live without it? Here’s a brief look back at the history of the internet and notable milestones in internet history…
1960s – Computers begin development stages and researchers quickly try to think of ways to allow computers to communicate with each other
1982 – the Internet Protocol Suite and the concept of the modern Internet network was born as was the notion of the World Wide Web
1986 – NSFNET provides researchers and other members of the public access to supercomputers that expanded the basic knowledge of the Internet
1995 – NSFNET was decommissioned which paved the way for commercial interests on the web to get past regulation nightmares
1996 – Hotmail, free web-based email, was introduced nationally and globally
2004 – Facebook, the world’s leading social network site, was born
Today – Cloud computing and mobile internet access through companies like clear 4g become the wave of the future. People have access to the internet wherever they are and over half the population of the US has an internet-enabled smartphone.

User groups not going anywhere, SUGEN says

www.swugconf.org — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 01:07:38 +0000

If you’re still worried about the future of users’ groups, even after seeing how long some have already survived, perhaps this will reassure you. The SAP User-Group Executive Network (SUGEN) announced in September the results of a survey that shows people crave user groups more than ever.The survey population consisted of SAP BusinessObjects users worldwide. The German software corporation has been active since 1972 and is currently the largest software company worldwide. There has been a recent push for more user group interaction by customers. The America’s SAP Users’ Group was founded in 1990, and SUGEN was founded in 2007 to improve communications between international and local groups. The recent survey was designed to further enhance user group relations. Among other things, the results showed that SAP customers still have a strong interest in interacting with user groups, and find them indispensable for expanding their knowledge of the software and its capabilities.SUGEN hopes to use the survey results to improve the user group programs which it oversees. Stay tuned to see what it rolls out in the near future. Even non-SAP groups may be able to make use of some of SUGEN’s new research.

A primer for the Consumer Electronics Show

www.swugconf.org — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 05:31:27 +0000

Everybody loves a road trip. That’s one of the reasons that the annual Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas every January since 1978, is so popular. Another is the exclusive clientele. Since the show is closed to the public, you’d better be a celebrity, an industry professional, or a member of the press if you want to get in.The January show is now the only CES of the year, but between 1978 and 1994 there was also a summer show in Chicago. Before that, the CES was held in New York since 1967. In the more than forty years since its inception, CES has provided the world with its first glimpses at notable new pieces of technology, including:

the Videocassette Recorder in 1970;
the Camcorder and Interactive CD in 1981;
the DVD in 1996;
the Microsoft Xbox and Plasma TV in 2001;
the Blu-Ray DVD in 2003;
and the 3D HDTV in 2009.

The Consumer Electronics Association is the governing body behind the show, and they make sure to bring out the big guns whenever possible. The 2010 show featured appearances by Jay-Z, Steven Spielberg, and then-presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. If you’re not a member of the electronics elite, then your chances of getting into the show yourself are slim. Still, you can look forward to next January for the latest announcements of what’s new in the world of computers.

A look at APCUG

www.swugconf.org — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 20:45:08 +0000

“It’s a hard world for little things,” Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) said in the 1955 film The Night of the Hunter. That holds true for little users’ groups as well. In fact, t would be difficult for many local groups to have access to the resources and technology that they do without the guiding hand of APCUG, the Association of Personal Computer User Groups.APCUG traces its roots back to the First Annual User Group Summit in 1986, which was the first step towards enhancing communication between groups nationwide. The organization itself, however, wasn’t made official until the 1987 meeting.The APCUG homepage (apcug.net) is the hub for anybody interested in taking advantage of the group’s resources. Although APCUG itself is not a users’ group, individuals can join the organization, and can also search for users’ groups near them. At the home page, you can read the association’s quarterly reports. The reports offer articles on important technological issues as well as information regarding communications between users’ groups.APCUG’s registry of user groups is actually international, giving them unparalleled freedom in matching up groups with appropriate publications and sponsors. At major computer trade shows like the Spring PC Expo and the Fall COMDEX show, the APCUG table used to be a regular sight, but with the demise of those events, APCUG has been more stringent in its own appearances as well. Up until 2009, the association made regular showings at the Consumer Electronics Show. However, the association is now focusing on regional appearances instead.