Reflecting on #RefreshCA User Group 2009
As 2009 is starting to wind down, I was looking back at some of the goals I set for myself in 2009. One of these goals was to do a lot more business networking. Since my partners primarily operate from our corporate headquarters in Batesville and I live in Conway, I primarily work from home. This is not a bad thing for me, because if you know me, you know that I am ADHD and a bit OCD, and when it all comes down to it I get easily distracted and obsess about things like folders on my desk that really aren’t that important. While we have been able to medicate the ADHD part, the OCD thing seems to be getting worse, and for this reason working from my home office 90% of the time is still the best thing for me, except when my partners come to visit and drop 100 bouncy balls in my desk chair…
If you have ever worked from home you know that it can be a drain on your social skills, as well as your creativity. For a long time I would find myself taking a break and heading out to our local Starbucks to meet up with freelancers, programmers, sales people, etc., just to talk shop. The camaraderie in the interactive and development industry is second to none, especially when you add an overpriced latte to the mix.
It was with the personal goal in mind of doing more business networking in the back of my mind that the idea for #RefreshCA was formed. I figured that for the sake of posterity it would be nice to archive how things kind of got started, especially given the success the group has had. Now, I want to state for the record that while I might have had a hand in the idea that got the group started, I can’t take full credit for what it has become. There are tons of people to thank, some I probably will fail to even mention in this post, they know who they are, and I appreciate them wholeheartedly for the work they have done to keep the group growing.
Background Info on #RefreshCA
One afternoon Nick Brewer and I were talking about forming some kind of a group that could meet once monthly to discuss our industry. We would cover a variety of topics from Web2.0, Social Media, and even web development. We started a Facebook group for our idea and decided to go w/ the Refresh type format for the group. Today our facebook group has 162 members. It wasn’t long that I was contacted by David Kinkade, a blogger in the state that covers political topics, and he mentioned that he would be interested in being a part of our steering committee for the group. Wow, we have three people at this point. Okay, so almost overnight we started mentioning the group on our blogs just to see what kind of response we got back from around the area. We started picking up members in our facebook group and on Twitter a lot of people were expressing their interest. So, we decided to have our first informal gathering at a Starbucks in Little Rock to more or less brainstorm the group idea and see if we were all indeed on the same page.
About 10-15 or so of us showed up at the first Starbucks meeting and it was obvious at the onset that we were all onto something and that this group idea was going to be viable. Darren Huckey, a phenomenal artist and developer emailed me a logo for the group one morning and by that evening we had a website online. All the while our group was continuing to grow in numbers on Facebook thanks to the exposure we were getting in blogs and on Twitter.
Our second meeting we had a lot more people than we had expected show up at Starbucks, I can remember seeing one guy that had to park across the street and cross 4 lanes of traffic just to get to the meeting and when he got there there wasn’t a chair for him to sit down so he stood at the door. I was thinking in the back of my mind the entire time that yep, this thing is going to be cool.
We immediately started discussing ideas for how our meetings should flow and we all arrived that each week we would have 2 presenters from within the group come and discuss a topic that they are knowledgeable about or currently working on. While planning our third or fourth meeting it was painfully obvious by the RSVP’s we were getting on Facebook for the meetings that we were soon going to be fire code our Starbucks location so we went to work trying to find an alternate location. Wade Austin talked to some of his connections and an alternate location was found downtown at the Flying Saucer. Now, we had some room…
Our next couple of meetings went great, we had speakers on a wide variety of topics and the level of audience involvement was awesome. It didn’t take us too long to realize that two speakers a meeting was going to be too much so we decided that going forward we would only do one speaker. Some of the topics we have had at our meetings have included Google Wave, Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, and Elgg, just to name a few. Over time we have learned what topics are of interest and will draw a crowd pretty well, this past meeting we had close to 50 people in attendance, and for the first time ever, we had girls there…
A couple of our group members have even helped us to stream and video our meetings for those that couldn’t attend in person. And I would be remiss if I failed to mention Rob McBryde and Brant Collins who have bailed us out on more than one occasion when it came to equipment and video, something I am not good at managing…
It was Probably about our 3rd meeting or so we decided that it would be nice to have some sponsors that would donate swag to us to hand out at our meetings. I leveraged some of my industry contacts and was able to get about 700lbs of t-shirts, notepads, stickers, magnets, software, and squeeze balls donated. We also have some sponsors that have donated wordpress themes and software for us to raffle off. I had initially thought that this would be a big draw but it turned out that the biggest draw for the meetings was the fellowship and the discussions. We even had O’Reilly send us 2 big boxes of books and give us discounts on books for the group, which was a pretty nice haul for the group, something a lot of them are still talking about.
I am not for sure what 2010 holds for the Central Arkansas Refresh user group but I do know this, in just a few months, this thing has grown into something that I enjoy and almost crave on a monthly basis. Just to be able to get in a room w/ others who speak my language and share ideas, exchange stories, etc., it’s awesome! The friendships and business networking aspect of a user group like this have also proven to be beneficial for everyone.
If you work in the interactive / development / or marketing industry and live in Central Arkansas, hopefully you have at least heard of #RefreshCA but if not, check out our Facebook Group and try to come to some of our gatherings. Everything is totally free and open to the public. Oh, and by the way, our website contains a lot of information from past gatherings. We also broadcast our meeting announcements over Twitter w/ Twitvite, something that is managed by Keith Crawford.
Advice for Starting a User Group
I recently chronicled how our Central Arkansas Refresh user group came about in 2009 and how it has had such an awesome impact on me in a blog post. Given my involvement with that project I have been asked by several others looking to form user groups of their own for advice on how to get started. Here’s a quick and easy outline of thoughts that I put together, hope you find this useful…
Have a Steering Committee
This committee can consist of people with similar interests that express an interest in meeting on a regular basis. You can leverage social media to put this group together by just mentioning what it is you are wanting to do with the group. Once you have a steering committee put together with about 10 people or so you can usually start seeing things come together quickly…
Identify the Focus of the Group
This is best done w/ a room of people who can make suggestions. You will find that discussions in this meeting will be very democratic and easy to moderate. It’s usually good to be pretty broad with the scope of the group so that it will leave you open to a wider variety of topics.
Find a Meeting Location
Since a lot of your meetings are going to be interactive and will require an internet connection, chose your location carefully. We met at a Starbucks for our first couple of meetings until we outgrew that setting. Don’t be afraid to ask local establishments for room donations either, you will be surprised how much of an impact your group meeting will have on their business, especially if they serve drinks.
Acquire Sponsorships for the Group
If you are forming a technical user group there are a wealth of companies out there that are vendors to your industry. Don’t be afraid to ask them for sponsorships for your group. Tell them what you are doing and just ask for whatever you need. They will often times send you t-shirts, software licenses, etc., that they have left over from conferences. At first I thought that sponsorship swag would be a big draw for our group but I quickly found that it was the networking and the subject matter that made the most impact…
Keep Topics Fresh and Relevant
Some of our best attendances have been when we had speakers talking on a topic that was either emerging or in the news. Some of our lowest attendance came when we had topics that were of interest to only a small segment of the group.
Establish a Regular Meeting Time / Location
We meet on the last Tuesday of each month at the same location. This has helped our overall attendance. (We have however been looking at opportunities to change our venue to a different location).
Use Social Media to Promote Your Meetings
One of the best things we ever did was setup a Facebook Group for our user group. This has allowed us to send our meeting notifications and receive RSVP’s for the meetings. It has also affected our growth. Twitter is also an awesome tool for promoting meetings and picking up new members.
