[group-organizers] Sources of advice for growing your user group.

[David Christian]

Hi all,
I hope the previous email about my personal advice on staring your
user group was interesting.

One thought has occurred to me as I've been speaking to others about
their user groups this weekend: almost none of the information and
advice is python-specific!  (Though I do think that the technology
does shape what works well for python groups).   Does anyone know of a
place where advice and information on staring a user group is
collated?

My feeling is that there is a huge amount of information on this topic
and stories that could be collected from around the country that could
help user groups grow faster. I've seen some sites that offer advice
on starting a user group [1], but the information is often too
perscriptive as opposed to descriptive.  User groups cannot be
separated from the community that they're in, and I think anyone who
tries to give you one set of advice for how to run your group is
steering you wrong.

Thus, I'd like to start collating real advice from real user groups
(python and beyond!) about what works and what doesn't, categorized by
topic, that is based on real stories that remain attached to the
advice so that the reader can determine whether a similar situation
might apply.  Let me know if this sounds like something you might want
to get involved in.

Cheers,
David Christian
NYC Python

[1]:
So far I've seen:
* Python: http://wiki.python.org/moin/StartingYourUsersGroup
* Jeff Rush's presentation last year:
http://us.pycon.org/common/2008/talkdata/PyCon2008/014/running-a-usergroup.pdf
* Linux: http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Linux_PR/newlug.html
* Open Solaris:
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/entry/running_successful_opensolaris_user_groups
* .net: http://frazzleddad.blogspot.com/2005/07/its-been-something-like-three-or-four.html
* Borland: http://info.borland.com/programs/usergroups/startup/#understanding
* One person's stories: http://www.igloocoder.com/archive/2006/06/13/350.aspx
* ruby: http://www.adaruby.com/2007/08/08/unleashing-the-potential-of-the-ruby-community/
* Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/mindshare/startusergroup.mspx
and http://blogs.msdn.com/darrylburling/archive/2007/09/14/starting-a-user-group-lessons-learnt.aspx
and http://www.microsoft.com/communities/guide/usergroups.mspx

(thanks, google).