Smarter Messaging [Mike Jones, UK]

I’m currently in the process of trying to get a job at Microsoft in the team responsible for evangelism to IT Professionals. Should I be successful my manager would be the delightful Eileen Brown who I’ve met a couple of times at the Unified Communications User Group and some Microsoft community events. She even stole one of my quotes for the title of a post she wrote up about the last event I saw her at - “From passion to profession“. The reason it came up was I was telling her my theory as to why user group weren’t so popular these days compared to the 80’s and 90’s. I think it breaks down into a number of reasons:

1. Firstly, and most crucially, for most people these days computing and IT has become a profession and not a passion. Previously people had a profession (non IT related) and would go home in the evenings and at the weekends and engage in their passion (random geekery). These days for many it has reversed. People are not willing to sacrifice their “passion-time” to go to evening events, which is when most user groups are.
2. The people that are still passionate about it tend to be “implementors” (a.k.a. “consultants”)  not users. They for the most part install, configure and walk. This can lead to groups dominated by subjects about implementing or selling the latest and greatest and not making-the-most-of-what-you-have (MTMOWYH) which is what real users care about… getting their job done faster and without it costing too much (both in re-learning time and money).
3. The placement of a number of the larger companies in the Thames Valley thing is a dampener on fun times (think pizza and beer). If you look at the groups that are really thriving in the web dev/web business area they meet in social places around where they are based, in London (e.g. Pub Standards).  Most people have to drive to events in Reading and if you don’t you won’t get home till gone 10 or 11pm for evening events.
4. The IT landscape is huge now. Forming company specific and product specific groups is a tough job. Just look at the products in the Office group, enough to keep anyone busy for a lifetime:
   Desktop Programs: Access, Accounting, Communicator, Excel, FrontPage, Groove, InfoPath, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, SharePoint Designer, Visio, Word
   Servers: Forms Server, Groove Server, Live Communications Server, PerformancePoint Server, Project Portfolio Server, Project Server, SharePoint Server, SharePoint Server for Search
   It’s the same for any large software company or product category you pick.
5. I’m sure there’s more but that’ll do for now!

After writing this list I thought perhaps I should offer some suggestions as to how address this!

1. Acknowledge that these meet-ups are generally for implementors and find different ways to address the needs of users by going to them and listening till finding a theme that resonates with them.
2. Have more daytime events. The EVO (though someone forgot the Vista part) community launch day where I made the quote to Eileen was daytime. If it’s going to be daytime it has to have explicit value to employers who are going to release their staff. Therefore the right balance of knowledge and fun is vital.
3. Change the learning style. Death by PowerPoint has to be a thing of the past. If you have to show slides co-ordinate amongst all speakers to ensure they don’t all have the same 4 initial slides showing the “introduction to the area”. I’m a big fan of the BarCamp format and I went to the first one here in the UK. Rule number one is: No Spectators, Only Participants. This is a big change for most people though so it has to be done in a gentle manner.
4. Trying to form more sector based groups (rather than product).

I’m only just starting to think about the part about dealing with the issues but I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts in the coming weeks.