I attended this on Friday along with fellow oPASS members Mike Antonovich and Ulysses Vasquez to represent PASS, and we were joined at the community table along with Shawn Weisfeld of The Orlando .Net Users Group and Ken Tucker of The Space Coast .Net Users Group. We saw a lot of people we already knew and met quite a few new people too. They had us set up the same room as the lunch boxes (nice MS fabric bags with snacks, water, and juice) so we had pretty good traffic flow by the table.

PASS sent a box for raffle tickets, some issues of the SQL Server Standard, raffle entry tickets, and three PASS logo'd polo's for us to wear (more than INETA sent for the .Net guys). Haven't counted but we probably had 50 people enter the raffle, some that are already oPASS members. Found at near the end that MS could have provided a bar code reader for $295 if we'd asked (could have brought my own as well) which would have really made a difference.

The event itself seemed to go fine, reasonably organized, plenty of stuff to drink and some snacks for the attendees. Im guessing 500 attended the morning session and about the same in the afternoon. Didn't have the 'wow' factor that you see at some MS events, but maybe thats good:-)

I'm headed back to Orlando after a quick trip to Charlotte. Flew in yesterday and spent some time with my friend Peter Shire and team (including Brooke!) of SQLSentry talking about all manner of stuff that comes up when you get some techies in a quiet room; business, user groups, their experiences at SQLSaturday in Orlando and the possibility of one in Charlotte, PASS, etc, etc. Peter is the current President of the Charlotte SQL group and has had some good experience rebuilding interest in the group after a bit of a slide (very common thing to happen). We headed over to the event about 5 pm, got a little bit of a late start, and then I did my usual presentation on Transactional Replication. Always a fun presentation. It's perhaps not as sexy as some topics, but it's fun to open the door to a new technology by showing attendees how straight forward it is to use. Had some good questions during the event and quite a few stayed after to talk more, including some guys from Mariner (though I did miss my friend Wayne Synder!).

Peter runs a good meeting, liked the way he handled the sponsor (in particular) and the raffle, and the speaker intro. Only suggestion I made was to give everyone name tags to make it a little easier to get to know each other. He's also been aggressive about soliciting non-local speakers, something I have not done and will try to work on - it doesn't hurt to ask.

I had the chance to see Greg do a presentation at the PASS Summit in Denver that was based on the book and so decided to grab a copy from Amazon. It's a small book, 118 pages, and fairly inexpensive, about $16 online. I've already learned quite a few lessons about managing a user group from my involvement with oPASS but in truth most were learned the hard way. This book came across as eminently usable because I saw many of the mistakes we made and their solutions listed. It also has a lot of interesting ideas we hadn't learned yet too! For example, the author says that just by personalizing email reminders (Dear Andy..) he saw in increase in the number of replies. You'd think we IT types would be immune to such things but apparently not. Overall he focuses on taking a pragmatic approach and emphasizes low tech over high tech - not because he dislikes technology, but because the emphasis has to be on people. Given a limited amount of time, spend it on people and not the technology. It's definitely worth buying if you manage a user group, and maybe even worth buying if you're a member of a group that seems a bit dysfunctional.

I've had a couple people ask me about ideas for growing (as opposed to starting) a SQL user group. While it's definitely a lot about content, formula, and presentation, it's just like running a business, it all comes back to marketing. That said, here are a few suggestions:

• Ask PASS to email everyone in your area. They won't (and shouldn't) give you the list directly, but they can do a one time intro email to those in your area and then run announcements about upcoming events in the bi-weekly newsletter.
• Submit each meeting to the big community sites (SQLTeam, SQL-Server-Performance, SSC), they will usually advertise them for you
• Contact the IT chair of any local colleges
• Get to know the leader of the closest .Net user group and the nearest INETA mentor
• Get to know the nearest MS Developer Evangelist. They are typically very good at helping you network with other groups. Here in Fla Joe Healy has been my contact and has really been helpful.
• Contact as many local staffing companies as you can. They all want to meet more prospects and they always appreciate a reason to email/talk to their existing client base. They are more than happy to advertise your event (and probably buy the pizza too!)
• Ask every member that attends to tell one new member about the group. Remember that not everyone will attend every time, so focus on growing the mailing list AND attendance
• Don't forget to get to know all the other groups. Other SQL groups in the same state, other types of computer groups, all are usually willing to post your event (and vice versa)

Most of us running groups dream of the day the group is self sustaining. Can't say we've reached that state in Orlando or that we've got it all figured out either. Drop me a note if you've got other ideas, always room for more.