I saw this post about Why I Dislike Newsgroups from Tom Larock and he did a pretty good job of summarizing the negatives, and then went to to discuss how the MVP forums are the exception. One of the comments was about the forums here on SQLServerCentral are also generally the exception to the rule and since I had a small part in how those evolved, wanted to write down some thoughts that have been pending for a while.
First, how do you make forums work? It's both easy and difficult, there's a bit of a strange synergy that happens at some point. I think the essence of it is:
When we first started the SSC forums I was opposed to doing it because they require a lot of work. I think most people set up forums and just let it happen from there, and while that might work, it doesn't usually turn into a community that mainly self monitors. Once we decided to proceed, for the first two years or so Steve & I posted every day, and part of the "secret" formula we found was offering prizes for the most good replies, which brought along a number of good people who really made the difference and took some of the weight off of us. A good moderator is key, someone even tempered and wise, and hard to find - but essential. We set the tone early on and somehow it never changed much, fundamentally Steve & I both have a great regard for beginners or those willing to ask a question in order to move forward, and that somehow became "community" - which isn't to say that the community of SSC isn't self defining and self directed!
If you own a forum, don't expect it to work without working. See above, and look at the places that do work and don't work. Many different ways of doing it, and no guarantees that the formula above is repeatable.
If you're asking a question, I'd like to think you've searched for the answer first. Sometimes it's knowing the right buzzword to search for, and we won't always know that. When we're beginners it's both easy and frustrating to ask a "stupid" question, but on the other hand, how else will we figure it out? That said, it's the Internet, so on any given day I may get no reply, a lot of replies, and then I have to figure out which seem reasonable - and that can be based on confirming what I thought, some sort of 'reputation' based on # of posts, bio, etc, or the number of "I agree" comments that follow the answer. It cost me a minute or two to get the answer back, so if I get anything valuable at all it's a win, all for very low investment.
If you're answering questions...well, that's the hard one. You're going to see questions that are badly framed, easily answered via search, home work assignments, and occasionally ones by people that have no other motive than to cause trouble. They'll post in the wrong forum, double post, fail to provide all the information needed, ask for a different answer than the right one, sometimes write in garbled English because it's been run through a translator. You'll get people that respond to follow up questions badly or even rudely, or become defensive, or sometimes offensive about your thoughts on a post.
Sound bad? It depends on what you want out of it, and your viewpoint.
One reason is to score points towards whatever prize is out there, another is because you want to give back. The latter I admire, but in practice as long as you help someone your reason doesn't matter much. Giving back - which takes time and effort - feels harder when they don't seem to appreciate your efforts.
So...here's the thing. It doesn't matter if they appreciate it. Either way, you're doing it because you get something out of it. Civilized people say thank you, but unfortunately not all of us act civilized on any given day, so you either learn to cope with that behave badly or you stop participating in conversations with all the good people too. There's nothing wrong with asking for more information, pointing them to a URL that explains the expectations, but why engage with the knuckleheads when they persist? I email the URL to the moderator and unsubscribe from the notifications because I will spend my time on people that deserve it, and I see no reason to make it a contest of wills to see who can type longer and louder. Said differently, I have nothing to prove, so if someone thinks I'm wrong, that they are smarter than I am, whatever, that's fine and rarely a source of much more than a smile from me.
I'm not throwing rocks at Tom here. What he expects is what we should all expect, but it rarely happens - so that means we either omit it from our tool box, or we bend a little. Not great choices, but the ones we have.
My friend Will Strohl is managing the Day of DNN on June 13, 2009 at the Microsoft office in Tampa. This is sorta the 2nd iteration of it, but the first time really run as an independent community event. Will was one of the key volunteers at our last SQLSaturday and I'm expecting that work ethic plus experience should result in a first class event. I'll be dropping by for a couple hours in the morning to see how the event goes and wish I could stay all day, but I'll just be ending a month with a lot of weekend travel and will be ready to take a break by then.
If you're in Florida hope you'll pass this around in to those you know in the technical business, lots of devoted DNN people out there!
This was an interesting year to watch the local Code Camp. Shawn Weisfeld organized it the previous two years, but following his move to Dallas Jessica Sterner become the power behind the Code Camp this year and as much as she was involved in the prior two years, leadership transitions are hard. Think about how it goes at work when you have plenty of other people to provide continuity and you're involved in every day - then think about how it affects a once a year volunteer effort. I'm pleased to report that all went smoothly...or at least seemed to!
If you visit the Code Camp Site you'll see both a brand new look and code behind the look, all done by Fabio Honigmann. It's nice enough that I've asked him to do a 'makeover' of the SQLSaturday site which is functional but decidedly not flashy.
The Friday night prior to the event the standard speaker get together was held, and it worked out nicely. Outdoor seating, about 30 speakers attending, great weather, and quiet enough to have a normal conversation. They had wrist bands for the attendees so the restaurant staff knew who was part of the party, but forgot the name badges - something to remember for all events, it definitely makes networking go a little more smoothly. It was a nice way to relax at the end of a long week.
The event was held March 28, 2009, at the main campus of Seminole Community College. For those in the Orlando area it's the same site they used two years ago and the one we used for SQLSaturday #8 last year. The room layout was a little different, they were planning on 350-400 attendees and they needed 11 rooms plus sponsor space. It ended up being just a little confusing, because the buildings have letters (Building J) and the schedule used letters for the rooms (Room G), and...they had last minute room changes. They did a good job of announcing the changes and trying to explain things, and they had a few people directing traffic too.
They had some signs up for parking, but no greeters (just like Wal-Mart, I think they get everyone off to a nice start) . Check in went smoothly, and the wait time couldn't have been more than a couple minutes at any time. They also had one person devoted to walk ins. Only a few sponsors set up, and I saw a few more coming in after 8 am, but they were getting good traffic thanks to the raffle tickets. They had a light breakfast set up; fresh fruit, croissants, coffee, and the prize table so everyone could see the books they had a chance to win. David Caylor handled most of the logistics and it seemed to go smoothly - no line for coffee, plenty of water, soda, and ice.
We had one SQL track (I was the nominal track chair, which just involved picking the sessions for the track) and I attended as a spectator this time, starting the day off with a session by my friend Wes Dumey on data warehousing. Other sessions where done by Ryan Duclos, Michael Antonovich, Kendal Van Dyke, and Shervin Shakibi.
What could go better next time? I think a 9 am start would give the sponsors a little more time to set up, and I'd like to see more sponsors - easier to come by in the .Net space than SQL Server (or at least it seems to me). Speaker check in was way back behind the main check in tables, that felt confusing. I definitely think they caused some confusion with using letters for rooms instead of the true room number. I think the final attendance was around 400, nicely done, though I keep thinking that if I can get 275 people to come to a SQLSaturday in Orlando, surely there must be a lot more developers in Orlando...say 10x as many? Jessica, Fabio, David, shouldn't you be trying for 1000 attendees? (Note: we've talked about growing both events, and the challenge is finding bigger space that is within the budget).
Things went very well, congratulations to the Orlando Code Camp team for doing a very nice job!
I'm writing this as I wait on a flight back to Orlando after spending yesterday with John Magnabosco and team at the IndyTechFest. I did a presentation on replication to earn my keep, but really I was there to watch the event in action and see if I could add a few ideas for my upcoming SQLSaturday in Orlando. In no particular order:
Attendance was over 450! Just incredible to bring that many in, and will move them to a larger venue next year. I attribute their success to a couple different items:
Nice airport, area seems nice, weather was nice. Definitely thinking about returning next year and spending an extra day to play tourist. I'm hoping I can get John to post some more stuff about the inner workings that have led them to their success.
Several years ago during the first iteration of the Orlando SQL Server Users Group I talked a friend into attending. It was a small group of 10 or less most months, and we strugged for speakers. I had been probably 6-7 times when my friend attended and gotten comfortable - enjoying seeing new friends. When I asked her the next day about the meeting, the feedback was disheartening - we hadn't done a good job of introducing her to the group, the presentation was so-so, and nothing about the visit made her want to return. Does that suck or what?
That lesson has stuck with me, so when we reformed the group after a hiatus last year I've tried to work extra hard at greeting everyone and asking who was new at each meeting. Probably I could still do better, but it's better than it was before and it's fun to see people return a second time.
But there's always another lesson. Recently I had an email from someone who had heard about our group and wanted to know what to expect. That's really an incredibly good question. We're all human, and as humans the majority of us are nervous about new social situations. I emailed back the format of our meetings, details on the food, and asked them to be sure to say hello to me when I arrived if I wasn't the one that greeted them at the door. Our new person did show up for the meeting, we got to talk briefly, and at the end of the meeting I checked back to see if we had met the expectations I set in email, and clearly we had in his view, so I'm hoping we'll see him again.
So one task is to get something on the web site that better sets expectations, and I'm even thinking of a special raffle or gift for first time attendees. Another - harder - is to get our regulars to learn that lesson too, and change their approach from 'come see the great technical presentation' to 'come meet a great group of SQL professionals'.
I participated in a lunch meeting recently with a number of people from MS that work on their community efforts, and I thought one of their questions was interesting, if obvious; what do you get out of participating in the community as a speaker or group leader?
I think it falls into three buckets:
For me the first two apply. I do a one minute bio that includes what I do for a living and that's the extent of the sales pitch. Over time I hope to earn karma that comes back in the form of students in class. Just as important for me is that I enjoy helping those new to the profession grow, mainly because I see how much faster I could have grown if more help had been available/offered.
Nothing wrong the the last one, everyone reaches the point where they want validation - to prove to themselves, or their boss, that they are somebody. MS has accentuated this one - successfully I think - by making many of the community leaders MVP's. So part of this loops back to indirect marketing, hoping that listing speaker/community leader/MVP will lead to increased business (and I'm sure it does to some degree). The only downside to this one is that some point I think you should move past validation and move into the zone that only time/experience can bring - nothing left to prove.
I'm reasonably stubbon about my approach; I do the things I enjoy/want to do without worrying about the ROI. Not everyone can afford to do that, or would want to adopt such a karmic approach, but it suits me and seems to have worked so far.
Attendance on Saturday about 450 across the communities (SQL, .Net, DNN, etc). Not as big as we'd hoped, but still a win when you get a chance to provide training and network time for the community. Kudos to Joe Healy for organizing the overall event and getting MS to fund it, and a special thanks to our speakers for their contribution to the event. Jessica Sterner (newly elected President of ONETUG) organized the after party at a local night club and it really went well, right at 200 attendees.
The highlight (as far I'm concerned) was the printer smash ala Office Space by three of our attendees. MS got it on video, we'll hope it turns out well and gets published! Funny footnote on the printer, turned out to be harder than we thought to find a junk printer, ended up buying the cheapest ($75) printer we could find. Note for those who might want to try the same, don't a multi function printer! We had the printer on a tarp and the 'smasher's had safety goggles, but we still ended up with glass on the floor from the scanner.
Shawn Weisfeld has been the President of ONETUG (Orlando .Net Users Group) for the past three years and has just turned over control to Jessica Sterner as he gets ready to move to Dallas for a new job. Shawn has been very active in the community and INETA, and he shared a lot of lessons learned from his Code Camps to help us build our first SQLSaturday. I don't think you could find anyone that worked harder or has contributed more to the Florida community than Shawn. I'm sorry to see him go and wish him luck with the move and new job.
If you haven't visited yet, MS Connect replaces the old sqlwish email alias and provides - in theory! - a better way to manage problems and suggestions. One of the features they've implemented is to let visitors vote on which suggestions/bugs they want fixed. I like the idea of community involvement, but I think this implementation has some challenges:
In the spirit of not complaining without at least trying to offer some alternatives, these might tweak the system to be more effective:
Not sure my fixes are the best way, but helps to illustrate where I think the community can add more value.
This topic came up during the speaker reception at the South Florida Code Camp and while I've posted here and there, it's probably worth writing down some thoughts about what events like Code Camp and SQLSaturday can do to make being a sponsor more attractive.
I know that sounds like a lot. What do you get in return?
Put as much effort into your sponsors as you do the attendees, speakers, volunteers, and site host and things will go well.
A friend sent me a link to www.sqlcommunity.com and I think I'd list it. So far doesn't seem impressive, but I know from experience that it takes a while to get things going and flowing. Certainly doesn't compare well to the other community sites so far, but perhaps that will change. Good to have some healthy competition among the communities to encourage them to keep their standards high and make sure that they are remembering who the customers are!
I ran across this in the Google bloghttp://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/encouraging-people-to-contribute.html announcing a new beta feature called Knol that allows an author to publish a page about on whatever topic they choose. The page at a time publishing metaphor is interesting, something that would presumably have more depth and focus than a blog entry, but not rise to the level of building a site that focused on the topic. It also makes it easy, or at least easier, for an author to look at writing as a way to profit from their efforts, by adding ads or getting a sponsor for their pages.
Monetizing is important; if done well it encourages authors to work harder, work better, produce better content. Sites like SSC allow authors to monetize in limited fashion, typically paying a flat fee rather than a per view rate. I like that model because the author can see that they will earn x dollars (removing the will I make any money issue) and because it discourages breaking up content into multiple pages (or worse) just to drive up their earnings. The Google model fits those willing to take on a little risk for perhaps greater reward.
The downside to the Google model is they may well wind up with a lot of junk pages designed just to attract pages views, there's no one to monitor for outright plagiarism, and it's very likely that for the most popular subjects we'll have 18 different authors all writing about the same thing. Community sites offset most of those dangers through a combination of the resident editor/owner as well as the oversight of the community members. Will Knol be able to build that kind of community? Doesn't seem likely, but perhaps I shouldn't bet against them?!
For us SQL Server people it could be an interesting twist - will authors who previously published on SSC, SQLTeam, etc, opt to give it a try? Will they post on a community site for 90 days or whatever and then repost on Knol? Would we better served if authors wrote purely based on wanting to make a profit? Or would we get better content if they were trying to write the best page in the world about a sliver of SQL Server and just used Knol as the platform? I'd like to see the pressure of Knol cause community sites to evolve into being a little more author friendly as they fight to stay relevant. For now I'll continue to publish here in the community I helped build and continue to enjoy, but I'll see how things evolve and perhaps give it a try (on the list after trying the wiki thing in some form or fashion!).
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:
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.
I see they finally rolled out the new site. Lots of annoying quirks so far, the biggest for me is that the URL's in the notification emails aren't coming across as hyperlinks, forcing me to copy/paste into a browser. Given that I look at a couple dozen a day, this is really annoying. I'll be curious to see how the general community reacts to the change!
