You can see an announcement from Buck Woody (b | t) of Microsoft on Data Exposed. Essentially, Microsoft is providing a number of free resources to help local user groups with their meetings. This is a fantastic way to support the various groups around the world that might not have infrastructure setup after the PASS organization failed.
The offering from Microsoft includes:
- A website (the gateway is here)
- Meetup Pro
- Microsoft Teams subscription
Community-owned, Microsoft-Empowered is the tagline, and I think that’s a good way to approach things. Microsoft is supporting groups, but not forcing them to run in any particular way. I believe they may ask that some portion of your topics are focused on the Microsoft Data Platform, but you are free to include other data related topics for your members.
If you are a user group leader, check this out. If you’re a member of a user group, and you think this might help, pass this along to your leadership team.