Few days back a friend of mind asked me about how I was able to create the Riyadh SharePoint User Group. So my answer was not simple. Creating User Group or technical groups is not easy step. It requires lot of time and resources to find people who are interested in working with you as volunteers and successfully creating a trust in your group members minds. But once everything is up and running the result is great. So while answering the question I was able to note down the things and resources to get help from. It is given below.
- Name the User Group and define your scope, objectives and target audience.
- Get Volunteer/Community Geeks on board – You need to define a Board build a relationship between the volunteers who are interested to be part of such a group and designate positions and responsibilities.
- Distribute Roles according to Skills and availability
- Create Check Lists of Tasks
- Design Group Logo and Moto
http://itpro.community.officelive.com/default.aspx – formerly Culminus – now GITCA (Global IT Community Association)
http://www.usergroupsupportservices.com/
International SharePoint Professionals Association
- UGSS provides around a good amount as financial support and link to lot of community events including community members site which helps to user groups to do offline events.
- This will also provide you’re a free SharePoint Based Web Site as your website placeholder on the internet to upload and manage group information other than Facebook
- Create a Signup page on this site to get people register for the event.
This all looks like a long list of things but as I told you earlier UG creation is a long process. What I have described above is what I have leant myself but If you think that we should add more thing please do let me know or post as comment. I am sure this will add more value.
One last thing this procedure applies anywhere in the world :).
Jerry Yasir's Blog 