I started thinking about this series of posts (yep, this is #1 in a series) after a few conversations I had with people at this year’s FileMaker DevCon. I’d strike up a conversation with someone at lunch or at the bar, we’d exchange stories and experiences…and inevitably the talk would shift to why people come to DevCon in the first place.
Reason number 1: for the community. Hands down. The clear pleasures and advantages of meeting other people who are engaged in the same practice as you – with whom you can share ideas, learn from and teach – always trump session topics, what’s on the lunch menu, what kind of swag you can haul back, or how many banners you can affix to the bottom of your convention badge. One of the things that’s sometimes lost when you do a hand count of how many people in the room have iPads is how many people in the room are there because of the other people. Continue reading ‘Why User Groups matter…and how to start one (Post #1)’
We’re at the FileMaker Developer Conference 2010 in San Diego, CA getting ready for an excellent week of networking and learning about all of things FileMaker. This afternoon I dusted off the video camera and started lining up a great list of FileMaker experts to spend a few minutes chatting with to see what they have coming up at DevCon and what mind blowing tips and tricks they’re seeing out in the community. I’m kicking off a new batch of 5 Minutes with Philly FileMaker interviews with our good buddy John Sindelar, SeedCode. John is doing his annual Year in Review session Monday morning, which I already know will be a DevCon highlight.
Chad Sager and Colin Keefe are also representing IT Solutions at DevCon. If you’re at the conference, be sure to say hi!
As many of you know, the 2010 FileMaker DevCon is coming up soon – August 15-18, to be exact. We’re going to be doing a recap meeting on Tuesday August 24. I’ll have more on that in a few weeks,but I think we can safely assume that FileMaker Go will be on the agenda!
If you’re from eastern PA, please email me at colin.keefe@itsolutions-inc.com – we’re planning a get together for Philly FileMaker folks on Monday. I’ll reply with the details.
FMPug is offering discounted memberships at a LOCKED in rate, in perpetuity. As of this moment, the rate is $50.00 US, which I believe is half the usual annual fee. There are only a limited number of discounted rates available, after which a lesser discount tier becomes available. When those get used up, it’s back to to the regular rate.
Here’s how it works:
“Your locked in rate is based on the number of COMPLETED transactions. To avoid losing the current promotional rate” (ed: currently $50), “we urge you to complete this transaction sooner rather than later. Wait too long and it could be gone!
** YOU’RE LOCKED-IN FOR LIFE! ** Here’s where things get really exciting! By signing-up now, the promotional price is your rate for life! That’s right, providing your membership never lapses, the promotional price will be your annual FMPug renewal rate for life! Whether you’re a new member or a renewing member, you won’t pay a penny more. It’s just that simple.”
I was fortunate to attend day one of Pause on Error in Portland and had a chance to chat with John Sindelar (SeedCode) and Ernest Koe (Proof) about what it was like to organize Pause II. We debuted this interview at the Philadelphia FileMaker User Group meeting held at the IT Solutions office in Fort Washington.
Since a large part of our December meeting was given over to a discussion of the goals and direction of the group, this recap post serves the added function of discussing some of those goals and how we plan to work toward them.
Recap!
Two dozen FileMaker enthusiasts converged on the the IT Solutions office for the 5th Annual PFUG Year End Bonanza on December 15th.
We continued our annual tradition of vendor discussions and giveaways, of course – congratulations to Dan Stein, Todd Chronister, Walter Burns, Preston Cabe, Tim Lynott, Mike Ahern, Bryant Minard, Gale Raspen and Michael Reddy for winning bonanza prizes from our generous sponsors! And a big thanks to SolutionMakers, Ben Waldie, ProofGroup and Seed Code, Thorsen Consulting, 360Works and Real EVO for participating and contributing to our event.
Our 2008 predictions for 2009 were, as usual, mostly wrong, but I don’t think anyone can be faulted for not guessing all the twists and turns 2009 held in store for us. We’ll have to wait until December 2010 before we can weigh in on the latest batch – though I somehow doubt “BJ and the Bear” will make it to the big screen this year (sorry, Jason).
Now’s a pretty good time to support what FMPug does for the developer/user group community at large and for our own local group.
For the Philly FileMaker group, FMPug provides:
Meeting Announcement Listings and management
Meeting RSVP services
Mailing List Management
Product discounts for FMPug members
Pawfolio pages with work samples for FMPug members
and a percentage of every FMPug member’s annual fee goes directly to support PhillyFileMaker.
In a more general sense, FMPug provides a sense of community and cohesion to the dozens of user groups scattered around the world. It provides us opportunities to share with each other and learn from each other outside of conventions and conferences. I know I’ve cribbed many ideas for user group sessions from looking into the Schedule to see what other people are up to, and have often learned about new techniques in the pipeline before they make it into a DevCon presentation just by poking around the FMPug site. It’s also an excellent way to get your feet wet before jumping into your first FileMaker DevCon. Andy Gaunt is a great resource and asset to the community.
Why join now? Well, the “12 Days of Giveaways” event is a big one – tons of free products from your favorite FM vendors means you stand a very very good chance of winning something – which would more than cover the cost of an annual FMPug membership (if the discounts weren’t already enough).
The kind folks at FMPug have made The Everything Reference 3 available for free as a PDF download. The Everything Reference series was created to bring together the most needed reference materials for FileMaker developers into a single easy-to-use source. The Everything Reference 3 is completely compatible with FileMaker 10 and includes such useful tools as a modifier key cheat sheet, Unicode charts, FileMaker error codes, a FileMaker functions quick reference, and much much more. There are even articles from some of the top names in the business, such as John Mark Osborne and Steven Blackwell.
Ernest Koe’s ProofGroup presentation is up at this URL, as well as Jess Barnum’s presentation, both filmed at the Orlando FL FMPug chapter. Kudos to Andy for putting this together.
Note that you need to join FMPug to access most of the content, but you can see a free 12 minute video introduction by Jesse to get a sense of how it all lays out.
If I haven’t harped on it enough, online videos aren’t the only reason to join FMPug. Here’s a grid of benefits:
A virtual membership will get you into the FMPug site and its benefits; a portion of a Chapter membership goes to support us at PFUG (since we’re a local FMPug chapter), plus eligibility for FMPug member giveaways at meetings (like tonight’s, for example).
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