Learn how to design applications and interactions that your users will rave about, skills that cannot be outsourced, and practices transferable to any software development platform – from two veteran DevCon speakers.

For more information about this seminar, including cost and registration, click HERE!

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.

I’m going to go on a tangent here for a moment to talk about human behavior, and will come back to those DevCon conversations a little later.

We’re advocates of Agile development methodologies here at IT Solutions.  One of the core statements of the Agile manifesto is: where possible, value individuals and interactions over processes and tools.  In the context of Agile development, that statement helps emphasize (and leverage) the fact that software is built by humans working together.

I happen to love that statement, though, because I believe it’s not just a statement about development workflow.

It’s an observation about what really motivates us as humans.  Our monkey brains are social.  Our emotional and social batteries are recharged by engaging with each other.  Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, IM, blogs, websites, email, Basecamp, and everything else that we use as proxies for social interaction offers us myriad opportunities to recharge those batteries, at recharge rates proportional to bandwidth.

By far, though, the highest, most optimized bandwidth available to us is face to face, in person contact.  You can live stream and tweet all you like, but I can guarantee I can communicate more in five minutes with you in person than I ever could online.

This is why DevCon matters.  We all know it; it’s why we go.  To be with our particular sub-tribe of humans, speaking our own language.

This is also…

Why User Groups Matter

All right, so maybe I’m biased, because I run a user group.  Feel free to bump the font size down a few notches in your mind.  I will say that more often than not, the conversations I had at DevCon would eventually shift to what kind of local resources were available for whoever I was speaking with.  Who was in their area?  Who could they network with?

And especially…was there a FileMaker Developer Group nearby?

At this point the conversation went one of three ways:

• There was one, and it was awesome
• There was one, kinda, but it was an hour away
• The nearest one was in the next state or country

With the second and third responses, the tone was either wistful or frustrated.  I’ve had a bunch of conversations like this in the past, and my reply has always been: “Start your own!  It’s easy!”

Which probably glosses over things pretty badly.  For one thing, starting anything is never easy.

There’s the risk involved with investing time and energy into something that has a good chance of never getting off the ground.

There’s the open question of whether or not anybody will be actually interested enough to come.

There’s the “qualifications” question that some people ask: “Why me?  Who’s going to come to a group that I start?  What, am I special or something?”

No, you’re not special.  But you can start a User Group anyway.

This post is an introduction to a series of posts I’m going to put out in the next few weeks providing some key concepts and advice on how to start a group and how to grow it.  I’ll be covering:

• Initial tools and frameworks for managing a group
• Finding group members, marketing the group and building a community
• Finding speakers and topics

I’ll get into FileMaker-specific concepts in places, but by and large this stuff applies to anyone looking to start a technical user group.

That’s to come.  For now, if you’re really interested in starting a FileMaker User/Developer Group in your area – or finding one – your first stop should be to www.fmpug.com.  I’ll be talking about FMPug as a marketing and organizational tool in a future post, so won’t go into detail here.  Just take a quick look now.

What qualifies me to give advice?

I’m not special either  But I have had some experience building communities.  We’ve done a lot of hard work over the years to build Philly FileMaker into a large, robust group, and have learned some lessons along the way about what works and what doesn’t.  We want to share that.  And when I take off my day job hat, I run an art gallery with my wife, Mount Airy Contemporary, which has been a community-building exercise in a very similar way.  And when I take off my gallerist hat, I’m an artist, and engaged with promotion and community-building around that as well.  And when all of those hats are safely stowed, and I’m back at work, I promote training opportunities for IT Solutions, as well as work as a full time FileMaker Consultant.

This stuff matters to me, in short.  And I want to talk about it.  I want to see the FileMaker community expanded and enriched through local efforts.  I want more of you folks out there starting groups today. This’ll be my little contribution to that effort.  Feel free to comment along the way.  If you’re a group coordinator, especially, and have your own advice to add, it would be most welcome.

Colin

Coordinator
Philadelphia FileMaker User Group

www.philllyfilemaker.org

Our next Philadelphia FileMaker User Group meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday evening, August 24th 2010 at 6:00 PM.

The meeting will be held at the IT Solutions Fort Washington Office:

+  414 Commerce Dr., Suite 150, Fort Washington, PA 19034
+  Full Google Map: http://bit.ly/d7L05o (or just mess with the inline map below)

As always, pizza and soft drinks will be provided.

Please RSVP here if you are planning to attend this meeting:
http://www.fmpug.com/rsvp.php?eventID=1078

2010 DEVCON RECAP

Presenters: Jason Mundok, Chad Sager, Colin Keefe

The fifteenth annual FileMaker Developer Convention was held August 15-18 in San Diego CA.  We’ve just gotten back and can’t wait to share.  Come join us for a discussion of FileMaker GO, new techniques and technologies, and a general roundtable talk.

Jason Mundok will share his experiences, interviews and quotes with a video mashup of the week.

Chad Sager will discuss the sessions he attended and his impressions as a first time attendee.

Colin Keefe will review some SQL techniques he picked up from several sessions by Michael Lee at DevCon.

Anyone else who attended and feels moved to speak is welcome to come and share your stories!

About the Speakers

Jason Mundok is a Project Manager at IT Solutions Consulting, Inc.  Chad Sager and Colin Keefe are Senior FileMaker Consultants with the firm.

IT Solutions is a Platinum FileMaker Business Alliance member serving the Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Delaware region, as well as servicing clients across the U.S.  ITS has seven full-time Certified FileMaker developers on staff and works in other development platforms, such as .NET and Salesforce.

IT Solutions is a FileMaker Authorized Trainer, offering training opportunities using the FileMaker Training Series curriculum for advanced training and internally designed curricula for beginner and intermediate offerings.

About the Philadelphia FileMaker User Group

The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group was founded in 2004 as an initiative by FileMaker Business Alliance Platinum member IT Solutions Consulting.  The group’s goal is to provide an open forum for FileMaker developers and those interested in FileMaker to meet, brainstorm and network.

We hold meetings the 4th Tuesday of every month at 6PM, in the office of IT Solutions Consulting, Inc., at 414 Commerce Drive, Suite 150, Fort Washington PA.

Meetings are open to all, regardless of background and there’s no charge to attend.

Please subscribe to our Mailing List to get announcements on upcoming meetings. The list is set to Announce only, so the volume is typically between one and 2 emails a month.

http://fmpug.com/mailman/listinfo/philly_fmpug.com/

You can read our blog to get updates and meeting recaps:

http://www.phillyfilemaker.org/

Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/phillyfilemaker

We’re also an FMPug Chapter:  http://www.fmpug.com/ Consider membership today, especially if you purchase training, plugins, 3rd party products, or web/filemaker hosting – FMPug membership affords considerable discounts across a range of offerings.

About Our Sponsor

Finally, The Philadelphia FileMaker User Group is hosted by:

IT Solutions Consulting, Inc.

Employee ownership – fueling our innovation, strengthening your business.

http://www.itsolutions-inc.com/

- Learn about our new FileMaker support offerings: FMAssist and FMAssure!

- www.itsolutions-inc.com/our_solutions/application_development/fm_assist.html

Download Lee’s demo from the keynote at savvydata.com.

August 24th, 6 PM, DevCon Recap, at the usual location:

IT Solutions Consulting, Inc.
414 Commerce Drive
Suite 150
Fort Washington PA 19034

We’ll be recording this one this time, not streaming it, mainly because we’ll be using Jason’s fancypants camera and mike.  If you liked the quality of the latest rash of 5 Minutes with Philly FileMaker videos, you’ll like the next meeting recording.

For DevCon folks this year – safe travels and see you next year!

- Colin