FileMaker User Groups: Thoughts and resources on getting started (Post #2)

You might have said to yourself after reading my last cheerleading post on starting a FileMaker User Group (Why User Groups Matter), “Well, that’s all well and good, but you’re not the one trying to start a group in a virtual vacuum.  Cheerleading’s easy.”  Fine, point taken.

I realize that many of you are in regions that, on initial consideration, might not seem fertile ground for a user group.  You may feel that being located in a smaller metropolitan area or rural region is an insurmountable roadblock to getting a group started.  What’s the point of holding a first meeting if there’s no one else around?

Your first step is finding the 2 or 3 or 10 people you can connect with and agree to meet in person. We’ll get into the meat and potatoes of managing the group later; there’s no point talking about it until you’ve got enough interest to fill at least the seats around a kitchen table or bar booth. Finding people is, admittedly, hard.  Luckily, there are plenty of online resources to datamine for prospects.

I ask for forbearance from those of you for whom all of this is painfully obvious.  It’s not obvious to everybody, and this suite of blog posts is oriented to those at the beginner/intermediate stage of social networking (remember: user groups were perfecting social networking when Twitter’s founder was still in diapers).

FileMaker(!)

It would make sense to start here, wouldn’t it?  I would humbly suggest that if you’re serious about starting a user group, it would behoove you to contact your regional BAM (Business Account Manager).  BAMs are chiefly concerned with getting FileMaker into medium to large sized corporations – that’s their job – but they have a vested interest in seeding fertile ground with the FileMaker brand.  If you don’t know who your BAM is, find out.  Call FileMaker.

FMPug

fmpug.com is the defacto clearinghouse for most FileMaker User Groups around the world.  It’s really in your best interest to contact Andy or Heather at FMPug and ask them if they know of anybody in your region who’s approached them in the past about starting a group.  There may have been earlier attempts – and the initiators of those attempts should be your first prospects.

FileMaker specific prospect resources

Next let’s talk about the large, FileMaker oriented searchable directories and forums.  You’re going to want to search for folks in your city/county, neighboring areas, and so on.

The FileMaker Consultant Search Page – These are generally people who are fulltime FileMaker developers in one sense or another – either large businesses or sole proprietors.  If anybody’s going to be interested in FileMaker, these folks are it.

FMPug Business Directory – FMPug.com has its own member directory which is worth searching.  While most members belong to local chapters, there are also “Virtual Chapter” members – people in the FMPug community who, like you, are too far from a physical group.  Check to see if there are others in your area and start networking.

FindFileMakerDevelopers.com – Like the FileMaker Consultant Search page, but with a different set of search tools and more comprehensive profile information in the listing results.  The two sites don’t overlap 100%, so don’t forget to search both.

fmforums.com – If you haven’t joined this site, you should –  even if you aren’t trying to set up a group.  This is the oldest and largest online forum dedicated to FileMaker around, and is extremely active.  Post a solicitation to the Chit Chat forum thread.

filemakertoday.com – Ditto with FileMaker today – joining both forums has immeasurable value to you as developer irrespective of whether you get this user group thing off the ground.  Same deal: post your intentions, and solicit feedback.

Other online Directories

Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument that you’ve exhausted all of the above resources.  What next?

Google, LinkedIn, Twitter and FaceBook.

Google

Hm.  Can we just assume you know how to use this?  Please?  No?  Then try Google with training wheels.

LinkedIn

If you don’t yet have a profile on LinkedIn, set one up now (mine’s here).  It’s indispensable, and an excellent calling card to boot, if you’re looking for work.  For networking /research purposes, it’s a great tool.  There are quite a few uses you can make of it to search for user group prospects:

• Keyword searches
• People searches
• Question/Answer searches
• Group affiliations (and networking through them)

I’m not going to get into all of them, but will just throw up keyword searching as an example.  Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I’m trying to set up a group in Nebraska.

A simple keyword search for FileMaker

yields 18000 results:

I can then filter by location – I see 1084 listings in Boston.  Well, that’s nice, but I’m all the way over here in NE. I can manually key in a search for Nebraska, and I now see:

Lincoln, Nebraska: 10.  One of the core concepts of LinkedIn, by the way, is that you can only see the full profiles of those who are in your network (by being connected to someone who is somehow connected to you).  For me, only one of the contacts in Lincoln is connected to me.  He’s connected to me through 3 current FileMaker employees, though, so definitely someone I would want to consider contacting if I were starting a group in Nebraska.  If I were I an actual NE resident, I’d likely be connected to more than 1 of those 10.

This is where it starts to get to be about networking.  Let’s say I contact this guy, tell him of my plans, and ask for referrals to other people who might be interested.  He is much more likely than I am to know people who may be interested in what I have planned.

The interesting thing about this – and where LinkedIn really expands on the pool of prospects – is that it’s keyword searching on profiles that have FileMaker listed anywhere – it’s not just the bigwig consultants, it’s power users, business owners, IT people, data entry folks…everybody who has had a stake in FileMaker somewhere in their careers.

Next up:

Twitter

I have to admit I’m a reluctant Twitterer.  It’s not because I don’t like the medium per se – it’s more that opening TweetDeck, for someone who can’t wash dishes and hold a conversation at the same time, is a rabbit hole of “multitasking” distractions that leave a gaping half hour blank void in my workday.  I launch, do my minimum bit, and exit as gracefully as I can, before any of the glittering feeds tempt me.

That said, I highly recommend exploring Twitter simply because it’s one of those rare places where you can toss a random 140 character question like: “I’m in Bangor ME, want to start a #FileMaker user group.  Interested?”  and get answers (and a half dozen spam follow requests) in five minutes.

Do it, even if you hate it.  Just remember you can always pack Twitter away, a rarely used tool.

And, of course, if you find you don’t hate it, you may discover that there is a thriving FileMaker community on Twitter. It’s real, and it’s worth exploring in itself.

Facebook

I’m one of those who keeps my life fairly compartmentalized.  My FileMaker life lives here on phillyfilemaker, and on LinkedIn, and FaceBook is where my personal and art life is more comprehensively represented.  I’ve found that it’s really different for everyone; it may be that FaceBook is the ideal platform for you for what we’re trying to do here.  It comes down to personality type and comfort levels. Anyway, where FaceBook shines – and why it may make sense for you to exploit it for this purpose – is that it’s the epitome of social networking.  You could set up a FaceBook page for “The Bloomington/Normal FileMaker User Group”; you could join FileMaker specific groups and post questions to their walls…there are myriad possibilities here.

Okay, time for a search / social networking break.

At this point I’ll make couple of random observations:

• Continually expanding your search should be your MO; be promiscuous in your efforts.
• Look for local community gate-keepers: you want that person who can act as the hub who will lead you to other prospects.
• This whole User Group search sounds a lot like job hunting, doesn’t it?  And it smells like sales and marketing too.  That’s not a mistake.  You’re selling your idea and trying to obtain buy-in.  The only real difference here is that your currency is mindshare rather than cash.
• The corollary to the previous bullet point is that you need to learn sales skills.  Don’t worry, it won’t hurt a bit.  And picking up the confidence to build a User Group has dividends in other areas of your professional life.

That’s it for now.  I know, all you Social Networking wonks are yawning by now anyway.  This blog post was not for you

In the next installment I’ll do my best to cover the tools and services you should try to add to your toolkit to start and manage your group.  I’ll cover:

• FMPug affiliation
• Mailing List management (Mailman (FMPug uses this), FileMaker, FMSpark, MailChimp, etc)
• Event listing services
• Blogs and websites

Some of this will be my version of “best practices”, some will simply be observations about what completely failed for us

I’ll open the floor here: anyone have any other ideas they’d like to add or comment on the topic of finding group members?  Or any other thoughts?

Group Coordinators: What did you do when you started your group?  What were your learning experiences?

- Colin