Since I have become a larger part in the West Michigan SolidWorks User Group I have been doing a lot of thinking about what makes a successful user group. Is it the group that has the most members that are CSWP’s or CSWA’s? Is it the group with the most members that attend SolidWorks World? Is it the group that has the largest average attendance from meeting to meeting? Is it the group that has 2 or 3 "big name" presenters (SolidWorks World presenters or SolidWorks employees) at every meeting? Or is it the group that feels like one huge family get together at every meeting? I tend to lean towards the last one for many reasons. The biggest thing about SolidWorks User Groups is the community, the numbers or presenters or accolades are nothing if you don’t have a relationship among the members of your group. Now don’t get me wrong, being certified and having good presenters and having members attend SolidWorks World are awesome things, and stuff I will promote any day of the week, but they are nothing to a user group if the group part is taken out of the title. So how exactly do you build that tight nit family reunion feeling among members. This is what I have been contemplating since returning from SolidWorks World and I think a good start to this is to have regular meetings. You need to find the happy point that is between not having enough meetings and having too many meetings where people get sick of coming every time. Our group (West Michigan SolidWorks User Group) is going to be meeting on the second Tuesday of every other month. I am in no way saying that this is that happy point for everyone but that is where we are going to begin our journey and go from there. I think that each group individually needs to determine what their happy point is, it is not something that an "outsider" can tell them what to do. Another thing that can build relationships among the members are to have organized group activities at your meetings where groups can break down problems inside of SolidWorks. This exercise forces people to mingle among each other. A few years back I was not one to walk up to a group of people and just start talking to them (I still am not completely that way) so it has always been hard for me to build a relationship more than a hi and bye conversation. By breaking into groups like mentioned before you begin the building blocks of a deeper conversation and thus a better chance to get to know someone on a more personal level. Let me know what you thoughts are on this. Do you have any suggestions? Let me know, I would love to hear how your user group builds the group into a community of users.

P.S. I wanted to mention that a lot of this started at SolidWorks World when I saw the community that the NASWUG seems to have. I saw Ricky Jordan and Brian McElyea on numerous occasions stop and talk to people from their group like they were childhood friends that were in each others weddings and so on, it was awesome. They are to me the prime example of what a user group community is all about. This is not to say that other groups are not like this but I really noticed them at SWW.

After much observation at SolidWorks World of the SWUGN leaders I have decided to become a co-leader of the WMSWUG (West Michigan SolidWorks User Group).  I am extremely excited for this opportunity to be a part of this type of networking opportunity.  I observed an absolute joy, excitement and overall passion for their groups from all of the user group leaders that I had the opportunity to meet last month in San Diego.  I want to thank Fred Egge for accepting my offer to become a co-leader and I look forward to working with him to make this group the absolute best it can be.

For anyone that is interested in coming to our next meeting it is going to be March 11, 2008 and is currently planned to be at the Colonial Clock Building in Zeeland, Michigan (subject to change).

Unfortunately all of those months of anticipation for SolidWorks World 2008 are behind us now with only the slightest of thoughts for next years event tucked away in the back of our minds. When I began to think about what I was going to try and do to convince the management at my company to send me to San Diego I had thoughts of this marvelous show where everyone acted like family, there was more information than you could shake a stick at and there was just a general passion amidst everyone there for SolidWorks. Needless to say, I was not let down concerning any of these thoughts. For me, working at a small company I do not get as much interaction with passionate SolidWorks users as I would like so I had a thirst to go somewhere where I could. There are many events that you can quench this at like a local user group meeting, a SWUGN Technical Summit, or just a new release roll out event through your local reseller. Well as all of you know that attended this years SolidWorks World or any other SolidWorks World this event is the grand daddy of all passionate 3D modeling user conferences. When I arrived the Saturday afternoon before the conference I could already feel the vibe in the hotel I was staying at. It was great. It had the feeling of a 5,000 person family reunion (Greg Jankowski and I discussed this exact thing later at the conference in my one on one interview with him). This feeling revealed itself big time at the first event I attended, the SolidWorks “Blog Squad” dinner on Saturday night. I had many interactions with the majority of these people through emails and discussion forums and other networking tools but never face to face. I had a feeling similar to going on a blind date, the feeling of knowing you get along when you are typing and talking on the phone but worried that it will not carry over to face to face communication. So I showed up at the Hard Rock Cafe with only my memory of the pictures of some of the blogger’s from their sites to try and pick out from the crowd who I was trying to meet, needless to say I was a touch on the worried side. Well as the ‘blog squad” started to roll in all of those anxious fears quickly subsided. All of the members were more than I could ever ask for in regards to accepting, friendly and just all around great to be with. Even though I had never met any of them it felt like I had known them since I was in grade school. This is just one of so many examples of the family reunion feeling that I had from Saturday night to Wednesday night. Sorry for being sappy, but its true. As for the information, this didn’t not exactly disappoint either. When you have over 100 breakout sessions lobbed into only 11 time slots, look out. I think the most stressful and unlikable part of going to SolidWorks World is trying to figure out what breakout sessions you want to attend. Not that it’s not fun by any means but with there being over 10 different sessions going on at once, it is extremely hard and frustrating to pick and choose which ones you want to attend, especially because each time there are probably 5 different ones that you would love to go to. As frustrating as it is initially it was worth it once I got there and starting attending some, because as a lot of people told me, it was INFORMATION OVERLOAD.

Now that I am a veteran (can you call it veteran if you have only been to 1) I see what everyone was talking about before I went. I now understand why Bob Jordan (letter and podcast) feels it absolutely necessary to send his employees so that they stay on the cutting edge. This event is well worth the price tag in my eyes. There are small, small things that I discovered at the conference that I have implemented already at my company that will more than make up for the cost that it took for them to send me. And these things are just the beginning, as time allows I want to implement other things that I think will blow some of the management at our company out of the water. So if you work with me and are reading this, STAY TUNED!

In closing, I already have the countdown started for next year in Orlando. I have things in my mind that I want to focus on for breakout sessions next year so hopefully I have the same opportunity to attend as I did this year.

Finally, I want to say thank you to everyone that made this event special, I will never forget my 1st of hopefully many SolidWorks Worlds.