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Meeting Content
05-26-2011 05:48 PM - last edited on 02-09-2017 05:07 PM by nancyj
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Meeting Content - What are you going to talk about at your LUG?
Share you best tips here, this is a living document meant to be added to by user group leaders to spread knowledge so go ahead and add your ideas here.
Remember, this is about building a community as much as it is about finding speakers and learning about LabVIEW. You need good content, and people will be more inclined to stick around and help out if they feel connected to the group. Get the group engaged and participating early and often!!!
Topics/Discussions
- There is a vast array of NI and LabVIEW technologies, and many individuals and businesses that have worked with them. You can put out a call in your group and to the local community to ask LabVIEW users speak about their experience or you can use some of our existing materials on the User Group Resource Center. The Alliance Partner Directory is a great place to find a member in your area who would like to present at your meeting. This is great for them because they are then associated in the area as a credible technical expert.
- A great form of discussion is to have some local LabVIEW developers bring in code snippets of their current application and have the group discuss it. This gives the local developer an opportunity to show off what they are working on, get feedback/support on their approach, and for the group to learn as well. This is very easy to setup by asking for volunteers and it is very successful.
- NI may also be able to help with sending speakers, particularly as your meetings grow in size. Please note this is entirely dependent on the location and the speaker's schedules. Contact your local NI Sales contact or office to inquire more about getting a presenter in person or virutally over a web conference. You shouldn't feel that you require an NI representative at your meeting to have good content. LabVIEW developers getting together to talk about LabVIEW techniques and best practices make for a good LUG.
- Some topics for your user group meetings can be:
- Installing new versions of LabVIEW or upgrading code
- Basic navigation through the LabVIEW environment and help resources (e.g. LabVIEW Help, online forums)
- Basic LabVIEW Design Patterns
- Data Communication in LabVIEW
- Front Panel/UI Design
- Deploying code to distributed targets
- Basic Data Acquistion
- etc. (what else have you used?)
Ice Breakers
- Something you can do when the meeting is just getting started is run the NI/LabVIEW Fun Facts slideshow in the background. This provides an interesting backdrop that may spark some conversations.
- Asking some LabVIEW Certification Questions anytime during the meeting can also be engaging.
Planning
User groups are really successful when they plan ahead. When you are just starting a user group, go ahead and plan the first 3 meetings and have the agendas outlined for everyone to see. This will show the newcomers that the meeting will be ongoing, what topics are coming up, and will overall get them more engaged in the group. Also, point out to your members that these are planned topics but can definitely be adjusted with their feedback and help to make sure that the content is exciting and relevant to the members who will be coming to the meeting.
As your user group gets established, push the agenda out to 4 meetings and make sure that the information is on your community page. Showing members what meetings are coming up in the next year is very successful for driving more members to the meetings. You will see an increase in registration and attendance if you post your meetings on a calendar well before the date of the event. The less successful meetings are those which don't get posted until a couple of weeks before the meeting date and/or don't list the agenda. People are more likely to sign up for topics they can understand (e.g. "Basic DAQ") than "TBD". Planning ahead doesn't take too much time and cements your strategy as a successful and organized leader.
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