Is a User Group Worth It?

I personally owe my involvement in the Solidworks Community to the User Group that I started nearly 3 years ago.  Because of it I was offered the opportunity to start this blog, have networked with hundreds of interesting people, and have made lots of inside contacts at Solidworks itself.  So for the everyday Solidworks user, how worth it is it for them to spend up to three hours of their time attending a local User Group meeting?

Dan Bovinich is the head of the Eastern Michigan SolidWorks User Group (EMSWUG).  At their last meeting at the end of May, Dan conducted a survey of the people that attended the meeting asking them what they thought of the presentations, and then asked for general comments.  One thing to note is that this was an anonymous survey, so these were pretty candid answers.  Here are screen shots of the survey results in response to that nights presentations provided by Dan:

The third image is of the survey results of why people actually attend the meeting.  If you look at the leading answers, its interesting to see that people are genuinely going mainly for the information, and not the food or the prizes:

Based on those results, if I was an everyday user, I would be extremely tempted to attend the next meeting.  Now in case your not in Eastern Michigan, there may be a group closer to you.  Just head on over to the Solidworks User Group World Wide Directory, and you can find one near you.  If there isn't one close, then why not give it a try and start one of your own?  More information on that can also be found on the Solidworks User Group Network site.

Comments

[Richard Doyle]

Very nice post Mike. I started the same way, as a user group leader in Central Texas way back in 1999, so I know the type of committment that user group leaders have to their members. If it wasn't for people like you, and the other 140+ group leaders (and let's not forget the group officers, food committees, etc.), there wouldn't be a SolidWorks User Group Network. Thank you all so much.

Richard Doyle
User Community Coordinator
SolidWorks