Members are the community. In forming a user group, the purpose should obviously revolve around the members. The members are a vital reason to have the group. Reasons to form a group might be a desire to have better ways to deal with a product or vendor, learn about enhancements that might be needed, or even discuss issues that might come. The members of the users group can provide help for each.

In addition to meeting others in the community, there are additional benefits available to members in a user group. Members that understand these benefits or see the value in them are going to be more engaged as part of the community. Demonstrating the value of these benefits are going to attract new members and continue to grow the group.

There are obvious reasons for growing the membership. One is to be able to represent a large diversified group and voice back to the vendor. Second is the opportunity with partner vendors that compliment this space for support and additional resources to help grow the community. Different vendor involvement can support different events and parts of conferences. The growth of the membership allows for growth of partners and provides even better feedback and resource to the main vendor and reason for having the user group.

Outreach to the community is important to let them know about the user group. But just like developing an overall strategy for the purpose of the group, membership should be considered. Membership types, options, and value are important to define. This is also an area that requires several resources and it is a decision that will set the basis for the present and future of membership for the user group. As we continue to look at the membership for the user group we will look at each of these areas in more details starting with the value that comes with membership and different types of membership.

Providing Value to Members

The benefit list has to contain items that are going to be important to the user. There are so many choices out there demanding our attention. Even with all of the resources that we have available to us at work and on the Internet, it might be challenging to provide something different or to add value. But if you think about what was just said about all of the resources, the time to go through them and weed through some of the good and bad, having a consolidated or trusted source of information is going to be extremely valuable.

Activities, information, events, networking, and education all are areas that add value to members’ involvement as they join the community. There are also interactions with the vendor that will add value for the member that we will talk about later in this chapter. As you can see from these areas, they are nothing new what we already have been discussing from strategy to member and volunteer activities. There might be discounts available to different events and possibly including vendor events. Discounts have a real value that could be associated with it, but some of the other types of benefits have value they might be more subjective.

Publications are another member benefit, whether it be an ebook, newsletter, or actual paper copy of the book. With an active volunteer group it is possible to gather articles and provide outstanding details for the members. These type of publications are normally a highly rated membership value. Journals, tips and tricks, and newsletters are not only a great way to service members but also to promote the value of the user group.

Membership Types

These are the actual benefits to offer the members, but we also need to look at possible membership types, because these different levels of access. Offering a simple across the board membership might be the easiest way to manage, but there are companies that will be willing to sign up more members if they see how the company can grow from the knowledge that the community is providing. There might also be people investigating what the community is a how they can be a part of that. There are also so many free areas on the Web; if potential members are already customers, then it is possible that the vendor might be offering something as well. This is an area that needs to be researched and discover what is already out there and the normal cost to belong to these groups.

Part of the reason the discussion about the value came first before actually discussing the types of membership, it is important to show what a membership is worth. Knowing the worth doesn’t mean that is the cost of a membership, but it needs to be compared and examined to determine a cost or how to promote what the group member brings and the cost from the membership. Giving membership a value even if allowing people to join for free will show some of what is needed to support the different efforts of the group. It also gives sponsors an opportunity to see what value is considered. Table 5-1 shows examples of the membership options and different levels that might be offered.

Table 5-1 does not include free or a minimum online options; these are also possibilities. A free membership might allow for quick startup of a user group, but it is difficult to pull back from something that was offered for free and then charge for it. Again that is where the membership value is important; perhaps it would be better to offer an initial discounted membership. There are times where joining the community without any charge makes sense. Research in this area will provide insight, but it might be that the community is not used to being charged. It might also be other resources out there that don’t require anything to join. This again is a way to either show the value of the membership or fit into what is expected for the community.

Feedback from members can be obtained through membership surveys or focus groups. There is additional information that can be asked of the membership during surveys.

Feedback can be gathered in a few ways:

• Membership Surveys
• Focus Groups
• Quick Polls
• One-on-One Discussions

Membership surveys should have specific questions regarding benefits and future plans. There should be separate surveys from the ones used for conferences or other events. For this reason, membership surveys should not be done every year and should be used sparingly. Too many surveys would probably not get the full response back as needed or might limit responses on future surveys.

Focus groups can take a smaller group of the membership and get direct feedback on certain activities. Another advantage of a focus group could be to actually hold a brainstorming session to get new ideas to filter through to the board and other volunteers. Because of this type of feedback, previous activities can also be discussed with more detail of what they did or did not like and provide why, which is difficult to do in a survey.

Quick polls might be something to on the website or at the end of a webinar to gauge interest in a topic. This is something that is very short and will not require much effort on the person responding, and in an easy place that it will not take too much effort to compile results. You cannot get a lot of information this way for obvious reasons but to get a quick idea this works out well. One-on-one discussions can happen at an event or conference. This again is another great opportunity to get the valuable feedback.

The user group grows with members and the community needs to provide the value back to the members. There are limited resources to support the different activities of the community and membership dues can help cover some of these costs but people resources might need to be prioritized to meet the needs of the user group and members.

More Satisfied Customers

Members of the user group are more satisfied customers and tend to serve as references or using additional products from that vendor. How does it get that way? Is this more important to members or vendors? The reason that members of the user group are more satisfied is because they belong to the community, and volunteering gives even more of a connection to the vendor and the user group.

Vendor support of the community is important, and vendors do get benefit by having more satisfied customers. It will allow the user group community to learn directly from those who set the product direction. With user group conferences, vendor presentations provide more than just documentation and also contact information with the presentations.

Even with a good customer support, there are other products, other data, and other influences, so a user group has others in similar situations. It is not always just about the one vendor; the community then provides the insight on how it all works together. Being able to use the product to its full potential in the mixed environment is going to make members more satisfied.

It is possible that the service from vendor may or may not be the best customer service, but that doesn’t matter as much if you are part of the user group. Of course, you are hoping to have a more complete experience from the vendor, but with user group support, it does make up for some of the areas that might be lacking. Because of the network, other information that is provided and troubleshooting help might be available from other avenues. Sometimes if the customer support is not what is needed, as a user community a voice can be sent back and suggestions can be made to help improve the support. Community responses and troubleshooting steps can help out and be a value part of the support. This is not saying that the user group has been formed because of the customer support, but there have been groups formed on a simple purpose to help improved this, especially if the vendor has a product that is far above or needed to meet a specific niche. User group involvement can either provide more details from the vendor or help the vendor in the support areas.

There have been vendor surveys that state the customers that are part of the user group are more satisfied. A simple thought of why this is, being part of the community, you realize you are not alone. The resources and others attempting to perform the same configuration, changes, setup provide the needed support outside of the regular vendor support.

Opportunities to Learn

Learning doesn’t stop along with the opportunities to grow. There are going to be different ways to learn, and members are going to be expecting that.

Members are joining the user group for research and understanding of the product. They want to see how something is working for others and want to take advantage of that knowledge from others to gain the same experience. Since they are joining the group to learn, the membership surveys really help out what the most need is. This can provide some targeted education, maybe a series of webinars or articles.

There are a couple of things that the members start to find out when looking for growth and learning. For example, volunteering for the user group is actually a way to start learning faster and gain access to member and vendor experts. Volunteering is really a way to be more committed and connected to the vendor and products. Members are looking for that trusted source to learn from along with the different learning opportunities to participate in like conferences and events. The user group will definitely be providing information and presentations in addition to the vendor products. It comes from real firsthand experience. Critical thinking as part of the leadership skills is vital as well. Whether in IT or a business, role-thinking through problems and trying to analyze the situation would be a key skill to continue to develop. Education about the vendor and the focus of the user group along with the other areas that are important create additional value. The members will benefit from the great education and other offerings of the community.

Voice to Vendor

Interaction among the vendor, community experts, vendor representative, and product managers provides great benefits to the user group. Membership in the community allows for a bigger voice to the vendor. This might even be perceived by the vendor as a benefit to them, because the feedback is important.

In technology groups the members have a list of items they would like to see as enhancements and features. The vendor would definitely be interested in hearing about this. There are opportunities to show how the products are being used and what else is being required to provide what the company needs.

In user group forums details can be provided about new features and enhancements. Example use cases and why a feature is being requested is the supporting details that are needed to give them As members of the user group, these forum groups are available for their participation. The forum can pull together the top requests and consolidate the details that community would like to see. This gives one clear voice for these enhancements and features from the user group to the vendor.

The user group can offer a couple of options for gathering enhancements. A forum can include a couple of selected members that want to be part of the group. A representative volunteer can communicate back to the vendor or the vendor might want to attend the sessions hear the responses. The vendor might even have a way to submit enhancement requests, and that can be encouraged by the leadership to the members. Reminders or pulling together these requests to submit in the vendor provided method could be a task of the user group. The members also get the advantage to know what recommendations might have been gathered and made to see the support of the vendor.

Advisory councils are another way to provide this direct feedback to the vendor. If the vendor participates in the discussion forums that is close to how an advisory councils can work. Members can be recommended by the user group to contribute at the advisory councils. The advisory councils normally start from the vendor and are vendor driven. They might have a specific focus or want to vet a particular feature. Using the members of the user group, the leaders can help if there is a group that needed for a specific area. They can also make members aware of the councils and how to work with the vendor.

Advisory councils could be invited to have a session at the user group conference or event for easier access to members. There are formal issues concerning nondisclosure agreements that will have to be handled by the members but again the user group can either select members or drive awareness for the this opportunity. This type of feedback is so valuable to the vendors and the members become even more involved in the product and feel they have the ear of the vendor to supply them what they need.

Membership surveys are ways to research what they members want to hear about, and they can also provide information to the vendor. If taking a membership survey for the user group, this information can be used for a voice back to the vendor from the community. Outreach to the vendor can even be done first to see if there is something that they really want to hear about in order to include that with the survey. Vendors might also create a survey to poll the community for details that they want to hear about. These might be questions about the product or current projects. Just like with any survey of the membership, it should be limited as not to continually disturbing them and asking for their information. If the vendor is asking for the survey, the best way to have it to come directly from the user group and then the results can also be used for the user group activity planning.

Again for technology user groups, the products coming out from the vendor even going through quality control there are use cases that members have that are different. These different use cases are perfect for beta testing of new products or new releases. The vendor does carefully select those involved in beta testing, and it is not always easy to be included. They do come to the volunteers of the user community and the experts of the community. This is ideal membership feedback. Either the volunteers can gather member use cases or they find some members that might have the edge cases to add the value to the beta testing.

The community might have a call to see which members would be interested in the beta testing. As a member the beta testing allows the preview of the newest and latest features, providing that step ahead of others. Using the beta testing as almost a proof of concept to get ready for the new version can allow for earlier planning of upgrades and migrations. The variety of members provide a more complete beta testing and the members benefit too. Just like the advisory council and learning new products and discussing potential confidential information, there will need to be agreements in place for the vendor so help might be needed to make sure that the member is providing this instead of it being placed on the user group, but with those agreements in place definitely a good experience for members and vendors to learn from each other and improve products.

Beta testing is important to be able to catch all of the edge cases and see what situations that the product might be stretched out of its initial scope. I have seen this in a couple of the beta testing areas, that something was done that was completely unexpected. This provided extremely value details as to what the user did and why they did what they did. Once that was understood, the situation can be corrected either with proper documentation and education or fixes to allow for that or to prevent it from happening. The fixes from the vendor perspective is going to save them a ton of support calls, all from bringing in people that are glad to be part of the community and involved in the testing.

Member to Volunteer

Some of these opportunities we have discussed are with volunteers and that you would need to be a volunteer to participate in the activity. Even though volunteers are members of the community, they have already taken an extra step to be more involved. Volunteers are active members of the community, and they are great candidates for any of the activities with advisory councils and beta testing. They are even going to find that they are going to be happier with the product because they are aware of the direction and with the council and possible beta testing have helped and shaped the products.

Once a member does decide to participate in something like beta testing they are now have been hooked as a volunteer. This might be the one activity and there might be future ways to engage them to keep them more involved. That is going be important for a more engaged community, and that is actually having more people to step and volunteer and have that deeper connection to the user group. The feedback to the vendor has been an easy area to get more involved in because normally everyone can find something they would like to tell the vendor about and let them know what they wished the product could do.

Communication with members is important to include them in the activities or at least to let them know about the current activities and tasks. As they begin to find the areas that are of most interest to them there will be members that will continue on their own to volunteer and start to get more involved. But there also needs to be additional correspondence with the members to promote the involvement and the full benefits of volunteering. They might feel time constraints or not able to contribute, and further details about membership access to the vendor to tie it in with a volunteer opportunity they will start to experience it.

Sometimes it is just difficult to build a community and have members join, and we will be discussing the challenges in the next chapter, but for user to be connected to the community this next step of owning a small piece by volunteering is essential. Membership communication is so important and as the member understands what is happening in the user group it will be easier to include them in these activities. Soon they will be sending out information to others how they participated in the different events, councils and discussion forums.

Summary

The community will not be much without members. In creating a user group, it is essential to have others who want to be involved in the user group. As more members start to participate, the energy and excitement will be experienced in the user group. The activities will have good participation, and communication with the membership will be easy to let them know what is happening with the community.

User group members are looking for reasons to join the community; activities, events, and educational opportunities are the main reasons to join. Education should be user-driven to provide the experiences from others. When starting out this might be difficult to have those volunteers ready to go and start presenting.

Members are looking for more ways to learn and understand the real implementations and uses from other users. Providing education and other ways to learn is going to draw members to the user group. Along with a bigger voice back to the vendor for new features and enhancements, there are ways to be involved in feedback to the vendor. With these opportunities, members of the user group are normally more satisfied customers because they have participated in the product development and have a community to reach out to for extra support.