Greg Knadson organized and lead a session on drupal user groups, I joined him in facilitating the session, and these are my rough notes from the session.
* about a 3rd of people fit into each category (organized a dug, attended a dug, never been to one)
Some numbers:
* san paulo dug: 5 people
* hague dug: 10
* paris: one that was small
* close to madrid: 3
Marketing
* search for drupal and your local community. find users in your local area
* advertise
o groups.drupal.org
o meetup.com
o craigslist.org
o local sites
o universities
o computer user email lists
* specific agenda/presentation
* working with an existing association that had a newsletter and a network
Goal of the drupal user group
* provide people who are familiar with drupal an opportunity to help each other
o build the community
* evangelism: spread the word
* find work
Audience
* commercial users
* newbies
* hobbiests
Event Content
* informal get together
* formal content
o bug fix party
o introductions, lighting talks
o tutorials
o site reviews
+ High value to flashy sites and basic ones too
o
Q & A
o Localization Sprints
* CMS Comparison
Drupal Camps
* usually more advanced
Time and Space
* Venue
o Donated space
o Community Centers – paid
* Time
o work hours?
o non work hours?
o weekends / weekdays
problems
* Develop and share presentation materials
* marketing materials
o brochures
o buttons
o shirts
* coopetition: loose a bid and then help the winner next week at drupalcon
* credibility: non profit credentials
* groups.drupal.org improvements: signup, wiki diff
Support
* Buttons
* brochures
* nicely designed poster template
drupal.org/project/s5 module for creating presentations Basically this module turns a drupal book into something like a powerpoint presentation.
Free book “Drupal Pro Development” from A Press if you agree to review it.