UK TM1 User Group

[Paul Segal]

Hi All,

It's always seemed odd that there hasn't been one of these - and if Wellington can do it, I don't see why the UK can't.

Are there enough of us to make this practical? Is London near a mainline station somewhere good to to look for a venue?

Thoughts welcome.

Regards

[qml]

One thing is certain: the closer to Canary Wharf and/or the City, the more people will come.

I would suggest a venue somewhere in the general area of the Square Mile, Camden or Islington so that it's easy to get to from the eastern financial districts, but also from King's Cross / St Pancras / Euston for people travelling to/from up north.

Oh, and yes, there are enough sociable TM1 people in the UK for it to be practical (even quite a few Aussies and Kiwis, although some being deported back as we speak).

[Edward Stuart]

I'd be very interested in this, the main issue would be attaining a venue and getting someone to organise and drive it!

I have attended successful Infocat conferences in the past, perhaps they have an opinion

[AnthonyT]

To save most of the people travelling, hold it in the restaurant in HSBC, Canary Wharf

[qml]

So true.

[alexhancock]

I'd also be very interested - would be great to share war stories and ideas.

Anywhere near Bank tube would be great (good connections to the City, Canary Wharf, Central line, Waterloo etc.)

What about the Crosse Keys?

http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/home/pub ... rosse-keys

Any particular days that suit people the best?

Look forward to meeting you in the future!

[David Usherwood]

Glad to hear Edward enjoyed the Infocat jollies, and that he remembers at least the early stages of them
I was at the early stages of planning something similar. My suggestion for venue would be the Anchor Bankside
http://www.taylor-walker.co.uk/pub-food ... /pid-P0977
as it is:
a Near (enough) to London Bridge and thus accessible to C Wharf, the City, the West End etc
b Good for onwards transport esp for the Waterloo-ers.
c Old (Shakespeare/Pepys/Dr Johnson)
d Lots of rooms, and a large terrace with views of the City, and
e Decent beer
Views?

[AnthonyT]

Looks good

[qml]

Perfect location. And! has WiFi so that we can all remotely log on to our VPNs and compare the sizes (of our TM1 applications).

[Steve Rowe]

+1 from me.
Stuck in the largest emptiest building on the planet, while some other people migrate code that I'm supposed to test......

[alexhancock]

Looks good - it's a fantastic pub on nice days.

Frequency - Every 2-months or Quarterly?
Day of week - Thursday could be good?

It would be well worth talking to the wellington/sydney groups to find out what works well for them. Also could consider getting recruiters/ibm invited.

Cheers,

Alex

[Martin Ryan]

It would be well worth talking to the wellington/sydney groups to find out what works well for them. Also could consider getting recruiters/ibm invited.

Since you asked - what I like about our session is that it isn't attached to any partner or IBM itself. It allows for much franker discussion and allows users to present their systems without the suggestion that they are endorsing the partner or IBM. I think this is why partner run user groups have always been a little less popular than they might be - people are worried they're going to walk into a sales session.

James is absolutely great at co-ordinating everything and you'll more than likely need one person to stick their hand up for this role. Rule by consensus will get old and slow pretty quick.

Having a wide range of presenters is a good way of getting engagement.

We have a beginner to intermediate presentation and an advanced presentation to keep the different skill sets interested. E.g. intro to active forms and advanced feeders.

I wouldn't suggest getting recruiters involved for the same reason as avoiding an overt partner/IBM connection - people will expect a sales or contact building session. What might work, though, is getting the recruiters to advise the coordinator of roles available and the coordinator could stick that up on a slide at the end.

We've had IBM and partners at all our sessions but as invited guests, not core people. IBM graciously offered their office space (and pizza) for the first event, though we've intentionally hopped from venue to venue to make it convenient for everyone. We had an IBM presentation on 10.1 which wasn't as technical as I'd have liked, so make sure if you do get IBM presenting that you get the right person doing the right presentation. To repeat myself a fifth time, the fastest way to kill a user group is to have people feel like they're being sold stuff. IBM have done one presentation, one partner is doing a presentation at the next event, then the other partner (we only have two in NZ) at the next one. Both partners are doing technical stuff.

The networking is obviously an important point and I think having yours in a pub is a good idea. We have our meetings around midday in corporate offices, so people often chat to one person then disappear. The UK pub culture helps here too. Frequent trips to the pub for "meetings" get odd looks down here. (Reminds me of a joke I heard from an LA comic - in LA I'm a raving alcholic. In Sydney I drink a bit. In London I'm completely normal).

[Paul Segal]

Thanks Martin, very useful.

I'm prepared to take this on, at least for now.

To give everyone time to put this in diaries, how about

Venue: Anchor Bankside
Time: 6.00pm (ish)
Date: Thursday 31st May 2012

I don't know the Anchor Bankside well enough to know if we can do demonstrations or talks there, but perhaps for the first one it would be enough to discuss what we want to do for subsequent meetings, tell stories about how big our apps are, and drink beer?

[tomok]

tell stories about how big our apps are

Why tell stories? Just whip 'em out on the table and measure them....the apps that is.

[alexhancock]

I'll put it in the diary - thanks for taking this on Paul.

[TJMurphy]

This would be great. I've been a member here for ages (though posted very little), would be great to catch up with you all.

Tony