Progress UK Presidents meeting, part two

From: Doug Lucy

Date: 5 Oct 1998

It's been a long weekend. The following is my "detailed" notes from
memory about what transpired at the Progress European PUG President's
meeting. Please keep in mind that my memory for names is horrible.
I'd like to thank Steve Blow and Ester Westerweele for getting me to
the meeting and apologize now to whoever for misspelling their names.

Progress Software, Ltd. (PSC's European entity) or Progress Benelux
(Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) sponsors a semi-annual meeting of
the presidents of PUG's throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Progress gathers them together for general discussion on what they're
doing, how Progress can help, planning for the future, etc.

Progress asked whether or not the speakers program was working well
for the PUG's. Ester said the budget allocated for delivering speakers
to the PUG's had not been depleted yet and was wondering if everyone
was hosting speakers as often as they liked.

She had also completed translating all the PUG info/membership pamphlets
she had received and they were to be available at the User Group booth
on the following two days.

The User Group booth was manned by both Ester and volunteers from the
various groups. They had a bit of trouble with the PC and it's Internet
access, but it was working shortly after the show started and the PUG's
could demonstrate their websites.

The Progress UK PUG literally released their new website on the first
day of the show.

A good number of European PUG's now have a web presence. The purpose of
my presentation was to explain what VAPUG & Allegro had developed to assist
the various PUG's and their website efforts. I described the current and
planned functions as well as explained how any PUG could use them, use the
webspeed.acclltd.com server, or simply request a copy of the source code.

Also at the meeting, Alan ???, a Progress UK VP, attended and
spoke to the presidents. He gave us a heads up about the fundamental
change from Progress regarding AP/VAR's now been referred to as ISV's
and encouraged us to keep our ears open during the conference for the
subtle changes coming.

The South African presidents asked Alan when they could expect a Progress
presence in South Africa, other than the distributor who currently holds
the exclusive rights to Progress in that region. Alan said "Don't expect
that to change".

During the expo, the booth was visited by end users, but the most interesting
visitors were the other PUG admins. Everyone wanted to show or see something
on the web. There are quite a few good web functions out there for PUG's
in the UK/EMEA.

Progress was handing out free protfolio bags, filled with PUG membership
applications, the two latest issues of the (very nice) PUG UK newsletter,
and various event announcements and schedules.

Mike Mitsock, the former (and maybe current?) "boss" for the Progress
USA user group liason, was at the conference. I spoke to him briefly and
we tried to find Bob Conners. Bob is the new user group liason for the
US, but I did not reach him and therefore could not discuss any user
group issues.

Charlie and I have discussed a presidents meeting at the Atlanta conference.
I think we all agree having these meetings at general events is a good idea
and perhaps one way to perpetuate this forum and it's goals. Those of you who
will be in Atlanta, stop by the User Group or Allegro booths and ask about
where and when the meeting will be held.

I think we should:

+ Tell PSC exactly what we need from them

  Sponsor us getting together regularly
  Get those salesmen to the PUG meetings
  Help us out with promo materials (trinkets like pens or mugs and contest
    give-awys like single seat copies of Apptivity or ProVision)
  Get the PUG list right on the PSC pages or point it to PUG Central's list
  Make sure the user group liason is responsive to the PUG's
  Get back to releasing the known customer list (with NDA, of course) to PUG's

+ Formally plan for semi-annual meetings of the presidents

  This really needs to include representatives from PSC

+ Build a PUG-admin site for holding documents related to PUG administration

  Templates for forming a PUG (bylaws, articles of corporation, etc.)
  Contact info for those who have done it and are willing to help others
  Newsletter articles from other PUG's that can be used
  Contact info for companies interested in advertising or presenting

My brain is still muddled from the time zone change and an early return
to the States. Jump right in with comments, please.


-----
Doug Lucy, President, Allegro Consultants, LTD.  http://www.aclltd.com
f302070b-ddd3-8ea8-de11-5903b9f0dbbc             (703) 642-6166 office, (703) 642-6085 fax
*** Progress Experts for Virginia, Wash D.C., Maryland and Georgia ***