startup

[Cliff]

Good day all,

 

I had intended to send this out tomorrow, as the beginning of the month just "feels" right, but then I realized that with tomorrow being April Fools Day, a lot of emails will get ignored. So today it is.

 

As some of you may recall, I had floated the idea last year of starting a new group for IT Pros to gather, discuss topics of interest, and tap into the resources that vendors make available to such groups to the benefit of everyone. There seems to be a need for such a group as the Linux group is not necessarily IT focused and the various other groups don't necessarily share that appeal either. There are plenty of folks out there that work primarily in MS shops, or for a variety of other reasons have found that the existing tech-savvy groups don't fit their needs well enough to dedicate time to them.

 

When I brought this up last year, there was definitely some interest, but I had enough projects on my plate that I couldn't justify the time to spearhead the project back then, and nobody else with interest seemed willing to take up the banner either. So, 9 months later, I have successfully gotten my technical writing and speaking engagements a little more manageable, have been able to better balance my other workloads, and would again like to revisit the subject.

 

For starters, I'd like to put out the call to anybody with interest and *time* to help me organize a leadership committee. I believe the success of an IT group will be very dependent on making sure the content is professionally driven so that people attending feel like their time is valuable. This, of course, needs to be balanced with the social aspects of any user-group...but if it were simply socially driven, one of the other groups would suffice.

 

The leadership team can meet, discuss organization, potential content for the first few meetings, website setup, and, of course, promoting the group to people not necessarily on any of these existing mailing lists. Ideally, I'd like to have a system in place for a first public meeting in July, giving three months to plan and organize.

 

If you'd be interested in participating in the planning stages of this new effort, please write back and let me know. Once I have a list of interested people, we can set up an initial discussion to try and align various interests and goals then devise a more solid gameplan.

 

Thanks for your time,

 

-Cliff Galiher

 

[Dan Bowling]

Cliff,

I have tried to work towards similar goals as well, but a single individual can only sustain these initiatives for so long. If you're willing to commit, I too will commit my time to stand beside you and get something off the ground.

Dan

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[Nathan Stephens]

I'd love to support something like this.

~N

Nathan Stephens |  Co-Founder
Montana Web Designers & Developers Association
http://www.MTWDA.org
Office: 406.322.2983 (must dial 1)
Home: 406.531.6699
Fax: 866.317.0801
PO Box 8225
Missoula, MT 59807

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Cliff <cgal...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Michael Loftis]

I could possibly devote some time to this as well now that things have/are settling down a bit for me.  If a core group is interested and commits time and it's made known that it is out there it can certainly work out.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Cliff <cgal...@gmail.com> wrote:

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