Weekly Wonder: Announcing Your CUG Meetings

[#1]

Hi CUG members!

Welcome back to our Weekly Wonder series! We’re thrilled to see the enthusiasm and engagement from our community.

This week, we have another great question to explore together:

"What is the best way to announce your Company User Group meetings to maximize attendance?"

Effective communication is key to ensuring good attendance and engagement at your meetings. Here are some suggestions to help you spread the word:

• Announce at Least Two Weeks Early: Give your members ample time to plan their schedules. A two-week notice allows everyone to mark their calendars and ensures that your meeting is on their radar.
  • Pro Tip: Test which days of the week work best for your users to find the best date/time to increase attendance.
• Use Your User Distribution List: Leverage your existing communication channels by sending an email to your user distribution list. This ensures that the announcement reaches all users, including those who may not frequently check team collaboration tools.
• Add a Banner to Your Confluence Instance: Consider adding a banner or announcement to your Confluence instance at least a week before your meeting. This serves as a visual reminder for users who visit the platform regularly.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences! How do you announce your meetings? Do you have any additional tips or strategies that have worked well for your group?

Share your insights in the comments below! Let's continue to build a vibrant community through our shared knowledge and experiences. And remember, you can submit your questions for future Weekly Wonder posts here!

[Andy Gladstone]

While everything in our organization is documented in Confluence, conversation takes place in Slack. We have a dedicated Confluence user group channel where we announce the dates of meetings/trainings along with the agenda - which is produced in a Confluence page! This allows potential attendees to know the time and date and whether the content being presented (or the presenter) is worth their time away from their desks/work. 

[Jimmy Seddon]

Thanks @Chris Shernaman!  This is fantastic information and I wish I had seen this a month ago when we were preparing for our first event.  We decided on our own to use option #1 & 2 for our second event and the response has been much better.  I'll let you know how the actual event goes.

Also, as an FYI the submission link at the bottom is showing a permission denied error.

[Chris Shernaman]

Hey @Jimmy Seddon if you haven't checked out the Meeting Planning Template in the All-in-One Kit yet. It contains information and recommendations on sending out invites. I'm excited you're using both options #1 and #2 for your next meeting—it sounds like a great plan!

However, I did notice we need to include information about when to send a reminder. After you've sent your meeting invite, send out a reminder 4-6 days before the meeting. It's a small task, but it will help increase the number of attendees compared to registrants!

Thank you for letting me know about the survey permission error. I'm happy to share that it has been resolved and is now accessible to everyone.

[Scott Boisvert]

For our first CUG meeting we took an Organizational Change Management approach, by reaching out to one of C-Level Executives to sponsor the CUG. Having someone higher up in the organization that supports an idea or initiative goes a long way in gathering support from the organization. Our CIO stepped up by sending out the initial E-Mail (that we crafted for him) to the entire enterprise where we introduced at a high-level what the CUG was, what our expectations were and the agenda. The CIO's e-mail also included an invitation to all to sign up for the CUG.

While we didn't ask, our CIO also attended the CUG showing his support of the group at the beginning by thanking us for setting the meeting up. As well as being interactive, asking questions, during the meeting.

Having an active sponsor for your CUG can bring in many more attendees. Our first CUG had over 120 signups with 75+ in attendance both in person and on-line. Of the folks that did not attend, we had several ask us for a recording.

To Summarize:

• Get an executive sponsor (one that really supports the effort).
• Have your sponsor send the invitation.
  • Invitation should include an agenda.
• Offer both in person and virtual attendance options.