Growing Your Technology User Group

User groups are an essential and flourishing part of the tech community, but it's common for them to encounter obstacles to meeting regularly. This talk will be filled with practical tips for keeping a user group growing and active.

I'll begin with advice for those staring a new user group, and cover many of the common obstacles groups face. But don't stress! Solutions to each potential difficulty will be addressed.

Topics this talk will cover include:
- Starting new groups
- Finding a venue
- Sourcing a steady stream of speakers
- Sponsoring food and drink
- Becoming more visible
- Tips for an inclusive user group

These tips are based on finding creative workarounds to obstacles encountered by over 50 user groups while remotely running Puppet Labs' Puppet User Group (PUG) program, and running the Portland Puppet User Group.

This is a good talk for people currently running a user group, people considering starting a user group, user group members looking for more ways to help contribute to the group's success, and anyone else intrigued by the topic.

The talk will run for 45 minutes, and the final 15 minutes will be for both questions, and for anyone in the audience to share additional advice with the group based on their experiences.