Doc Speaking:
As many of you know, I have been
aggressively motivating myself and others to learn something about the
new "social networking" technologies that are so dynamically
changing the Internet as we know it. As computer groups,
businesses, and non-profits all being adversely affected by our economy,
it becomes imperative to find find cheaper and easier ways to connect
with volunteers, donors, members, buyers, etc. to survive.
We are bringing together what is,
essentially, a boot camp of several key technologies that you should, at
the very least, have some familiarity with. <-- what a
horrible sentence, but read it again slowly <grin>
And it's all happening in our backyard!
Registration links are included at the bottom of this page, but for now,
lookie, lookie:
The FACUG Spring Conference is coming to
Zephyrhills, Florida on March 13, 14, & 15
by Hewie Poplock & Dave Dockery
The 16th annual spring conference of
the Florida Association of Computer User Groups, Inc. (FACUG)
will be held Friday March 13 through Sunday March 15, 2009 in
Zephyrhills , Florida. This year's event is expanding and partnering
with the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG) as
a regional conference and is open to the public as well - all interested
are invited. This is a great opportunity for members of user
groups, non-profit organizations, or businesses to jumpstart their
familiarity with many of the exciting (and money-saving) opportunities
dynamically shaping the Internet.
The theme of the conference is
"How to educate & help computer users through our user groups about
convergence, communication, and collaboration." We wanted to share
some of the presentation topics for this exciting event.
BarCamp experience and
Unconferences - Barcamps are loosely arranged "unconferences" where
speakers are decided at the last minute and attendance is free.
Anyone who wishes to speak puts themselves on the schedule -- it's very
informal and community driven. Peter Radizeski is one of
the major forces of the Tampa BarCamp and will discuss how they work and
how your groups can participate or create your own unconference.
Business, Education, & Non-Profit
In Virtual Worlds - Elizabeth Stenger, well-known in
Second Life will give a background of this and other Virtual worlds.
She will show how they are used in education, for non-profits, and how
they might be used for your group. Liz will demonstrate getting
started in Second Life and creating your own avatar (personality). This
should be an eye-opening session.
Cloud Computing is one of the
new buzz words. Many companies like Microsoft and Google are making
programs available online instead of installing them on your computer.
You can share documents and even collaborate in their formation and
editing without passing them around. You don’t need lots of versions
floating around between members of your group. Robert Dempsey
is a leader in web development and will tell us what exactly cloud
computing is, what's available, what are the pros and cons.
doterati & its Florida initiative
- This is an organization that’s all about you and what you do in the
interactive media, marketing, and technology arena. doterati is all
about building community, consensus, and camaraderie among like-minded
individuals and groups. Tara Lamberson is the President of
doterati and will speak about this new and growing group. In this age
when many user groups are shrinking, we have a new and innovative group
that is filling needs of the technology users, professionals, and
innovators. Come listen to Tara tell of doterati’s approach.
Editing & Storing Photos Online
for Free - Come and hear Stan Ashbrook explain how to
organize, tweak, create, e-mail, display, and store their digital photos
on-line. This is a good example of how Cloud Computing is used. This
session will save you lots of time and money, and make it easy to share
your photos.
How to Increase Membership,
Interest, and Speakers in your User Group - Jeff Robins and Sam
Wexler, two members of FACUG’s Board of Directors and leaders of two
very successful user groups in south Florida will discuss several proven
ways to increase membership, interest in your group, and how to get
speakers for your meetings.
Implementing CMS (Content
Management System) using Drupal - Cheryl Wilson, FACUG’s award
winning web mistress, will present a way to manage your group’s website
with a new content management system, Drupal. She will walk us through
installing the program and show how easy it is to get it up and running.
Using Drupal, which is a free software package that allows an individual
or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide
variety of content on a website. Sites developed with this system will
also provide a great opportunity for communication between its members.
Social Networking for Computer
User Groups - Mike Ungerman, a long time computer user group
leader and first president of FACUG, will demonstrate NING, a
free social networking application that establishes individual social
networks for any group which can be public, semi-public, or 100%
private. Mike will show how he and Hewie Poplock developed the
Windows Special Interest Group (SIG) NING website to be able to have an
announcement and discussion area that is much like our meetings, but
available 24/7. Mike also started a private NING site for a class
reunion and doterati uses NING for its site. You will learn how easy you
can set up this means for communications for your group.
Print vs. Online Newsletters
- Many groups are struggling to decide if they should abandon the costs
and efforts needed for a printed newsletter in lieu of an Acrobat and
on-line version only. Jeremy Hilton, MindComet's Vice President
of Media and Technology, will provide a unique perspective into solving
this dilemma and how to create email newsletters.
Remote Presentations - The
ability to use remote presentations opens a new door for user group
meetings. In this day when companies cannot pay the expenses to send
speakers to your meetings, they are willing to provide presentations
from their offices or homes remotely. Don Singleton is a longtime
leader of the Tulsa (OK) Computer Society and APCUG. He will
demonstrate from Tulsa how to do a remote presentation.
Social Media: Creating better
Communications within your Group - One of the most interesting and
knowledgeable people whom I have met recently is Mark Krupinski.
When I talk with him, he just disseminates so much information about so
many different ways of communicating through websites. We are
lucky to have him speak about the general area of social media and the
many ways organizations can use and misuse it. Mark is both Community
Manager for Rasmussen, Inc. and Vice President-elect of doterati.
Twitter - A Tool Your Club May
Find Useful - Chuck Vroman has been a speaker at several
FACUG conferences and a longtime member of the Tampa Bay Computer
Society. He will discuss one of the most popular forms of social media,
Twitter. New in 2006, Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging
service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates
(known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in
length. If you watch CNN or your local newscasts, your announcer
will talk about their Tweets. Once you become familiar with this way of
communications, you will see how widely used that it is. Chuck will talk
about Twitter from the beginner’s perspective. You will see how easy it
is to use and how many people use it to communicate information.
Wikis - A Powerful Collaboration
Tool for your Kit - FACUG’s and Tampa Bay Computer Society’s
“Doc” (Dave Dockery) will talk about Wikis and how our groups can
use them. A Wiki is a webpage that is created and maintained by a the
users of that page. Wikis are free and don't require special
software - editing is done through your browser. What a simple and
elegant solution to group collaboration!
Several conference sponsors will also be presenting
sessions, and participating in a vendor fair on Sunday. New
sponsors are being added, but confirmed as of this writing are
Microsoft, Steganos, Techbargains.com, ai Squared, Magix, Smart
Computing Magazine, and Rebit.com.
Pricing, registration, & hotel accommodations:
http://facug.org/ConferenceSpring/conference-s-Reg.asp
$75 per person if you are NOT a member of a
FACUG user group
$65 per person if you are a member of a FACUG user group (TBCS IS
a FACUG Member)
The price includes Saturday & Sunday meals.
You're on your own tab if you choose to go to the Friday night dinner at
Luptons.
Doc (Dave Dockery) will be the keynote speaker at the
Friday night dinner.
