Back in the good ol' days, I met with the clients every month at the User Group Meetings. The time I spent with them during those days really made a difference in my understanding of their business and Envision's features. We usually had a pretty good time, too – donuts and discussion in the morning, lunch, and then training on the subject matter at hand. I learned as much as I taught, I’m sure of that.
We were pretty comfortable with each other, and pretty direct, too. After repeating the same quip in more than one meeting, I can recall Mark Bergthold telling me, “You say that one at every meeting!” Which was true (but I liked it – and that's what counts, right?).
I didn’t realize it then, but those meetings were more than just a group of people getting together for donuts and training. We had a tight community dedicated to improving each other’s lives. What I mean is we listened to each other’s needs and worked out a design that worked for all. We taught each other a lot, about all kinds of things. In a word, it was neat. But, around three or four years ago, I saw that community dissipating and worried that we’d never get it back.
Now that we have quite a few EnvisionConnect Prototype Review sessions under our belt, as well as EnvisionConnect WebEx-based training, it seems like old times. As an outsider looking in (I don’t run the meetings, as you well know) there seems to be the same sense of a community where people are interested in each other’s lives. That same sense of give and take that I enjoyed when I was attending the User Group Meetings seems to be alive in this group. Better yet, the group is larger and spans several states.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not advocating the abolishment of the User Group Meetings, but I couldn’t help but see the similarities between today's meetings and our User Group Meetings of the good ol' days.
In a word, neat.
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