As the new year begins, many of us start to look at ways we can approach 2008 with a renewed sense of commitment, focus and priority. We look at how we can improve aspects of our life, while still maintaining existing progress and direction in other areas. INETA is no different. We are excited to be approaching 2008 with a vision and agenda to deliver more value and benefits to our growing membership while still continuing to offer the same positive experience with our existing successful programs.

One major improvement we plan to introduce in 2008 is the coordination of virtual speaker events. INETA has been providing in person Speaker Events directly to our membership for a number of years. Our Speakers Bureau represents one of the greatest benefits of being an INETA member user group. However due to the logistics and costs associated with coordinating these in person events, there is a limit to the number that we can conduct each month. In addition, there are limits to the number of community members that are able to view specific speaker events due to location and geographic limitations. So this year, in addition to continuing all our existing activities with the INETA NorAm Speakers Bureau, we are expanding our services to include Virtual Speaker events. These events will allow user groups to watch a larger number of INETA Speakers Bureau events online. This initiative increases our ability to deliver great content from fantastic speakers to our members.

We hope to conduct 2 pilot presentations before the end of January 2008. These pilots will be to limited audiences to facilitate the collection of feedback and suggestions for the launch of the final program. If you are interested in participating, please feel free to contact me directly via email at amanda.murphy@ineta.org.

As we continue the process of building up our services and programs to support our growing community, we are continuously looking for new team members to help us in our various endeavors. Understanding that availability for volunteer work may vary amongst many of you, we appreciate all levels of involvement. For some this might include a permanent role in one of our teams such as Marketing, Technology or Community Activities. For others, it may be writing a short article for our newsletter or website covering an important topic or exciting event in your area. To learn more about how you can get involved with our various divisions, teams and programs, please email noram.volunteers@ineta.org. We would love to hear from you!

Amanda Murphy
President, INETA NorAm
amanda.murphy@ineta.org
St. John's .NET User Group
INETA - The Face of .NET

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Marketing and Communications 

The INETA NorAm Board of Directors has an opening for an individual focusing on marketing and communications for the organization. General responsibilities will include:

• Develop and maintain short and long term strategic plans for marketing.
• Develop and monitor annual budgets for marketing projects.
• Oversee volunteers working on marketing projects.
• Work with the Sponsorship Director to coordinate marketing efforts with relation to INETA sponsors.
• Develop and maintain short and long term strategic plans for communications.
• Develop and monitor annual budgets for communication projects.
• Serve as a Board member fulfilling general duties for strategic planning and running of the corporation.

A detailed job description can be obtained upon request from noram.secretary@ineta.org.

General commitment is around 15-20 hours/month including regular bi-weekly Board conference calls and two expense-paid in-person weekend meetings per year.

Nominations must be submitted by any INETA user group leader or current Board member. Nominations should include the individual's name, email address, phone number, description of why the individual is qualified for the position, as well as any supporting materials. Send nominations to noram.secretary@ineta.org no later than 12:00 EDT Monday 2/4/2008. Canditates will then be interviewed by Board members and an election held on Monday, 2/18/2008 with all candidates being notified of the outcome shortly thereafter.

Please direct any questions to noram.secretary@ineta.org.

We spend a lot of time working on our user groups; finding speakers, searching for sponsors, writing newsletters, maintaining websites and handling inquiries take a lot of effort. The result of all of this work are smoothly run - and hopefully well attended - meetings. Your regulars see this, but how do you get the word out to others? We typically advertise ourselves by putting together a basic website - and then stop. Planning a web marketing strategy is a lot of work and may be prohibitive if you don't have a lot of support from your membership. But before you stop reading, let's consider why you would want to go through the effort.

• It is imperative that you find the next class of leaders for your group. You can't continue as leader forever and nor should you. New blood brings new ideas and new energy.
• Building on that last point (and at the risk of sounding like a cliche), the web is an incredibly efficient and effective advertising engine. There's an excellent chance you're next class of leaders will find out about you via your website. More people finding you should result in higher attendance and more potential leaders.
• Potential leaders and members aren't the only ones looking for you. Sponsors are also looking for a way to spread the word. Again, higher visibility only increases the chances of potential sponsors finding you and subsequently turning that potential into a sponsor.

That list is short, but compelling: more people, more money, new leaders. This still doesn't address how you are going to find the time to do it. This is the time to start delegating. If you're anything like me, I look for people who may be interested in leadership roles and this may be the perfect time to approach one of them. It's helpful if they already understand web marketing strategies, but certainly not necessary. This certainly can be treated as another avenue for learning.

Here's a few websites that may interest you if you're just getting started:

• Bruce Clay, Inc
• Search Engine watch
• Beginner's Guide to Search Engine Optimization

CHANGE seems to be a very highly used word this year. Not just in the political spectrum here in the United States but also for us on the Marketing team as we lay down our resolutions for the New Year and eagerly await our next exalted leader, a new Marketing VP whose name may already be in the nominating lists submitted so far. Some of us, as user group leaders like you, are also looking at changes that we hope to implement be it growing our user groups, upgrading our web sites, getting more sponsors or resolving to really use the INETA Speaker's program and get that superstar speaker for our Summer DOT NET B-B-Q day. But even though it seems like we have lots to do for our own groups, we know we still have enough gumption to give back to this organization that has made it easier for us to learn and enjoy the infinite possibilities that little framework Microsoft put together for us back in 2001.

Speaking of gumption, we are still on the lookout for those with the "gumption" to volunteer in helping out INETA and perhaps the Marketing department as we tackle a number of exciting projects. In a Nutshell, the Marketing team "gets the word out" and in doing so we work with just about every group in the organization including our most generous sponsors and hard working membership. What better way to meet new people and get new ideas for our own endeavors?

Anyway, we hope you find this month's articles useful and remember that you can get in touch with the authors. If you want to know more just write to us at newsletter@ineta.org with any ideas or feedback. We have resolved to love hearing from you... and that was the easiest resolution to make this year!

Ralph Rivas
Asst VP of Marketing, INETA NorAm
noram.marketing@ineta.org
Dot Net Basement Club, Northern Illinois Chapter
INETA - The Face of .NET