“So academic clubs aren’t the same as other types of clubs,” says Claire Standish in one of my favorite vestiges of late adolescence, The Breakfast Club. Claire was trying hard to draw a line between Brian’s nerdy physics club and the clubs she and her cool clique participated in. We all know where Claire belonged in the brutal high school food chain.

Thankfully we are out of high school (seriously, I’m so glad that’s over) so can participate in clubs that align with our interests without worrying about social cred. User groups are somewhere between “academic”–ok, not in the purest sense–and social. They bring together people who use a specific technology, which is why it is a “user group” and not just a club. Depending on the particular focus, user groups may be very technical or they may be more business-oriented.

Most user group meetings follow this successful formula: Free food, an interesting presentation, and pertinent discussion.

At one time, Baton Rouge had a bustling SharePoint User Group (BR-SPUG). Meetings were held monthly, and speakers were sometimes local and sometimes imported from the wide worlds of Microsoft and Hitachi. Since SharePoint is a business platform often managed by IT, the user group welcomes users across the “techie” spectrum, from administrators to end users and everyone in between.

Whether you are a Claire or a Brian or neither or both, if you use SharePoint, BR-SPUG is your people.

Rogue is happy to announce that we will be sponsoring the first BR-SPUG meeting of 2016 on Thursday, June 8, in Room 102, one of the new conference rooms at the beautifully renovated Main Library on Goodwood. Dinner will be served in the reception area at 5:45, and at 6:30, Cody Gros takes the mic as the featured speaker. There will be time for Q&A following his presentation. Click here to sign up to attend.

Life is busy, so you may be wondering why it’s worth it to carve out time for a user group. It offers a different experience from reading blogs (hi!) or searching through TechNet articles. In addition to offering an opportunity to ask a living, breathing expert questions you’re eager to discuss, the social setting of a user group provides an opportunity to network and meet other Claires and Brians.  Cody will be harnessing his powers as an oracle to  present “The Future of SharePoint,” a very hot topic right now. And something more exciting than pizza will be served.

We hope you’ll join us for some tasty bites and SharePoint-related camaraderie.

Thanks for reading!

M

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