Philly User Group Conference 2008 Recap

“Loved this conference. Please have more of them!”
– Attendee, First-Ever Articulate User Group Conference in Philadelphia

Monday, September 22, 2008 marked the first-ever Articulate User Group Conference. A sold-out crowd of 200 gathered in Philadelphia at Drexel University alongside a team of 5 of us from Articulate.

The action-packed day included a sneak peek of Studio ’09, led by Mark and Don; Articulate and PowerPoint tips from Tom, the man behind The Rapid E-Learning Blog; a series of customer presentations on their experiences using Articulate software; a lunchtime, anything-goes Q&A with the Articulate team; a tech support station with Justin; and lots more.

“I really applaud Articulate for being willing to put Tom, Gabe, and Justin up front and in the firing line to take any and all questions/comments from the audience. You never know what can come up during those things. BRAVO for you. That time alone raised my appreciation and respect for the company tenfold! Overall I think the conference was fantastic and am looking forward to attending more in the future. Great job!”

It was our first attempt at this, and we learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t work (there was plenty that went well and there’s a lot of room for improvement). There will be more regional user conferences (stay tuned for details!) and they’ll be even better next time around.

Here’s a video snippet from one of the excellent customer presentations by Phil Corriveau of Fannie Mae, talking about audio recording tips (as he’s also written about on this blog):

Nearly half the conference attendees took the time to fill out our post-conference survey and provided us with valuable feedback. Rest assured that we’ve reviewed it all — the good, the bad, and the ugly. And we’re committed to making future conference experiences in line with our product experience — the best around.

Although we did get our fair share of constructive criticism (and passionate complaints), we also got lots of enthusiastic input on the conference, so I’ll share more of those highlights below, including this great post that appeared on our forums the night of the conference:

“WOW!!! That is all I can say!! I just got back to my hotel room from the User’s Group Meeting and it was incredible. As a new Articulate user, it was extremely helpful to learn tips from Tom and Gabe as well as all of the other amazing users who presented. What a great idea! I am ready to attend the next one!! Great idea!!”
– Cody Carlton
Director of Training and Development
Branagh Information Group, Inc.

And some additional feedback:

“Overall, I found the user conference to be one of the best ones I have attended. The topics covered were very interesting and applicable to our needs. I thought the Articulate group did an awesome job of being organized and staying, as best they could, on task. Thank you for a wonderful and insightful conference! Well worth the time and travel to hear what you had to cover. :-)”

Enjoy more photos and videos in the below slideshow or view the Flickr set:

One challenge we faced with this inaugural conference was how to accommodate various levels of Articulate product experience in the audience. What are your suggestions for how we do that next time?

“This was a great idea! As a very new user, I learned a tremendous amount. Tom’s tips were tremendous and the showcase section was incredibly helpful as well. Job well done!!”

A big thank you to everyone who attended, and to Drexel for hosting the conference!

We hope to see you at the next user group — date & location TBD, but subscribe to my blog and you’ll always get the latest news!