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Transcript

Welcome to our webinar today. We’re going to get started in just a few moments, but we thought it would be a fun way to kick it off by getting to know all of you. I see some of you have already been posting in the chat, but we’d love to know a little more about where you’re calling in from.

Go ahead and put it in the chat. We’d love to know also if you’re part of a user group already, you can put that in as well, and then a favorite hobby that you have. To find the chat, by the way, if you’re having trouble, you can always go to the top bar, the top panel, and it’ll be a chat bubble. It says, chat, you can chat, and that’s how we get to see your comments.

Hi, Kathleen and Steve, Callie.

Wow, we’re really all over today.

Nice Vegas, Texas, Maryland, India. Hi, thank you so much for being on.

Very cool. UK, Toronto, such a global group. This is really great.

Hobbies too. Very neat. Chicago, Brazil. Amazing. Hi, Katie.

Awesome. So good to see that we have so many great people on today. Thank you so much all for being here. We’re super excited to get started.

I think we might as well just go ahead and dive into it because we have a lot to cover today, and we have a really great lineup. Hello and welcome to our webinar for today, Unlocking the Power of Peer-to-Peer Connections with ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ User Groups. My name is Jenna Feldman, and I will be your host for today. I am an Adoption Marketing Manager at ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ, running our ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Experience Manager User Group Program. So today’s webinar is all about familiarizing you with our ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ User Group Program. What it is, how you can get involved, and everything you need to know about why you should join, and what are the benefits of joining.

But who better to share all this information than our actual user group leaders? So we’re joined by four incredible user group leaders across the ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ User Group Program today. Before we dive in, I’d like to hit on just a few important housekeeping items.

So this webinar is being recorded. We will send the link to the recording as well as the slides following this presentation. We want this to be as interactive as possible. So please feel free to ask your questions to our presenters at any time. You’ll see in the lower left corner of your screen, there’s an Ask the Presenters box. You can go ahead and ask your questions at any time to our presenters. We do have a dedicated Q&A section at the end, and we’ll get through that. We also have some ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ User Group Program managers on this call who can help answer any other questions you might have during the webinar. You can also use the attendee chat if you’d like to talk to each other. It’s a great way to get to learn from your peers and hear other experiences. So feel free to use that attendee chat that we were just using to introduce ourselves in at any time during the webinar. And then a little bit later on, you’ll see a panel pop up. And then we’ll have a user group resources panel where we’ll have a link to actually sign up for our user group program. And we have some other links for other events happening around ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ that we don’t want you to miss out on.

So with that, let’s dive into our agenda for today.

So we’re gonna talk a little bit about the ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ User Group Program just to set the stage. And then I’ll talk a little bit about why you should join and what are the benefits of being part of a user group. We’ll then touch on how you can participate as either a member or a chapter leader. And then we’re really gonna get into the meat of our conversation with our four wonderful panelists who will have a little fireside chat between me and them to discuss their experiences. And then we’ll make it a little fun and have a little rapid fire round robin so we get to know each of them a little bit better. And then finally, we’ll end with some Q&A from all of you.

So let’s talk about the ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ User Group Program and do a little bit of an overview.

So for those of you who aren’t familiar, our ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ User Groups are our customer-led forums that happen in person and virtually around the world. And it’s an incredible way for our practitioners to be able to connect, network, share best practices, and ultimately become experts in the solutions you use every day. They’re really supposed to be customer-led so it’s not an ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Motion and we try to stay out of the conversation and let you all have the discussion and really learn from each other. We have six products that have programs.

We have our Marketo program was started in 2011. And then in 2021, we launched our AEM and analytics programs. In 2025, it’s been quite the year for us. We have our Workfront, Commerce, and now AEP programs that just went live. Before I talk a little bit about the demographics, it’s important to understand the difference between a user group and a chapter. So the user group is what I just mentioned, those six products we have, we have programs for, but then each of those have individual chapters based on either location. So we have chapters in London and Japan and Brazil, for example, and around the US and other countries, but we can also do it by a certain user persona. So for example, with AEM, we just launched our global DAM Strategist User Group for our AEM assets professionals.

So now that you have a little understanding of the breakdown between the user groups and the chapters, just so you’re aware of kind of the health of our programs, we have over 28,000 chapter memberships across our six programs with over 125 chapters represented. There are over 160 leaders across those 125 chapters. And then over 200 chapter meetings have happened just this year alone. So you can really see the health of our programs and see that it’s a thriving community of AEM or of ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ professionals who want to share best practices and network with each other.

So why join? Well, I think I covered a few reasons earlier, but I will say, I think one of the top reasons is really learning from your peers and ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ experts. As I mentioned, ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ user groups are started by customers, run by customers for customers. ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ, at ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ, we really believe in the power of peer-to-peer connections in getting you to become the experts that we want you to be in the product. And for that reason, that’s why we invest so heavily in these programs to bring you user group leaders who are truly experts in their field and are people who can give you that direction and help you understand how you can become a better user with the product. So I think overall, it’s an incredible way for you to, again, network, share best practices, learn from people around the world with different experience levels, and just help you find a community of like-minded professionals to help all have the same goal of wanting to become better experts in the product.

So how can you participate? There’s two ways you can participate in a user group. The first and the bare minimum is being a member. Being a member, we do not require any experience level to participate. So whether you’ve been using the product for six months, six days, six years, you’re welcome to join a user group chapter. It’s a great way for you to get started and learn, or if you’re already a seasoned professional, it’s still a great way for you to learn more. And then you can attend any meetings at your convenience. There’s no requirement for how many meetings you have to join. Typically, they are hosted about one per quarter, but sometimes it’s more. So you can attend as many as you’d like. And then you also can volunteer as a guest speaker for chapter meetings. So it’s a great way for you to get to demonstrate some more leadership if you’d like to do that. Now, the next step is becoming a chapter leader. So with that, we do have a little more requirements that are important to have when you’re a leader. So you have either three or more years of hands-on experience using your respective ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ solution.

You’ll have to have a certification in that ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ solution for that user group. And then you have to lead at least one event, virtual or in-person per quarter, but a lot of our user groups will do more, which is great. So we do have that opportunity. And then really supporting the growth and wellbeing of your chapter. This is just, you’re really on the line to help us with recruiting members and hosting the meetings, coming up with the schedule, coming up with the topics for the meetings, like you are the thought leader and ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ is here to support you in making that all happen.

So I have this handy dandy QR code. If you’d like to check out your phones and get started, you can go ahead and scan and that’s step one. So the first step for joining a user group is to visit our user group front door page on Experience League. This has the links to each six user group programs that I mentioned earlier. The second step is to click on that user group program that you’re interested in joining and you’ll create your account. There’ll be a link that you can go to to create the account. Once you’ve created your account, you can find and join a chapter directly from that page. You’ll have a whole list of chapters that are broken down by region. So you can find one that fits for you. And then you can go ahead and look at their event schedule and find the meetings that work. And once you join the chapter, you’ll get notified with emails for future meetings coming up. So make sure to join the chapter so that you’ll be able to continue to receive those email notifications. If there isn’t a chapter that fits your criteria, you can always reach out to us at any time. There’s also a link you can go and request that we start a chapter in your area. Or if you’re interested in starting a chapter, you can also reach out to us and we can work with you and see if you’d be a good fit for that.

So now without further ado, let’s get into the meat of our conversation. The reason you all are here is to hear from our actual user group leaders.

So we’re so excited to be joined by four incredible leaders here today with us. We have Becky Barras, who is a product lead at Qualcomm. She is the leader of our SoCal chapter for ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Workfront. We have Sam Fono-Moyana, who is a general manager at DataJoin and leads our Utah chapter for ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Analytics.

Shivani Bhatt, who is a solution architect for Cloudflare and is the leader of our Denver chapter for Mercado Engage. And then last but not least, we have Raf Winterpact, who is the director of technology at Perficient and is also the leader of our Midwest chapter for ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Experience Manager. So welcome everyone. We’re so excited to have you here today and thank you so much for all of your time and sharing your expertise with us. So we’re excited to dive in and get started.

So let’s dive into our first question here.

So I’d love to start off with Shivani and Becky, and I would love for you each to share a little bit more about what inspired you to join the user group and what was your initial experience like as a member? So Shivani, can we start with you? Yeah, let’s do it. Hello everyone, thanks for having us. It’s really great to be here. I’m representing obviously our Denver Mercado User Group, and that is where I got started actually. So I had just moved to Denver in 2017 and I was in grad school and I found out about the Denver Mercado User Group and I had been a Mercado admin at my job prior to going into grad school. And so I kind of just reached out and was like, hi, I’m in grad school, I’m not actually a Mercado customer right now, but I would love to join. And it was just so welcoming. We had some folks that I still am in touch with, the former Mercado User Group leader at that time in 2017, we just had a barbecue at their house as one of our Denver Mercado User Group meetups last fall. And so I mentioned that because it’s, when I came in, I was kind of bright eyed, bushy tailed, maybe even a little doe eyed at like, oh wow, I get to join. And it was very welcoming. Everyone was very curious and open and wanting to share their experience and perspectives and advice. And I like to think that even from some of the other user groups, Mercado User Groups that I’ve attended over the years at different locations, that really is kind of the vibe and everyone is very welcoming and excited to share. And so that was kind of my entry point into the Mercado User Groups and really lucky that folks were very welcoming and yeah, just willing to share.

Thanks, Shivani, that’s great. Becky, love to hear from you.

Yeah, and thanks so much for having me on today.

So what inspired me to join is I really, I heard from some of the ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ team just while talking with them and some of the other personal groups who are coming for Workfront and I really wanted to get involved. So I thought that connecting with people in the same area on the same tool and people who had similar challenges would be really beneficial for my career. And for anyone who knows me, I love organizing events and meetups in both my personal and professional life. And I really like sharing knowledge and my learnings with the community. So I thought it would be a great fit. So for my experience as a new leader for the Workfront groups, it’s been really great so far. It’s been amazing. And for Workfront User Groups, our new program. And so I started the first chapter, the SoCal chapter, and it was super exciting just to share the news that they were coming for Workfront and to see others who were super excited to get involved too, since it’s brand new. So it’s been really great networking also with people whose paths I don’t normally cross and the regional group is so great because it brings us all together.

That’s awesome. And I kind of love both of your experiences are a little bit different. Like Shivani, you found out about it in grad school and Becky, you heard it from ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ. So I think there’s, again, it’s kind of great how these programs have kind of made their name around the world in a different context. And it’s really just about networking and just easily being able to figure it out and find out how to get more involved, I think really shows just the ease of being able to sign up and just join. And it’s really open to anyone who wants to participate. So thank you for sharing that.

So I’d like to move on and I’d love to talk to Sam and Raph on this one. So Sam, let’s start with you. And I’d love for you to walk us through your journey and your chapter from starting as a member to then becoming a leader.

Sure, Jenna, thanks everyone for having me on the webinar today as well. So this was back in 2022. And this was the early days of DataJoin, which is a company that I’ve been working hard on and I founded, and I just got done raising our seed round. And I brought on a new marketing team and I tasked them to find ways that we can be more involved in the community, in the ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ community. And I remember when May Jackson on my team, he came back and he said, hey, there’s something called ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ User Groups. And we just live right down the street from ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ in Lehigh. And I said, awesome, is there any group that meets here in Utah? And he told me, no, there isn’t. And I’m like, wow, we should really have one here in Utah because this is the birthplace of ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Analytics, back with Josh James and Omniture and then ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ acquired Omniture. And it became ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Analytics. So I said, you know what? We should be over at the ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ headquarters in Lehigh, eating some good food, talking about some awesome topics and just gather everybody as the ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ community here because this is the birthplace. And so we went ahead and applied to form that chapter, which at the time was the Intermountain West chapter. At the time there was only the East Coast led by Jennifer Duncan, she’s awesome. And then the west coast as well. And so we applied and we started that chapter, which at the time was the Intermountain West chapter. And it was like, our dream came true because just right before Christmas, we kicked off our very first event and we were at ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ headquarters in Lehigh. We were eating some good food and Trevor Paulson, he’s the brainchild for Customer Journey Analytics walks downstairs from his office to us and give us like a summit sneak peek. And it was awesome. There was like 30 of us there gathered and that was the kickoff of a very wonderful thing. And we’ve been going strong now for the past three years.

And we’ve had a lot of good sessions, but that was my foray into the ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ User Groups, Jenna. That’s awesome. And I think it’s so great to just know that like our User Group meetings are honestly, they’re a lot of fun. Like it doesn’t have to feel like it’s this formal meeting. It’s just like, whatever User Groups just like, they just gather, it’s a good way to get to know each other. There’s good food, there’s good times. It’s just, it’s a really, like we just had for AEM, our Midwest chapter just had one of their meetings in a brewery. Like it was a really fun way to get together. So I feel like there’s so many great ways to connect. So I love that you had that experience.

Raf, I’d love to hear from you as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks again for having me on the webinar here too. So the history that I have with AEM and some of the User Groups goes back a little ways. It’s been a couple of different platforms, but when we were in the midst of the pandemic, it was 2021. And ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ had created this platform for us to continue to facilitate discussions and jumped right on that. I think a lot of people were sort of yearning to get together and make connections and meet, right. So initially it was hybrid, which was fine, but I think we were able to start getting into some in-person meetings a little bit later and even more recently, which is really fantastic. Having those in-person meetings is what makes it feel so real. We’ve been also encouraging some cross-chapter guest speakers. I flew out to Minneapolis for one of the meetings that they had there too. So that’s been one of the, I think, successes of just establishing those connections and networking and learning, right. We’re always learning. We’re seeing that a lot of people have similar challenges. So that’s really fantastic too.

And as far as just looking at what the future might hold for us, right, we’re looking to grow the chapter. We’re looking to get more speakers, have more guests, have more events. Right now we have quarterly events for the Midwest chapter. Hopefully we can get to something of a more monthly, right. So, you know, maybe alternating them hybrid and in-person, I think that would be really great too. So I’d encourage that. And again, it’s all about networking. It’s about learning. If you learn something, then to me, that’s a great success. Again, thanks for having me on. Yeah, thanks so much for being here. And yeah, the Midwest chapter for AEM is one of our first chapters. So Rafi really helped make such a mark on that group. And we’re really excited. We’re lucky to have you to support this. But yeah, I think it’s just, I think kind of what I’m hearing from both of you too, is that the jump becoming from a member to a leader really isn’t that steep. And it’s anyone can start a chapter. Like, you know, we want to work with you. And this is speaking to everyone on this call and if you’re interested in being a chapter leader or starting a chapter in an area that doesn’t already have a chapter, like we want to work with you at ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ. We want to support you and make sure you feel comfortable knowing what are the responsibilities, how can we support you? Typically also with our chapters, we don’t just have one person as a leader. We will try to get at least two or three so that you don’t feel like the entire burden is on you to be the leader of your entire chapter. But we do try to get you a partner, another customer to help lead and support you with that emotion. So thank you both for sharing. Becky, I’d love to hop back to you a little bit. I love this photo, by the way, this is from Summit as we were talking about, but I’d love to know a little bit more if you have an experience, cause one of the great things about the reason why a lot of our customers will join the user groups is because they want to, maybe they’re working on a certain project or there’s a certain initiative at work that they’re struggling with and they want to know how to use their ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ solution better to be able to deliver that project in a strong way. So is there a certain experience that you’ve had with being in a user group meeting and you maybe took something away from it that really helped you take a project to the finish line and deliver great results? Yes, definitely. There’s been many actually, but one that comes to mind is a recent event. It was the WUG SoCal Riding the Wave of AI event. So first AI is the really hot topic right now, but also for context and background, one of the prereqs for accessing some of the AI features in Workfront entails switching to the ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Admin Console login system. So one of the attendees from my Workfront user group meeting had just gone through this and they were able to share their training document with me and also just share the process on how it went with rolling out to their organization. So shout out to Mary if you’re on the call right now. And I even felt comfortable reaching out to her later just to get a little bit more insights on how they handled external users specifically, which can be more challenging. So it was really good to have someone in my network to lean on who dealt with the similar challenge just recently and it was very helpful to hear it from another organization. And also my team was pretty pumped that I was able to bring back those tips to our organization because we really needed someone like that to lean on for that.

I’m so glad to hear that. Yeah, that really is good for us all to know that these user groups, again, these are real conversations that are happening between real users day to day. And we wanna make sure that everyone on this call understands the value of joining these groups because it’s a great way to be able to find tangible results or help create tangible results with a project you’re working on. So thanks, Becky, for sharing that. I appreciate that. So Raf and Sam, I’d love to go back to you and Raf, we can definitely kick it off with you, but I’d love to know a little more, it’s kind of in the same vein as this question we just were on, but how has being part of the user group impacted you both professionally and personally? Yeah, great question. So both of those ways, really. I’ll start with professionally. So professionally, one of the things that I’ve been able to bring over with this experience is we have this knowledge sharing community of practice here at Perficient, which is similar to a user group. Basically what we do is we have monthly meetings and we have somebody present a particular topic which helps with our consultants. So we have about 7,500 employees and we’re still growing. So there’s a lot of learning from a lot of different folks, a lot of different areas, especially with the topic of AI, as everybody knows, is really hot right now. So that’s been sort of the focus for at least the last couple of months, if not a little bit longer. So I think there’s a lot of overlap with not only facilitating the meetings that are from the AEM user groups, but also with that knowledge sharing community of practice that we run here. So I lead that, facilitate the meetings, we recruit speakers for it. There are a lot of great topics there too. So that’s one of the ways I’ve been able to bring that over professionally.

Personally, it’s keeping up with the learning, right? I think we’re always learning something. Again, that’s something that I make sure that we do is make sure there’s some key takeaways from any of the meetings that we do have. And obviously it improves with some social skills too, right? Ways of getting together, not just about growing the professional network, but also making those personal connections. So those are some of the sort of key takeaways that I’ve been impacted with running the user group.

Awesome. Sam? Yes. So from a personal standpoint, I would say it’s the connections. And there’s so many awesome people that I’ve been able to meet over the years.

I mean, going back to that first event that we had, it was Kelsey, Kelsey Bourke and Chase Wagner and Emma Lockwood, they were helping us. Sean Robinson helps us today. In that picture that you see right there on the screen, that’s where we did a coding session with some of the Marketo users. That’s my friend, James Holm and Max Garrett and Becca Twate from the Marketo users.

And there’s so many people, Nate Jackson, Eric Hanson, Jeffrey Dunster. If I see any of these people on the street or at Summit, those guys are getting a big hug from me because we’ve just spent so much time together at this point in meetings. There’s always like the after meetup where we’re just relaxing at ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ on the couch and just talking a little bit longer. And I think that’s what makes for a rich and a full life, is that we have and it’s the people that we meet along the way. And so, personally, that’s my thoughts on that. Professionally, it’s definitely helped as well.

I sold DataJoin last summer and transitioned out fully from that company earlier this year. And it was a big question mark for me, life after DataJoin, what do I do next? And I was doing a couple of things here and there when some of my friends from the user group, they reached out to me for a project that they had in mind that they were trying to do. And it was, I had to do with CJA and AEP and that type of thing. And so, that project, one thing leading to another has given me a lot of purpose since moving on from DataJoin. And that’s what I’m doing in large part today.

And it’s because of my friends who reached out from the user group, who we built that relationship of trust over these past three years.

And we knew each other, what were our capabilities. And if they hadn’t reached out, who knows? I might still be trying to figure out what’s the next thing to do. But I really appreciate those guys and they know who they are. But that’s how the user group has impacted me, Jenna.

Yeah, thank you both for sharing. And I think there’s a few things I wanted to call out. First of all, Sam, I love that you talked about, you used the word friends. I think that’s such a good indicator of the nature of these groups. And you actually, this is really not just about building connections with colleagues, but it’s about making new friends and just being able to see these people outside of work too and just have this similarity, something in common with the product, but also being able to build new friendships. I think it’s just so important. And I love that we can integrate that into the software world.

The other thing I will say as well that I think you both kind of touched on is the value. So as we mentioned, these user groups, we try to, ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ definitely tries to let these be customer run and led, but ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ is also always here to support. So a lot of our ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ product teams will also be here to support both of our members and our leaders. We can, if you want to guest spotlight a ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ person on a meeting to help do a little roadmap overview, we can definitely also do that as well.

Our leaders also will get access to our product teams to be able to learn, to feel comfortable speaking on the latest and greatest, understanding what’s going on with the product so that they can feel comfortable portraying this information back to their groups as well. So we really try to bridge that gap and not just fully leave our leaders, which we know are very capable hands, but we want to make sure they feel comfortable being able to speak and represent ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ in that way during their meetings as well. But I love how you both have found both professional and personal wins from being part of this group and taking your time to lead these groups. So thank you for sharing that.

I’d like to transition a little bit back to Shivani. And I’d love to know some practical tips that you’d share with someone who wants to get more involved in the group. I know we have a lot of people on this call who are not part of our user groups and maybe might be on the fence, they’re not sure. So what are some best tips? So Shivani, let’s start with you and then Raf, I’d also love if you can weigh in as well.

One of the best things I think about the user group program is that there’s a lot of opportunities to participate virtually.

So my recommendation would be check out like an Ask Me Anything. There’s also Marketo or ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Champion user groups that you can join virtually in a time zone we will rotate those. So there’s probably one coming up in the next couple months that fits your time zone. They’re a really great way to just get your feet wet, see what it’s about. I think also in a post COVID world, we’re all a little bit more used to doing a virtual format. It doesn’t have to be in person, especially when you think of, we all have lives outside of work, you may have school drop-offs or pickups or things like that. And so that’s kind of the first one is I would look up, there’s tons of resources in sort of the ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ community platforms and you can just kind of see what’s coming up next.

There’s activities and kind of sessions virtually almost every week. And so you can start there. I think the other thing you can do is reach out, whether it’s on LinkedIn or through a chapter, if you’re interested.

I know in the Denver Marketo User Group Chapter, we have people reach out via the forms. We do monitor them and we get people reaching out saying, hey, I’m in town. I work on the East Coast, but I’m here for a conference. Can I join? Can I speak even? And we’ve even had speakers that we’ve sourced from people just reaching out that way saying, I’m really curious, I’m interested. And so I wanna encourage folks, don’t hesitate to reach out to user group leaders or via the kind of automated forms because we do monitor and we are excited to hear from you. And if it feels like a lot to just kind of join virtually, you can always reach out and we can kind of direct you and help you with maybe the next one or the next in person, even if you’d prefer to connect that way.

Thanks, Shivani. And before, Raf, before I get to you, I wanted to, I love your perspective on this because I think a lot of the times we get questions from our practitioners, like they don’t live in a certain area or there isn’t yet a chapter that exists for their interests or their persona or their location, whatever. Can they still join a chapter? Do they have to necessarily live in that certain area? I mean, maybe for thinking in person or in person might be a little more complicated, or if like someone’s in town in that area and wants to attend in person, or again, what does that look like? Is it open to everyone regardless of where they live? Absolutely. We have folks in the Denver chapter that joined virtually. We actually do a monthly Ask Me Anything session and we have people from all over the country, sometimes even our UK friends will join. So even if you’re not in a location that has a chapter in person within a 30 minute drive of you, you’re always welcome and encouraged to join.

Thank you. Raf, I’d love to hear your perspective as well. Sure thing. Well, first of all, I’m gonna echo Shivani’s tips. Those are all great. I think definitely reach out in different channels. So there is Experience League in AEM. There’s a whole experience manager and even some of those other components of experience managers. So things specific to sites or assets or forms. There is a Discord channel too that you can join. So if you’re interested in more things like edge delivery services and document-based authoring, right? Again, under AEM. So there’s a Discord channel that you can join there too. And you can ask some of the experts there who are even ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ engineers. So they’re on there, they’re listening too and very much looking forward to answering any of the questions that you might have. So there’s a couple of different online ways that you can do that to participate, but I would encourage the in-person events for sure. Have a look at the events calendar and see what’s happening. And if there happens to be a city that you’re visiting, that’d be great. There’s no real prerequisite to showing up to the events. You can just come in and listen. We’re not gonna call on you or there’s no pressure to answer any questions from us. You can just come in and listen.

But again, you don’t have to be afraid to ask any questions either, right? So as I said before, your challenges might not be so unique. So we encourage you to bring those up and ask the questions and learn from each other. Another thing I would encourage you to do too is look at some of the prior recordings. So this is obviously being recorded, but have a look at some of the other user group meetings that have been recorded and you can get a feel for what they’re like. And there’s usually a social component to it as well, right? So have fun and socialize. So those are some of the things that I would add on to what Shivani had also mentioned.

That’s a great call out, Raf, what you just mentioned, first of all, about the recording. So all of our user group meetings, if you can’t make it in person or virtually you can attend, they’re all recorded and they get published on the user group page. So you will be able to access that. So don’t feel like you’re missing out on the recording, attend every meeting. You can always watch the recording. And that’s again, a great way, if you’re a little hesitant or not sure if you’re ready to join, you can always go watch some previous recordings and learn also just what are some of the topics that are being discussed and the format of the meetings as well. So you can get an understanding of how they are run and if it feels like that would be something you’re interested in. And then I love your call out also about Experience League. That’s a great resource as well. We are constantly encouraging our user group leaders to go on and continue to monitor the Experience League communities and feel like they can continue the conversation outside of the meetings with their members. So that’s another great platform as well to mention. So thank you for calling that out. Appreciate that.

Awesome. Okay, so Becky, I’d love to go back to you and kind of another anecdotal question. Is there maybe a favorite session or event that you’ve had that stands out during your time with the group? And maybe if you feel comfortable talking about your future upcoming meeting as well that we talked about, your mega meeting. Yeah, definitely. So tough question, but I think that my favorite meetup so far was the WUG Meetup at ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Summit. That was actually one of our first user group meetings that we hosted for WUGs. So you can imagine that we were all super excited and it was just a brand new experience for everyone. So we were all going around breaking the ice with each other and it was really neat finding out more about what everyone does, how people do things just a little bit differently at their companies, or maybe they have different processes that they do. That was really neat to learn. And we actually had other attendees from different chapters who popped in too. So that was neat that they didn’t all live in SoCal.

And it was really cool putting faces to names. I’ve seen some of them on ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ webinars or posting an experience league or LinkedIn and I finally got to meet them in person too after seeing them virtually all the time. So, and ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Summit is a really big event where it’s easy to get lost. So we were able to share a lot of challenges and just like what sessions we were all planning to attend to get the most out of.

And so, yeah, on that note regarding, there is a future event. I know we were touching a little bit on like how other chapters and other locations can come. And that’s what I experienced at Summit, which was actually my favorite WUG event so far. But in September, yeah, we’re gonna be hosting the first Mega WUG event, September 10th and invites will go out soon. But that’s gonna be an event that is after our big Skill Exchange event that I’m sure you’ll talk about. And it’s going to be an after party where we just discuss the biggest takeaways, like what we think is going to really benefit the organizations or what should we prioritize on the roadmap at our companies. And that’s something that we’ll have panelists from coast to coast attending and or speaking at and anybody or any chapter can come. So I’m super excited to get to have attendees from all over the country and world potentially attend that too.

I just think that’s the coolest thing. I love the concept and this is something that I know our Workfront programs are doing and Marketo has done before too. And our other user group programs are also looking into doing more of these mega user group programs. So I think that’s such a great or mega user group meetings. I think that’s really great. So if you’re interested in learning more about that, the event in September and our other mega meetings, you can also visit the link, which I’ll share at the end of this webinar as well and you can sign up. So thanks Becky.

Sam, I’d love to hear from you as well. Sure, sure. Yeah, mega, that’s awesome idea, Becky. I think ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Analytics, we need a mega bet too. So we can talk about that.

For me, as Becky mentioned, it’s hard question cause there’s so many good sessions out there that we’ve had, but there’s two that come to mind. So one is this one session that we had, it was a couple meetups ago and we were covering this new feature inside of customer journey analytics called Journey Canvas. It’s an awesome visualization tool that, it’s not available in any of the other vis tools like Delmar, Tableau. And so that session, rather than having us in front and just presenting on it, it turned into, it just like we were back in college, like in a study room and all of us were like, hey, what if we throw a segment on top of this or add this dimension instead into a very interactive session where we were learning together, frankly was there and Eric Hansen and even people who are joining us virtually Mitchell to share, he was jumping in and say, hey, let’s try this. And it was awesome because we had learned so much and because it was so interactive. And so that’s one that’s very memorable to me. And then I’ll say the other one is, something that we tried and I think we should do more of it. And we did across ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Analytics User Group and Marketo User Groups. So the Marketo User Groups have been around much longer than the rest of us. And so I know the Salt Lake City chapter leaders at the time is Andrew Parker and Trent Cross.

And so we decided to do one together. Like in today’s world of AEP, it just seems like everything needs to work together. So ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Analytics data is gonna be combined with Marketo data as well so that you can build better audiences and better triggers in all systems. And so we did meet at ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ. It was also a hybrid event and it was nice to see just a ton of Marketo users and ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Analytics users sitting together in the same room. We had to expand the room because it was a bigger than normal meetup. And I think that was an awesome event. At first, it was a little bit, hey, we’re on this side and they’re on the other side. But by the end of it, it was good to see everyone interacting and we went through a bunch of use cases where it involves both platforms, ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Analytics and Marketo. So that one, I feel was an awesome experience. And I’d love to see more of those in the future crossovers with Workfront and with AEM and Marketo. So thanks Jenna. Yeah, thanks so much for bringing that up. That’s actually something we as a team have been discussing a lot of, we’ve been hearing it a lot from our clients that they want more of these cross-functional user group conversations across AEM and Workfront, Marketo, Analytics, et cetera. And I think there’s so much room for growth with that. And so we’re really excited to hopefully be piloting some of those in the future and thinking about how we can continue those conversations. And I know I called out both Becky and Sam for this question, but I do, I love this question. I think it’s great to be able to get different perspectives too, so Raph and Shivani, I wanna open this up to you. If there’s a favorite event that you’ve hosted recently or you’ve attended that you wanna call out, please feel free to do so. Yeah, there was a really fun one that we did. It was a virtual meeting and we did a post summit video panel discussion, kinda similar to what we’re doing here. And we had a couple of good topics that came up. Obviously AI was a big takeaway from ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Summit from this year, but it was really good to hear different perspectives from different partners, different customers on what they thought about Summit and what were some of their takeaways as well. And then we ended up with a rapid fire set of questions too. So that was a lot of fun. I actually managed to stump a couple of them, so that was always a good thing too. So that was a lot of fun.

I love that. Shivani, do you wanna add in? Yeah, I have, same, it’s like, it’s hard to pick a favorite one, but I’ll mention too. Last summer we had a joint event with Workato at their office in Denver. And I mentioned that one because when we get into some of the other questions, this will kind of harken back to this one, but again, post COVID, it’s a different world, especially when you’re trying to host in-person events, you wanna come in person. And so we’ve got a good mix of virtual versus in-person, but that Workato partner event where we worked with the Workato team, we had it at their office, that one stands out because it was, we had some, we’ve just lots of people there. And so that always kind of feels nice. The energy in the room is a little bit different.

And it was kind of the first one in a while that the Denver Mercator User Group, we had lots of people there. And there were some folks that were kind of alum status where they had been part of the user group years back in 2015, 16. And then we had some folks that were, it was their first session. And so it was really nice to kind of look over and seeing those folks chatting and kind of seeing the community growing in that way. And then another one is kind of similar to what Sam was sharing. I think one of the best parts about all of ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ’s groups is that they do kind of turn into study group sessions. And so we had one in the, we have kind of in the holiday season, we’ll do a Marketo Jeopardy type event each year at the end of the year. And so we get to kind of quiz each other and have fun. And one idea that came out of that last year at that holiday one, we were playing a Jeopardy game. And then we had some members say, this was really fun. And I wish we could do like a show and tell. And so that’s actually become one of our preferred formats in the user group this year where we do, we have kind of one of the in-person that we’ll do each quarter is a show and tell. And so people, user group members, it’s not necessarily like you’re sitting, after a long day at work listening to a speaker, which is wonderful, but sometimes you are like, I have this problem and I’m struggling to solve it. And so it’s turned into kind of a group workshopping or a group success of, hey, I had this problem, here’s what I did and how I fixed it. And here’s how I would change it up if I were to hit this problem again at work. And it’s led to really lively discussions. So those are the two that I would say are my favorite.

I just have to say, as an ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ program manager who runs this, I get so jealous every time I see these meetings happening. I’m like, I want to attend all of them because they sound so much fun. So I think that’s so awesome.

I really love, Raf, we should think about that for this, just thinking out loud here. It could be a lot of fun for AM, but that’s great. Awesome. Well, I just have one more question for our panelists. So Raf, actually I’d love to start with you. So what is one career insight or lesson you’ve gained through your involvement in this user group? Just one, huh? Yeah. Well, there’s lots of things I think to just mention there. I think this has really helped me in keeping up with industry and technology trends, thanks to making some of those connections. So when you have those connections that you make, especially in LinkedIn, and I’m looking at my feed in LinkedIn and seeing what people are sharing, seeing what they may have liked or applauded, then I go and save those articles. I mean, I’ve learned so much just from those. Because you’re working with like-minded other professionals. So it’s a lot more than I would have otherwise seen. So I think that’s one way that I’ve been able to just keep up with a lot of the different things that are happening out there. Also, people tend to ask a lot of questions, which is great. I think that having those questions has prepared me to better answer those for future sessions as well. So it’s just one of those things that is good to practice. It’s great to just be able to kind of stay on top of that. So a couple of things that I’ve learned from being involved in these groups as a leader. I love that. Shivani.

I think for me, probably similar to what Raf mentioned, but the biggest lesson is just that it’s important to connect. I think it’s easy. You get kind of into your track of, what do I have to do this week? What do I have to do at work? What are my deadlines? We all have lives outside of work again, as I mentioned. But the user groups and whether when I was a member or as a leader, it’s important to get together and you learn a little bit more about your craft. You get inspiration from your team members or your community members.

And I think I will echo kind of what Sam has mentioned too. It’s like, it really does become a friend circle outside of your professional team, maybe at work or something like that. But you learn about people’s lives and you get to connect that way. And I think that that’s a really important part of having a good professional fabric tapestry of your life. So I would say that’s it. Whether it’s joining virtually once a month or even just kind of staying connected as much as you can on the in-person, it’s important to connect and to stay kind of in tune with all that’s happening.

Absolutely. I think those networking skills are so important, but I think also the leadership skills you’re gaining, even when you weren’t a leader, like when you were just a member, there’s still so many leadership skills you can gain through just being part of these groups. So I think it’s an incredible way to help with even your public speaking and just all these other great soft skills that you can gain that are transferable into other parts of your life. So thank you all so much for sharing all of your insights on that. I thought we could do like a little fun, rapid fire round now, just to get to know you all a little bit better and put you on the spot. So what I’m gonna do is we’re actually only gonna give you each 20 seconds to answer. So I’m gonna time it on my own.

And I have four or five questions for each of you, and we’re gonna see how fast you can answer these questions. So are you ready to get started? Yes, Sam, I wanna start with you.

So, all right. Oh boy, okay. Yeah, we’re gonna start with you. So you got this. So I’m gonna put a timer and we’re gonna get going right now.

All right, so how many chapters have you joined? How many chapters have I joined? I have joined the, well, our chapter of course, and then the Marketo user group Salt Lake chapter as well. So I have joined two, but I’ve attended a lot more than just these two. Nice. Well, you took 20 seconds, so you didn’t get to hear my other questions, but I’m still gonna ask you some of the other questions because I still want to know. Okay, coffee or tea? Tea. I’m Mormon, so I don’t drink coffee, but there’s some teas that I can’t drink. So I hope that’s okay to say. Yeah, of course. What’s your favorite thing to do outside of work? You know what these days? It’s summertime and I’m hitting the pool 4 p.m. every day with my kids. And so that’s something that I really like. And then pickleball. I like playing a lot of pickleball. If you want a challenge, let’s do it. Yeah, next time I’m in Utah, let’s do that. I am a big pickleball fan too. Big fan. Very cool. Awesome. All right, Chavani, you’re up next.

Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Ready? And okay. What is the oldest meeting you recall attending for user groups? Oh gosh, I think the oldest meeting, 2017. Summer of 2017, joining the Denver Marketo User Group for the first time as a grad student. Amazing. Morning person or night owl? Night owl. Nice. I’m not a morning person. One piece of advice you’d have for incoming user group leaders? Be flexible.

Be open to how the members want to operate and build it around what folks want to do. Sometimes we have ideas as leaders, but we should listen to our folks as well. Nice. And then what’s a fun fact about Denver? Fun fact about Denver. We have 300 days of sun a year. We kind of have a wrap of being a snowy town, and we are, but it melts really fast. It’s always sunny. Oh, nice. I love Denver, so I totally relate to that. Very cool. Thank you for sharing. Becky.

Ready. Okay.

When is your next user group meeting? September 10th. Excellent. That’s the mega? Yeah, mega one, yep. Okay. What’s one word that comes to mind when we say user group? Collaboration.

Vacation or staycation? Vacation.

And I think I know the answer to this one. Future mountains.

Mountains. Now I know it comes as a surprise because I live in San Diego, but I love the mountains. I’m definitely a mountain girl, snowboarding, hiking.

I totally thought you were- This is where she places Becky.

Yeah. Yes, if you look for the peaks.

I totally thought you were gonna say that. That’s so funny. All right, well, we learn something new every day. So thanks, Becky.

Raph, let’s go. I’m ready. Okay, Raph, how many ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ solutions do you use? Ooh, 15-ish. Wow, nice. A lot. What’s your success mantra? Success.

Ooh, okay. Well, in the lens of a user group, I would say learn something, always learn something. If you learn something, it’s a success. Nice. What’s one word that comes to mind when we say user group? Connections.

And what is your favorite song to play on the guitar? So you know I’m a musician.

Not Freebird and not Stairway to Heaven.

I usually like to play songs that make people dance.

So last good example is Rocketman, Elton John. Oh, love. That’s a great one. We’re gonna have to hear that sometime. Raph, you’ll have to present at your next user group meeting. You’ll have to perform.

I love that. Well, thanks for entertaining me with that and all of us with that. That was a lot of fun. And then before we wrap, there were a few questions that came into our chat, so I’d love to go through some of those.

Some of these are ones I can answer, but I also might want you guys to also share your feedback on that.

So we had a question that came in about physical meetings. Does ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ provide a venue to host the meeting with attendees? I see we already have an answer that was made, but normally our user group leaders will find their own venues for the meetings. We do not, as ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ, provide a specific venue. But as I mentioned earlier, one of our user groups in the Midwest chapter for AEM in Raph’s chapter, they just hosted a meetup in Ohio at a brewery. So there’s so many great ways where you can find special locations, you can host their office.

It doesn’t have to be a formal space. As long as they can, in theory, provide audio and visual support, we say we’re really open to you hosting wherever.

I got a question if there are chapters in Canada. Depends on the user group. Do any of you guys have any chapters in Canada? Well, I think that’s an area that we could look into more. We do, though, have global user groups. There are certain user groups that are designed to be fully virtual, and they will have meetings at different times, zones to be able to accommodate the global participants. But I would say if you’re in an area, again, where they don’t have a chapter that fits your location, join a global one for now. And then if you want to work with us, you can always contact us at ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ, and we can work to try to set up a new chapter. Or again, if you’re interested in potentially starting a chapter, you can also reach out to us, and we can support you with that as well.

Okay, are there any other questions? I think that’s honestly mostly what I’ve seen come through our presenter chat.

But I think we covered a lot in this webinar. So I think for that purpose, we can probably go ahead and wrap up a little bit early, but thank you all so much for your time today. Thank you to all of our speakers, all of our presenters for sharing your insights. And thank you to everyone here for attending. We really appreciate your time. And we have a few questions that just popped up as a little survey. So we’d love to hear your feedback and see if you’re interested in potentially being a user group leader or joining, and just give us some feedback. So another thing I’ll call out, we also have the resources panel still up. We have a link to sign up for our ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ User Groups. There’s also a QR code here that you can scan. We also have a free learning event coming up. And that is our virtual Skill Exchange that happens every year. This is, they’re offered, sessions are offered across all of the six solutions that we have user group programs for that I mentioned earlier. And it’s a great way to hear from your peers who are presenting on a variety of topics. And it’s all about helping you become better users of your ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ solution. It’s a free learning event happening August 13th to the 21st. There’s a link there. You can go and sign up for Skill Exchange. And then we also have a blog on our user groups if you’d like to learn a little more about the program. But if you have questions at any time about our user groups, you can always email us at advocacy at adobe.com and we will get back to you. But thank you all so much for your time today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and a great weekend. And we will talk to you soon.