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Max marks my 25th CF conference as a speaker!

Here's something I thought interesting. I just realized that Max marks the 25th CF conference I've been selected to speak at. I'll bet some people would be surprised to learn we've even HAD at least 25 different national and regional CF conferences over the years. :-) We have, and let's take a look.

I mentioned last night my delight in learning that I'd been selected to speak at Adobe Max later this year. It got me thinking: that was the one remaining major CF conference that I'd not yet spoken to over the last 10 years. I mentioned that I'd spoken at the MM and Allaire Devcons before it, but as I looked back in my records (carehart.org/presentations/, and elsewhere), I was surprised to see just how many there had been.

I can now say that I've been selected to speak at:

  1. Adobe Max (2008)
  2. CFunited (all 10, starting with when it was first called CFUN)
  3. cf.objective (2008, 2007)
  4. Scotch on the Rocks (2008)
  5. Webmaniacs (2008)
  6. CFunited Europe (2008)
  7. WebDU (2007)
  8. CFUnited Express (2007: Atl, SF, Chi)
  9. Minimax (2007, 2005)
  10. CFDevcon (London) (2006)
  11. Powered by Detroit (2005)
  12. MX Vegas (2003)
  13. CF Europe (2003, 2002)
  14. MX On The Rocks, Denver (2003)
  15. Southern Cal Regional CF Conf (2003)
  16. Macromedia DevCon (2002, 2001)
  17. CF Underground (2002, 2001)
  18. MX/CFNorth (2003, 2002)
  19. Colorado Macromedia TechCon (2002)
  20. MXDC (2002)
  21. CF Edge Conference (2001)
  22. Fusebox Conference (2003, 2001)
  23. CF Odyssey, Bethesda (2001)
  24. Allaire DevCon (2000)
  25. The first national CF Conference in Ft Collins (1998)

Sadly, a lot of them were one-off events, but I always want to support conference organizers. (No one at the first CFUN would ever have imagined it would turn into CFUnited, for instance.)

And while I was invited to speak at CFSouth in 2001, I ended up being unable to attend due to my father's passing the weekend before.

I should note that there are still a couple more conferences that I didn't make or haven't made. No slight intended in not mentioning them. I'm just listing those I did speak at.

Add in user groups...for about 200 presentations!

Considering that I've spoken at some conferences for multiple years, that makes over 40 appearances total. And it's still more presentations, really, since I've often presented more than one topic at a single conference. Then if we count repeated sessions...it's been a lot of talks.

And of course, that's all in addition to all the presentations I've given to, wow, I count now nearly 60 different user groups around the country (and internationally) during the past 11 years! All told, again since I've often presented to a single user group more than once over the years, it looks like I've given nearly 200 presentations total across all CF user groups and conferences. (And that's not counting other conferences like SQL Pass, MS CodeCamps, Wireless Devcons, and then several other IT conferences during my 15 years prior to getting into CF in 1997.)

And I'm happy to say that they've not all been the same talk! :-) It's been nearly 80 different topics!

Details on past talks

If anyone's interested in the details of the talks, I list nearly all of them (with titles, descriptions, dates, locations, and links to the slides) at my site's presentations section. I can say that some are as valuable today as years ago, since I sometimes still point them to to people looking for discussion of a given topic (sometimes I've never ended up writing an article on a topic that I presented as a speaker.)

Not bragging, just looking back on a career, encouraging others, and giving thanks

I don't say any of this to brag. Not at all. It's really just rather unusual when one has a chance to stop and look back on their career (other than when writing a resume.)

You just do things day in and day out, and often you never realize how much you can accomplish with a slow and steady pace. Same with the more than 60 articles I've done, too. You just don't notice the pace while you're in the middle of it. Like the journey of a 1,000 steps, it all begins with the first. In that respect, I'd like to encourage any who've thought of giving a talk or writing an article to *just do it*. You never know where that first step may lead. :-)

Anyway, again, it's really nice to add Max as the capstone to this list. Thanks to all the organizers and attendees who've supported my presentations over the years.

For a real time warp, you can find out more about the various conferences I mentioned (including seeing speaker lists, topics, pictures, and more) at the CFConf.org site, which lists them all going back to 1998.

ColdFusion meetup online webinars will be announced here

Just want to let folks I'm going to start announcing the upcoming Online ColdFusion Meetup sessions here.

I host them, and it turns out next week I'll be speaking in a full session of my own for the first time since we started the meetup in February. I was about to announce my talk here here.

Then I thought: hey, why don't I just announce each talk here from now on? Of course, I've been announcing them to the 1200+ registered members of the group, but certainly some who read my blog (or trip over an entry when it may show up on an aggregator) may be introduced to the group for the first time.

So I'm going to post next the 2 talks for next week, and in the future I'll post the rest. We have a full slate set for December. I'm not sure how far in advance I'll announce the rest of the month's talks. We'll see.

For those not familiar with the meetup, I've written about it here previously (though that was from the perspective of a potential speaker).

Got a topic to present? Seeking more speakers for the CF Meetup (online CFUG)

I'd like to once again put out a call for speakers for the Online ColdFusion Meetup (an online CFUG). The ColdFusion Meetup is a safe place for any speaker who may like to present on any CF-related topic, whether for an hour or even if just for 15 minutes.

If you're interested in speaking, you probably have a few questions. In this note I try to address them:

  • Why should I consider speaking?
  • So what is the ColdFusion Meetup?
  • How often do you meet?
  • When do you meet?
  • Where do you meet?
  • Are your meetings recorded?
  • What topics are welcomed?
  • What next dates are available?
  • OK, so how do I become a speaker?
  • What if I'm nervous about presenting?
  • How can I support the group?

Why should I consider speaking?

People enjoy presenting to the CF community for a variety of reasons: to share experiences and discoveries, to help solve problems they've faced, to share new tools, or even to promote something they've written.

There are certainly many CFUGs the world over, and we support them fully, but some people may not be close enough to speak to one. And though they may know that some CFUGS welcome remote presenters, many presenters don't know where to turn or which to try to present to first.

The CF Meetup is really a great place, whether to present a talk for the first time or even if you've presented it to other groups live or remotely before.

In the case of a new talk, you can use it to work out the kinks (some find it easier to talk in front of a mic rather than standing before an audience). Also, other CFUG managers can see your talk and then may ask to have you present it to their group, whether on-site or online. (They may prefer that to telling their members to just go watch your recording.)

And if you have a talk you've presented before, well consider that some may not have seen your talk when presented before, again even if you recorded it. Also, you can use this as a chance to revise a talk done previously (practice makes perfect), or to reprise a previous talk you did that you think some groups may feel is old news. We have room here for classic subjects!

Finally, another benefit for you is that we record all our meetings (more on that later), so you can share the URL of recording on your site, in emails, in your materials, etc.

So what is the ColdFusion Meetup?

The Online ColdFusion Meetup is an online CF User Group--in fact it's the largest CFUG in the world with over 1,200 members. Don't let that scare you, though, as a prospective presenter. We tend to have less than 50 attendees at any one meeting (sometimes much fewer). It all depends on the topic.

As I've discussed in previous blog entries, the meetup was first formed in 2004 by Steven Erat, an Adobe CF support engineer who had to step down about a year ago. Ray Camden and I both stepped up earlier this year expressing interest in reviving it. We decided to take it on together, and the plan was that we'd split the hosting every 6 months, with me taking the first half of the year.

Well, it's been 9 months now (with a bit of a break in the summer, more in a moment) and no surprise Ray's super busy. We discussed it recently and, commending my effort so far, he asked to step back to just being backup host, which is fine by me, and which in fact I needed this week (again, more later).

We've had 17 speakers so far, including several previews before cf.Objective() and CFUnited. I even tried to arrange them before Max but it just didn't work out. Indeed, we had a bit of a hiatus around that time, with that and the release of CF8 stealing time and attention from prospective presenters.

But things have really started to pick again and we've had 4 speakers the past two weeks and have more to come, which will be announced each week as part of our new "Fall lineup".

So how often DO you meet?

Well, most CFUGs meet monthly, but being online we have the luxury to meet as often as we like. :-) We seem to be settling into a pattern of weekly meetings. There are enough presenters, topics, and audience members that I don't see the well running dry.

It may not be the same folks attending week to week, which is fine, really. That's the beauty of being an online group. People will come if the topic interests them. No crowd is too big or too small.

Ray and I have also decided that we'll commit to presenting at least once a month each if needed, so we can know we'll always have at least 2 talks each month from now on.

When do you meet?

We tend to meet Thursdays at either noon or 6pm eastern (often both times, though we don't ask a speaker to present his topic twice in a day). This is all about trying to balance not only the needs of US audiences (across 3+ time zones) but also those in Europe and Asia/Pacific. Noon will be the afternoon/evening for Europe but before dawn in Asia/Pac. 6pm will be morning for Asia/Pac but late night for Europe. These are the challenges of a world-wide audience. (We've also polled the membership and these were the most popular time frames, though we may rerun the poll in time.)

But we can be flexible on the time and even the day. It's just a pattern to give familiarity, but it's not set in stone. In fact, this week, Ray's speaking at 4pm and we've already got 32 RSVPs after announcing it only this morning! :-) Of course, he's a draw, as have been many of our presenters.

But really anyone is welcome to present, whether you're an old hand or a first-timer.

Where do you meet?

Again, we're an entirely online group. We never meet in person and we have members all over the world. The group always meets at http://experts.acrobat.com/cfmeetup, an Adobe Acrobat Connect meeting room which is opened only for the meetings (typically a few minutes before and after, just like a room in "the real world").

(I should mention that we also have both a message board and mailing list, for members to ask each other questions outside of the meetings themselves. See the Meetup site for more.)

Are your meetings recorded?

Yes, they are. And as I mentioned above, that's a real benefit of speaking at the Meetup, if you're interested in being able to have others see your presentation after the fact. We post the URL for all our meeting recordings for anyone to watch.

And we owe a debt of gratitude to Adobe for their provision of a free Acrobat Connect account as well as the space and bandwidth for holding and presenting the recordings. This is an offer they make to all official Adobe User Groups. For more info on that (if you're a UG manager or want it for your user group), see the other blog entries I've done, starting with this one/.

And while we're on the subject, let me note that to find these and many other recorded presentations, see my repository of recorded user group presentations, UGTV, which has hundreds of hours of presentations by presenters the world over, which anyone can view for free.

What topics are welcomed at the Meetup?

Getting back to being a speaker on the Meetup, we welcome pretty much any topic related to CFML, whether on an advanced or a beginning topic. The beauty of the online format is people can come or not. And again, logistically, no audience is too large or too small.

Going back to a point I made before, we can even have you present some classic topic that you think some audience may appreciate, but that you'd fear presenting before a live audience because of the risk it may not bring out enough attendees. Sure, maybe in any one city there may not be that many CFers interested in that topic, but across 1200+ members, you may find your kin here! :-)

What next dates are available?

We have meetings lined up this week, and next week, and then will take the following week off for Thanksgiving (a US Holiday).

I'm lining up speakers for the rest of the the last week of November, all of December, and into next year. I welcome even expressions of tentative interest (if you're not quite ready to set a fixed date).

OK, so how do I become a speaker?

If you're interested or have any questions, please drop me a note at charlie (at) carehart.org.

What if I'm nervous about presenting?

Don't be. This is a friendly place. And I'll guide you through the entire process. As a veteran presenter of hundreds of user group talks myself, both live and online, I've helped our Meetup presenters (veterans and newcomers alike) with issues as varied as helping firm up a compelling title and description to sharing tips on how to present effectively online, including helping you sound good and even helping pick out good choices for headsets or mics--we don't bother with cameras. For all we care, you can speak in your underwear. :-)

How can I support the group?

Hey, we could always use your support, whether as a speaker or just in helping "spread the word" on the group. :-)

If you're a blogger or belong to a mailing list and want to promote the Meetup as a place for prospective presenters to consider, we'd be grateful. Feel free to point them to this blog entry that you're now reading.

You can point potential members to the Meetup site (coldfusionmeetup.com). Again, it's free to join the group. Or feel free to use this nifty Flash badge that also always lets folks know when the next meeting will happen:

Here's the code for that:

<div style="text-align: center; width: 214px; font-family: tahoma, verdana, sans serif; font-size: 12px;"><embed src="http://www.meetup.com/swf/membership_badge.swf?chapterid=36740" width="214" height="142" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></embed><br /><a href="http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/?track=i3/mu_xomz4qgrkm">Click here to check out<br/>The Online ColdFusion Meetup Group!</a></div>

I meant, "how can I support the group monetarily?"

Ah, well how nice of you! :-) Seriously, though, we're not setup to take in donations for now (nor are we setup as a non-profit).

I will say I pay a monthly fee for the meetup.com site, which otherwise is used by groups that meet in real life, to help them organize and promote such meetings. It's worth it for the, and for us. Our URL really just redirects to a specific section of their site, devoted to our group. I'm torn about whether it would be cheaper to build out all its features on a site of our own. Even with the many excellent free tools from Ray and others, it still would take time to do and to manage, and time is money, of course.

And indeed running the group itself is already a time commitment of its own. Still, running the CF Meetup is really a gift to the community, and just another part of the many wonderful ways that we all learn from each other in this great CF community.

But since you're really pressing me :-), I'll point out that both Ray and I have Amazon wish lists.

No, thank you!

But really, thanks for your support whether you're a speaker or an attendee, or if you do anything to help promote the group. It sounds trite, but as with all CFUGs it really is your group. You can help make it what you want it to be, and by promoting it to others, you make it all the more compelling a place to "watch and be watched".

I welcome your feedback and comments, and I hope to "see" you at an upcoming meetup.

Who owns who in the book publishing world: can't tell the players without a program!

Ever wondered who owns who in the book publishing world? It becomes important for those who run user groups, as most publishers have great programs to provide free review and giveaway copies of books for our groups. But how do you know whose program to go to to get a particular book? It's not as simple as it seems, since many imprints are actually subsidiaries of a larger publisher.

It's like they say in baseball: "you can't tell the players without a program!" :-)

So with that, I'd like to present my observation of who's who, using primarily the list of publishers listed in the Adobe UG program. It generally just lists the parent publishers, so this will help you know who to go to for particular books. (Authorized UG managers can see the list in the "third party program resources" page.)

Who's owned by who?

Again, as mine is a blog focused on ColdFusion, this list is also focused only on the publishers (and their imprints) that would be of interest to CFers. The publishers below sometimes have (many) more subsidiary imprints than those I list. Beyond that, though, these lists may still be incomplete for publishers we may be interested in, and I welcome feedback and corrections.

I've tried to get the information from the actual publishers sites themselves, and have offered a link where available. Another useful resource for this is a blog entry by Tim O'Reilly on the state of the computer book publishing industry. It had a little more detail in some areas, yet also didn't list all the publishers mentioned below.

  • Apress: Friends of Ed

  • Manning: none

  • McGraw Hill: Osborne and many others, but none in this space it seemed (from http://pubeasy.mcgraw-hill.com/pls/pubeasy/bepublist.publist_page)

  • O'Reilly: Pogue Press (O'Reilly source-- as it states, others listed there are distribution partners, not subsidiaries)

  • Packt: none

  • Pearson: Addison-Wesley , Adobe Press, Exam Cram, IBM Press, Macromedia Press, MySQL Press, New Riders, Novell Press, Peachpit Press, Prentice Hall, Que, Sams, Sun Microsystems Press (Pearson source), additional info from O'Reilly blog)

  • Wiley: Dummies, John Wiley, Sybex, Teach Yourself Visually, Wrox (Wiley source)

Hope that helps someone. And while it's accurate today (as far as I know), it could certainly become dated over time as transition in the industry continues, if you find this entry some months or years from now!

Recording your next user group meeting (and finding the recording)

If you're a user group manager who is taking advantage of the free Acrobat Connect account from Adobe for user groups, the next challenge for you may be how to make and use recordings of your meetings. I find that many managers have just never done this, and it can be so valuable, especially since you can then list the recording for your members and indeed for the entire community on my UGTV site. More on this later.

Making a recording of your meeting

Fortunately, it's very easy to record your meeting. It doesn't matter if you'll be having any remote attendees. Indeed, it doesn't matter if you'll be having a remote speaker. As long as you have an internet connection, you can record whatever a speaker says and shows. Everything you see and hear will be captured and can be played back in perfect fidelity.

While you're in a Connect meeting (as a host, discussed in the earlier blog entry), simply hit the Meeting>Record Meeting option in the top menu bar. You'll be prompted for a name and description. Don't worry too much about getting this perfect at that point, since I'll show how you can easily edit the information later. (You don't even need a description, and since the recording will be timestamped, you don't even need to worry about creating a unique name, if you'll be editing it soon after the meeting--so you don't forget which recording is which.)

Tip: As a word of advice, I'd recommend you be prepared to start your meeting right after you hit the record button. The recording will indeed start immediately, and I've heard too many recordings where the host and/or presenter are fumbling around getting things situated while the "tape" is rolling. Please be considerate of those who will listen to your recording later.

They don't want to have to wait--and there's no easy means to know how long such preliminaries will go on. Advancing the playhead in the playback mechanism isn't as precise as it could be, either, so the listener won't be able to easily skip ahead. This is an easy mistake in the moment. You figure everyone else in the room is waiting patiently while you get started. But it's quite annoyance at the start of a recording.

When you're done, you simply hit the Meeting>Record Meeting menu option again, or the red "recording" icon/dot in the top right of the Connect interface (which tells you you're recording).

Note that there is no "pause" feature. If you stop it, you're stopping that recording and would need to start a new one. If you're having multiple talks during a meeting, it may be best anyway to create a separate recording for each.

Here's another tip: you can use the ease of creating recordings to create a quick one before the start of the meeting to test how you and your presenter sound. Sometimes, you can't judge by what you hear, if you've got bad bandwidth temporarily. You can create a quick recording, go listen to it, then delete it. I'll show how to find the recordings next.

Finding the Recording URL

OK, so you've made your recording. Now, how do you find it? I hear this lament from user group managers all the time. In fact, it was 2 such pleas for help that I saw today which sparked me to create this entry (been meaning to for some time).

You get to the recordings not through the Connect interface but instead through the same interface you use to create the meeting. (Each Connect account may have a different URL, and of course you need a valid login/password, so I can't tell you how to get in. If someone else setup the meeting, you need to contact them, or your Connect administrator, to get that info.)

On the Admin page, click the "Meetings" link on the top of the page. That will show all your current meetings. (You can also use "my scheduled meetings", but it's a slightly different presentation of meetings list.) Select your desired meeting (the one where you made the recording--as you may see several listed).

You will then see several links, one of which will be "Recordings". That's where the recordings (if any) for that meeting will be listed. Click that.

Now you can click on a recording (that name you gave when you started the recording). That will show you the URL for the recording ("URL for viewing"). You can click the link right there to have it open and start playing the recording. You'll want to make sure it sounds and looks good. If not, just take notes to do things better next time. You can't edit the recordings in any way.

Tip: Here's another reason to view the recording while you're at this point. If the recording prompts for a username/password, you can alter it to not require that. Indeed, you can also make a slight modification to be able to track how many times the recording is viewed. I cover both in another blog entry, "Webcast: How to track views of your Breeze/Acrobat Connect recorded presentations".

Finally, while you're viewing the recording information (whether before or after you move it as discussed in the above-named entry), you will also see an option called "Edit", where you can rename it or add/edit the description. You can change this any time, even after people have started viewing the recording. The URL of the recording won't (and can't) be changed if you edit this information.

Tell the world about your recording

Now that you have the recording URL, you'll certainly want to blog it, and tell the presenter also, as s/he may also blog about it. (Again, be sure to have tested it first to make sure users aren't prompted for a username/password.)

Finally, don't forget to post it on the repository of recorded user group presentations, UGTV. Yep, that's a section of my site, but it's for anyone to post recordings to. Indeed, if you find a recording and don't see it listed, you can add it, whether you're the author or not. (If a recording is listed publicly, I can see no reason the author wouldn't want it listed in the UGTV list.) For more on the UGTV, see the UGTV category at right.

Hope that helps. Let me know if I forgot anything, or if it helps you. Feedback is always welcome.

User Group Managers, Unite

If you run a ColdFusion user group (or indeed, any Adobe user group), you should know that there are a couple of manager meetings taking place.

The first is a 2-hour meeting, online, during the Adobe Community Summit. I can't share details of that one, but I can say that if you're a UGM and therefore are on the Adobe UGM forum, you can find the details there.

The second is a live, day-long event being held at CFUnited. You can learn more about that at http://ugmm.cfunited.com/2007/. There you'll find the schedule, speakers, topics, and registration. At just $29, it's a bargain for a day-long event, and with the range of speakers and topics, it should be great value.

I spoke at the event last year, but sadly can't attend this year because of my day-long class being held the same day. There is a copy of my presentation, where I pointed to dozens of free resources for UGMS, in the Community Portal (again, UGMs are authorized to access that and can find out more in the UGM forum.)

As for that day-long class, if you're not a UGM and will be at the conference on Tuesday--or want to come early--there are still slots open for my class. I know the topic may surprise some, but there are many who will be shocked to learn of the hundreds of little--and big--changes that were introduced in CF 6, 6.1, 7, and their updaters. It'll take a whole day to cover them--and that's at a rapid pace!)

Webcast: How to track views of your Breeze/Acrobat Connect recorded presentations

I'm happy to present my first webcast, a short audio/video presentation showing a screen recording with narration of how to solve a problem. I plan to do many of these in the future.

This first one is a 5 minute video showing how to solve the problem of tracking how many people have viewed a Breeze/Acrobat Connect recorded presentation.

I discussed the solution in a previous entry, but some had asked for more details. Rather than write them out, I used this as a chance to put together the webcast.

I'd like to point out that these webcasts themselves are not made as Breeze/Connect presentations, since I ultimately want to make them downloadable to ipods. I've made this and will make future ones using Camtasia Studio 4 from Techsmith. They've been so kind as to give me a demo license and I look forward to creating many more.

I'll welcome feedback from folks both in what you think of the approach, and its design, as well as any ideas for future webcasts you may like to see. Of course, I especially welcome feedback on the topic itself.

An alternative means of archiving your group's mailing list: Google Groups

Did you know that a Google Group can be created solely to be an online repository/archive for another existing, traditional mailing list? I just learned this today.

In an entry last week (see below), I pointed out how the mail-archive.com site offered a great repository for archiving and providing a search interface for any group's mailing list.

But this Google Group's feature may appeal to some as an alternative. For more, see the Google Group's technote, Can I use Google Groups to archive another mailing list?.

For more on the other alternative I proposed, including a discussion for why either of this is different from proposing that any individual create their own gmail account for reading mailing lists (an entirely different subject/solution), see Need a (safe) searchable archive for your mailing list? Get one for free!.

The mail-archive.com service does have one distinct advantage: it can be setup to hold previous messages sent to the list being archived. Google Groups cannot, for now, so it will only be able to start archiving once you set it up.

Hope this helps someone or some group with a mailing list that lacks its own archive/search/web interface features.

Need a (safe) searchable archive for your mailing list? Get one for free!

Is your group's mailing list run on a traditional list server? If so, do you have an available, searchable archive of past messages? If not, or if it doesn't work well, here's a free solution for your group.

mail-archive.com is a free service for archiving any mailing list. Once your list's archive is created, the service will receive and archive all future messages to the list, and offers a web-based interface for anyone to view the list messages (by date or thread) and of course search existing messages.

And yes, someone can even import past messages to stock the archive (http://www.mail-archive.com/faq.html#import). Cool! Better still, it protects the privacy of the list members by hiding or obfuscating their email addresses. They even make it possible to respond to the sender via the archive using a special server mechanism that avoids delivering the address to a spambot. See the info at http://www.mail-archive.com/faq.html#spam and skip to the 2nd paragraph for more. I note they even detect emails in signatures and remove those, replacing it with "[EMAIL PROTECTED]". Very nice. They even have a mechanism to permit a sender to a list to PREVENT their message being archived (by their including the header X-No-Archive: yes). Finally, I'll point out that other CF mailing lists already use it, including the venerable CF-talk list: http://www.mail-archive.com/index.php?autobahn=nolimit&hunt=fusion so a list organizer or list member can check out the interface before deciding whether to use it. If you're interested in doing this for your list, you may want to contact the person who runs it (though, technically, they don't mandate that you be the list owner to set it up). You may at least want to announce your intent on your list to avoid a bunch of members setting up duplicates. Feel free to point them to this very blog entry to learn more.

And on a related topic, if your group's mailing list is hosted on a "groups" site like google or yahoo groups, then you should already have archiving and searching of the list contents there.

If you have a group and don't yet have a list, you should consider those free "groups" services. It's a great way to bring a community together. I've written elsewhere about that.

PS I do realize that Gmail could help me here, as an individual, but this is about solving the problem for all members of the list.

PPS I'd like to point out that I did previously write an entry on this same topic on another blog but wanted to reprise and update it here for those who may have missed it.

Are you recording CFUG meetings? Check out this tip to track how many visits you get

If you're a CFUG manager who may be taking advantage of the really nice offer from Adobe for us to use Connect to broadcast and/or record user group meetings, here's a nice tip for being able to track how many people have viewed the recording.

It turns out you can move a "Recorded Meeting" to the "Content Area" of your Connect account, so that Connect will treat the recorded version as "Content". Once you move it, you will now have access to the report section for the "content" (including the count of users who accessed the recorded version).

(Thanks to "Alain" on the Connect forums for sharing that answer when I asked about the challenge.)

Once you move it, you may wonder where to find it in the Connect Admin interface. You generally work in the "meetings" area, but you'll see a link in the top navbar next to that saying "content". That's where the recorded meeting is moved. Any URL for the recording remains the same.

What's more the count reflects all views since you recorded it, not just since you moved it.

One gotcha to watch out for: be sure to check the permissions on the recording, as the move could change the permissions. (Update 11/07: there was a time when I observed that the permissions would change, but recently I observe that I no longer need to do that.) Check "set permissions" while looking at the list of meetings at Content>My Content.

For more on the notion of user group managers using Connect, see the links below.

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