Note: This blog post is from 2007. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

I explained previously the rekindling of the Meetup, which is an official, online Adobe ColdFusion user group.

The group serves a couple of audiences. Obviously, for those who don't have a local user group, it's a vital link to the community. Beyond that, though, anyone may join and participate, so it really serves the worldwide CF community. The group grew to 900 members during Steven's time, and now it's up to 1,100 over 1,200 members (update as of Oct 2007). We've had several successful meetings the past several weeks.

Meetings are typically 30-60 minutes long, just like a real user group meeting, as driven by the speaker's topic. People join in to listen (voice over IP) and optionally interact with the speaker via a chat window (we use an Acrobat Connect account that Adobe graciously grants to user groups). There are typically about 20-40 folks online during most of our sessions

Better still, we record all the meetings (again, with Adobe's generously hosting the recordings), so your message gets shared potentially to the entire CF community. I list all the recordings, along with over a hundred other user group talks, at my UGTV site. Folks typically blog about the sessions as well, all of which help further spread whatever news or tips you have to share.

Of course, we're not looking for anything exclusive. It can be a talk already given to another CFUG. But certainly if a speaker can't make it to any one group, or can't pick which one to present to virtually (if they use Connect), the speaker can at least present to this group and know that they can reach a wide audience, since all 1,100 members receive a notice by email of each upcoming meeting.

The topics can be anything related to CF, including ancillary tools, frameworks, products, etc. We want to help carry the flag for the CF community and be a resource for everyone. We can't expect that each meeting will interest every person, but we can hope that everyone might find value in one or more talks over time.

For now we're meeting irregularly (we've had 10 17 so far (update as of Oct 2007), sometimes with a week or two between them, but some on the same day). We'll fall into a rhythm of regular scheduling once we have a handle on availability of speakers and interest from the audience. For now, any ideas are welcome, and we already have a few folks lined up having expressed interest.

So again, if you're interested, or know someone who may be, let me know. My contact info is at right. Thanks in advance.