With Powers Combine...

Just a thought. We have a much smaller community here in Singapore, and so perhaps we should share, help each other and combine rather than separate our efforts. I am sure but quite a number of us hold various identities for the various user groups here.

I applaud the efforts of the founders of each user group but perhaps we can have a joint effort so as to lend a louder voice to the entire community as a whole? We could have different "Chapters" like other business groups and can still hold user group meetings for different topics in a month or joint meetings like we did before.

We can also share the same resources, namely to have a single website and forum that boast IT Professionals from different technical background and chipping in to the same issue and discussion.

It would be interesting to see how people from different backgrounds coming with interesting answers to the different issues we face everyday. Perhaps with the joint effort, we would be able to see increased “eyeballs” and get more people in.

Eh, just my 2 cents again.

In an ideal world, your suggestions will work. But in a selfish world like ours, it is difficult to achieve. We can take this offline.

There is some form of consoldation when we can find synergy among different usergroups. In fact, SgDotNet is very close to Windows Usergroup, and we are sharing a central server and skillsets to host our website, and you will see the power of IT pros and Devs combined soon (crossing fingers as our day job is, as usual, very hectic). Without this syntergy, the precious energy that is not consumed by our daily job is wasted on issues that would be avoided if the usergroups remain seperate. Very good example is the student chapter of SgDotNet.

There is truly a marked difference between .NET developers, Windows/Exchange administrators, and DBAs. Just to illustrate an example among the various communities.

While there are indeed overlaps of concerns in the natural occurrence on the IT landscape (which web developer should not learn how to install and configure IIS? which DBA should not learn how to write application SQL statements and review database schemas?), the majority of work and concerns are pretty mutually exclusive. It is the nature of such differences that will prevent communities from blending and mixing into a conglomerate unit.

Coming under a single structure would imply a single authority of administration; who would that authority be? It is highly likely that such authority personnel would favour the area which they originate from, while giving less priority and attention to communities they have no touch with. That is natural human tendency to work towards things they have experience with. Having each community practise full autonomy to work toward their own visions and goals is easier than trying to fit everybody under a common culture.

Mergers and acquisitions are truly difficult feats to pull off.

Let the Windows Guys make some comments.

I've been with SGDotNet for donkey years, and i lurk around in a corner. ;-)
Bronkman, are you Bronk?

Communities in Singapore, have a very unique personality in its own. Very different from other countries and places in some sense. While i run the Windows Group, Kit Kai, Alvin and Aaron takes care of SGDotnet, WeeHyong and Pom takes care of SQL Group, there are many similarities in how the groups operate and the interest of the landscape.

However, through the similarities, there are also diversities. It gets a little political and hard to manage. The 3 groups has over the years, grown to be very good friends. We hold joint activities under our own identities and that has been what is unique for us. But i do hear you and the communities concern.

If i manage to pull off this stunt, to unify the 3 groups and centralized it, the rapport must be damn good, and resources needs to be poured in. The truth is, the groups hasn't got any operating funds on our own. We rely on sponsors and namely Microsoft and a few others. There is a plan or idea to unify, but yet stay diversified. That is a challenge and thought the leadership team needs to think and reshape.

Windows and SGDotnet and to a certain degree, merged operations. But we'll never have a full merger because i think we're unique the way we are. However, we'll be trying very hard to attain a higher level of merger. I don't know how feasible it will be, but hopefully we'll get there. I have hoped for 3 brandings (SGDotNet, Windows, SQL), and have a central membership database owned by the respective brand (UG) owner.

Its is discussion and this is a huge bet we need to take. With our day jobs, it isn't going to accelerate very quickly and we ain't got the money to pay someone to do it, unless we have a sponsor or volunteer. We started as individual groups and now we have tight cooperations and operations, its been a tough but rewarding journey.

Damn, i sound like i'm writing some keynotes.. But hey, our groups been operating well. While we build the infrastructure for the communities, we require the communities to participate. Lets look towards unifying while retaining identity.

Bronk, nice suggestions. But unknown to you, there's been plenty of silent collaboration amongst the user group leaders in terms of aligning our calendars, topics, and having major/minor joint events so that we can reach out to a larger audience. The 3 biggest user groups in Singapore, SGDOTNET, SWUG and SGSQLUG have been doing this stuff for the longest time since you and I were member of the user group, and those ex-leaders have already handed down the leadership stick to the next generation (with the exception of founder and existing leader for SWUG ).

As each user group evolved differently, and have different 'paymasters' (despite it being Microsoft mainly, but Microsoft is a BIG company), it's difficult for us to simply collapse our operations (via Merger & Acquisitions). My personal take is why waste precious resource collapsing operations? Each user group can continue to co-exist (yes, we're wasting SERVER resource, but heck it - it gets political to be sharing servers), we can continue to further collaborate with each other.

Like Aaron has mentioned, there's a very thin line between a developer, IT pro and DBA. This is also the same for topics, is CLR Development in Sql Server considered a Dev or Sql topic? Is Sharepoint considered a Dev or IT Pro topic? Trust me, the UG leaders worked hard together to prevent all kinds of conflicts which can arise if each of us simply guard our ground and refuse to buldge.

Caveat: The only reason why we should unify is to get sponsorship and be independent, my $0.02.

Eh.. Alvin, what you mean by wasting server resource?? Thought we haved resources by sharing the same server. ;-)
Share server with me political meh? haha.. we've been pals for quite a few years already.

No conflicts. I'm very supportive of SGDotnet and any other communities in Singapore.
I love this gang... and we should continue this way, and improve our group's relationships.

Hey, btw, hijack this thread. Next CTU in Oct/Nov. We do HyperV Launch theme. You guys ok??

lol..Other than SWUG and SGDOTNET, the rest of the UGs are guilty of not saving GAIA...Neh, working with you is never any problem. But I'm sure you can't say for the rest of the UGs right?

Onz - Hyper V launch! Sounds great!

lol..Other than SWUG and SGDOTNET, the rest of the UGs are guilty of not saving GAIA...Neh, working with you is never any problem. But I'm sure you can't say for the rest of the UGs right?

Onz - Hyper V launch! Sounds great!

lol..Other than SWUG and SGDOTNET, the rest of the UGs are guilty of not saving GAIA...Neh, working with you is never any problem. But I'm sure you can't say for the rest of the UGs right?

Onz - Hyper V launch! Sounds great!

Ah..now the power of SWUG and SGDOTNET have combined, we're truly running on a common platform.

Can only say using common hardware platform... :p

Dennis, when is swug's turn?

lol..Yes, we're only sharing hardware platform for now. Dennis, does SWUG have license to run CS 2008? Request for one if you don't and I can assist you to migrate.