Jamie Hemmett has a few suggestions for local user groups out there on what to do and not to do to help make their group successful. Some of it was gathered from personal experience, other tips from the recent user group panel discussion from this year's ZendCon.

I just listened to the PHP User group Panel discussion from the Unconference session at ZendCon. While I listened I took some notes to try and help our Irish PHP Users Group be awesome like some of the other groups out there. I reckon the podcast and great tips it contains will help other User Groups out there too (not just PHP).

Some of the observations/comments she mentions include:

• Freelancing PHP developers may not feel like attending a group with "the competition"
• Several factors dissuade developers from attending (distance, confusing schedules, timing)
• Some ideas that groups out there could use to attract and keep more members
• Why the groups can make you a better developer
• and some sponsorship/promotion ideas to help grow and better the group

This is a great post packed with some good suggestions and observations. If you're involved at all in your local group (or would like to be) be sure to read it.