Chicago Meeting, March 10th, 2007

[kpit]

Hello everyone,

I would like to thank SugarCRM for sponsoring the event. SugarCRM will have two team members presenting at the event Andy Dreisch (Vice President, Online Team) and Manoj Jayadevan (Product Managment). Ken Brill from the SugarCRM community will also be presenting. I will be presenting as well in addition to running the event. Registration is required for the event there will be no walk-in registration and we have a seating limit of 40 attendees. You can register for the event here.

Here is the draft of the Agenda for the meeting all (times are in Central Time):

1:00 pm - 1:30 pm - Sign-In
1:30 pm - 1:45 pm - Introductions and Chicago SDUG (Max Blackmer)
1:45 pm - 2:15 pm - SugarCRM, Inc. and the Community (Andy Dreisch)
2:15 pm - 2:30 pm - Break
2:30 pm - 3:15 pm - SugarCRM Product Roadmap (Manoj Jayadevan)
3:15 pm - 3:30 pm - Break
3:30 pm - 4:15 pm - Modifying SugarCRM with Studio (Max Blackmer)
4:15 pm - 4:30 pm - Closing by Ken Brill and door prize drawing.
4:30 pm - 5:00 pm - Social Networking.

This agenda will change as content for the event progresses.

[kpit]

Everything is on target for March 10th at the Marriott Hotel on the Magnificent Mile. Located at 540 North Michigan Avenue, (Driveway Entrance on 541 North Rush Street) Downtown Chicago.

[andydreisch]

We've garnered some space on the SugarCRM.com website as well as an event.

We're also getting a mention in the upcoming SugarBUZZ newsletter.

Andy

[jcobbers]

Excellent!

I've posted this to Techsocial, a Chicago tech specific event calendar.

SugarCRM Chicago Users Group Meeting, on Techsocial, chicago's tech entrepreneurship event calendar

Looking forward to this!

-JAW

[kpit]

Thanks jcobbers,

I also posted the event on Ryze Business networking at http://www.ryze.com/ed.a?eid=33577

[zeropegleg]

Request - will you be video recording these sessions for those of us who won't be able to make it up to Chicago?

[kpit]

I think this event will be recorded. I will be talking to some attendees That may be bringing some recording equipment to record the event. I will check back if I find out they are bringing the equipment.

[kpit]

Hello everyone,

The event was a smashing success. Lots of positive feed back. We also had another surprise visitor. Markku from Finland showed up in person in the Chicago SDUG!

The event was not recorded but some pictures were taken that will be posted here for the event.

Andy, opened the discussion about SugarCRM and the Community. This was a discussion about how SugarCRM and the community are working and how SugarCRM is listening to the community to improve the community process and SugarCRM. Manoj Mentioned that this is the case with the email part of SugarCRM and was pushed to be a top priority for the 5.0 release planned.

Manoj discussed the roadmap for SugarCRM 5.0 more info on this can also be found in the forum post http://www.sugarcrm.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21417

I covered Using The Studio to customize SugarCRM in particular the the ability to relabel all field labels to make it match your companies nomenclature. The example was to turn Cases in to Tickets and Bugs into Master Tickets.

Ken Brill discussed SugarPrint and a new module for calendar.

Throughout the meeting Andy was taking vigorous notes on feed back from the attendees for suggested changes.

[andydreisch]

Nice summary, Max. I'll work with Susie tomorrow to post the PPTs and such, along with a summary of my "vigouros" notes!! Hopefully, Markku will be able to provide the digital snaps he took along the way as well.

I'd like to thank everyone who attended. We had a good turnout and everyone stayed to the very end, which was good to see. I'd especially like to thank Markku, winner of an iPod for the Most Mile Travelled Award, for his commitment and comments throughout. Also, Ken "My Wife Is About To Burst" Brill, for his involvement as well.

Of course Max deserves muchos kudos for arranging the whole event.

A quick note that the hotel was packed full of NCAA Big Ten conference basketball supporters. When I first arrived there I thought -- wow!! -- we really had a massive turnout!!

Andy

[Markku]

Hi Max and Andy,

Thanks for the very informative event! It was great to meet you, Ken, Manoj, hear what's coming next and discuss with other Sugar users.

I'm still on my way back home, but I'll post the pictures as soon as possible.

Best,

- Markku

PS. Almost forgot, according to recent CRM software market study, SugarCRM has 2% market share in the Finnish markets.