User club for editor's tools #SMCSFblog - Day21

Today I spend the day inside a tower with a huge clock.

I'd never imagine that there were offices there.
I mean yes I was aware that there would be offices there but as it is in the building of a train station I always thought that it was for state's offices (as the train company in France is a national one).

A surprise was to enter the building just underneath the station's clock! (Look at the pic). The elevator is in the tower and the offices are on the building to the left hand side of the picture.
I took the picture after leaving, with my iPhone, so it isnt' the best with this light.

Cool place to work. Smart. I work in a train station.
Oh, you're in the train business? Oh no, not me. I work in new technology.
Ho-ho.

I was there to spend the day at an user club on behalf of my work.
The meeting was organized by the editor of the tool so that users can start getting together, exchange about the way they use, are using or will use the product.
The editor will then get feedback from their customers and not only from their technical partners. It is a good thing as we are the ones who are buyng the solution. Their technical partners sometimes buy also but it is to help the end user (us, the companies) get their version.

This kind of meeting is a great idea so we can share our best practices and learn from each other as users. It was our first meeting and we all want to go further, customers and the editor. We think we can share a lot, provide feedback between us, prevent errors as we are sharing our experience) and help the editor improve the product for us. This is the interest of the editor too. And to know if the customers are happy or not. If not what he should do to make them happy again (and continue buying more licences).

Editors should think of it, not only to drive the meetings like organizing huge mass meeting for every one but also encourage this kind of group.
I have been to other user clubs in which I think the wrong name was used, it was more general presentations than exchange beteween users.
Editors should start doing this be this editor a big company or not.
In this case today it was a quite big company (not an european one on top of that) with customers worldwide.
We are their guinea pigs and if the club works and our and their feeling/feedback is positif they'll organize other user groups in other countries and spread the word.
the first feedback, the end of the day wrap up the result is positif. For both sides.
The group, we planned to continue sharing online and meet physically twice a year.
Let's see how far we will get! I'm sure we will go far away. We're the best!