Hanging with the MUGs

In a room on the second-floor mezzanine of Moscone Center’s South Hall, Chuck Joiner talks about his MUG with a smile.

No, not his face, his Macintosh User Group — one of more than 600 groups worldwide that bring together Macintosh owners based on geographic area, profession, or interest. Hershey Apple Core has been in existence since the days of the Apple II, and Joiner has been a member just about as long.


Advisory Board Chairman Chuck Joiner hosts a session in the User Lounge. Photo by Sparky Cohen
Weary MUG members relax on a comfy couch in lounge. Photo by Sparky Cohen

Six years ago he became president of his group, and now he’s Chairman of the Apple User Group Advisory Board, an organization created last year to provide feedback and advice on issues related to the Apple User Group Program.

Building a Better Lounge
One of the board’s tasks is to help Apple User Groups do more with their Macworld lounge (generously donated by event producer IDG). Beginning with last July’s Macworld New York, Joiner and his fellow board members started to use the lounge to host three kinds of activities:

• User group meetings. Every group gets a chance to use the lounge to host meetings.

• Guest speakers. Macintosh community celebrities like Dennis Sellers of MacCentral and Bryan Chafflin of The Mac Observer come in and give talks to the groups.

• MUG “nuts and bolts” sessions. User group leaders get an opportunity to share ideas about membership recruitment and other issues with their peers.

It's been wonderful the way these folks have supported us. Often these talks turn into big discussions about various Expo-related topics, like Apple's new announcements. - Chuck Joiner, President, Hershey Apple Core
User Group Program Manager Diane Cohn hosts a brown bag brainstorming session in the lounge. Photo by Chuck Joiner

The lounge is also a place where potential user group members can access Apple’s online User Group Locator, which helps them find a user group in their area. In addition, many groups like to use the lounge to distribute flyers, newsletters, and other materials about their group.

Increased Visibility
At Macworld San Francisco, user groups had their own booth in the Internet Café and offered free tour guides to attendees overwhelmed by the size of the show. Local user groups also had their own booth in the north hall, where they recruited new members, raffled off great software like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Photoshop 6, and got the chance to let the rest of the Macintosh community know what a MUG is.

User groups also received a visibility boost when Joiner had the opportunity to do an Introduction to Macintosh User Groups presentation in the Macworld main conference track. Joining him onstage were representatives from user groups located in California, Vermont, Japan, Venezuela, and Switzerland — a diverse assembly picked for a reason, according to Joiner.

“I wanted to show people that it’s not a California thing or even a United States thing,” he explains. “It’s everywhere. The user group experience is universal.”

Get involved. Find a user group near you.

—Brad Cook