With 2009 shaping up to be a year of tight budgets and travel restrictions, wise investment of travel dollars is more important than ever before.  As always, there are many competing opportunities, including Print 09 in September.  There are also a growing number of vendor-oriented user groups that hold annual conferences in North America, and we were curious how they were shaping up for 2009.  In researching this article, we spoke to representatives of several of the key industry user groups to gain insight into how they perceive their value-add, and the benefits that attendees can garner from attending these events.

We found three distinct models that are associated with the organizational structure of these groups.  Some of them are run entirely by the vendor, leveraging an advisory board of—or feedback from—users to help structure deliverables.  These include:

Another model is an independent non-profit corporation, often with By-Laws restrictions that limit the focus of the group to a specific vendor, such as: