by Iris Boers
Vivit EMEA Local User Group Liaison

No, we are not talking about the advertising slogan of the Klosterfrau Healthcare Group for the freely available medicinal product Klosterfrau Melisana - a distillate of 13 coordinated medicinal plants and better known as the "spirit of Melissa".

What was intended as an advertising message in 1925 to emphasize the uniqueness and special nature of the product Klosterfrau Melisana is today more than ever also valid for the intensive exchange of information between IT decision-makers and IT managers.

Progressive digitalization, the energy turnaround, and a new ecological understanding, and not least Corona Covid-19 with the accompanying changes in the working world, are leading to dramatic changes in companies – and this at a speed never seen before.

In these times, the winners are those who forge efficient alliances and gain an information advantage. The exchange of information has never been as valuable as it is today!

But with every day the flood of information that comes to us and asks for our attention is increasing. Overburdened with the task of processing all these messages and impressions, we usually scan this information only superficially. So how do you create an efficient exchange of information with like-minded people that also helps to optimize and maximize the IT solutions you use?

What exactly is it that makes the user community so valuable and unique and more important than ever in today's world?

Whether international corporations, Fortune 100 companies, public authorities, or international world market leaders from the upper-middle-class - many of these organizations have one thing in common: at least part of their IT infrastructure is based on Micro Focus technologies. To get the most out of these sophisticated yet highly complex products, a profound, well-founded, and practice-oriented expertise is required that cannot be learned exclusively from official documentation or textbooks.

This is exactly where the Vivit Worldwide User Community comes into the game. As an independent, non-profit service organization that represents the broad Micro Focus community, it is our mission to provide this specific know-how to both IT and business professionals working in a Micro Focus environment and to help customers getting their investments in Micro Focus and Partner solutions maximized. Why we are passionate about all this: the education we provide and the connections we facilitate empower Micro Focus Technology users to accelerate success for your teams, your organizations, and – ultimately -- the people you serve.

"Not always reinventing the wheel - learning from others...", that is one of the three pillars on which the successful work of our Vivit community rests. There are currently more than 80 local user groups and 30 special interest groups where people exchange ideas - at face-to-face meetings in our member companies, in virtual online working group meetings, or at the different pages with various knowledge forums at the Vivit Community webpage.

And even if face-to-face user meetings are still one of the core elements of the community, there has been an increased demand for virtual user meetings not only since Covid-19. In the last 4 months alone, we have held more than 19 virtual user meetings in the USA, UK Germany, and Brazil. It should be emphasized that many of these virtual user meetings were attended by a number of participants that were well above the average. One reason for this was - according to the feedback we received from some of our members - that such online user meetings can be easily integrated into the personal planning calendar, as there is no need to travel and the participants were positively surprised by the technical quality and the possibilities of active exchange during the virtual meetings.
Just as interesting as it was highly appreciated by the participants was the fact that these virtual user meetings all had their own identity and direction. Sometimes they were designed as open discussion rounds, where it was purely a matter of exchanging best practices and use case scenarios and technical questions from the members, sometimes there were roadmap presentations, there were set up as a "lean coffee" formats, where the participants first gather, build an agenda, and then begin talking. Conversations were directed and productive because the agenda for the meeting was democratically generated.

If you want to learn more about the last virtual user meetings, take a look at the community event calendar archive. Summaries with download options for the presentations shown can be found on the respective group pages of the individual LUGs & SIGs.

Our broad network and wealth of experience offer the best possible exchange of experience in the Micro Focus scene. After all, who better than the users themselves could report on how stumbling blocks could be eliminated?
Try out all that our membership offers - from live events to participation in virtual user meetings and webinars, download the latest episodes of our Vivit Espresso Talks Podcast - and use the online knowledge exchange with like-minded people in the form of the individual group pages.

We can promise - Vivit Worldwide members learn what’s next, what’s new, and what’s worked for others!