The State of OpenSearch User Groups - talk at OpenSearchCon Europe 2025
This year at OpenSearchCon Europe in Amsterdam, I got to kick off the second day of the event with a talk on the User Group program. This is a program that is near and dear to my heart - it's been a major part of what I have been creating with the OpenSearch community for a couple years now.
I covered an overview of the program including topics about:
- How I knew it was time to start this program
- What makes a good leader
- A flexible yet structured framework
- Branding and identity for the program
- Tools we use to run the user groups
- Why you would want to get involved as an individual or a business / solution provider
- Some of our many global success stories
Then I left it with a call to action - if the audience saw their city up on the map, join in, and if they didn't, reach out and let's have a talk about starting one in their city. Then an amazing thing happened; as soon as I walked off stage and the post-presentation adrenaline rush was winding down, two nice community members walked over and let me know the talk inspired them. I'm now in discussion to start a new OpenSearch User Group in another beautiful city in Europe. Perfect.
If you are interested, here is a recording of the talk
Keynote: The State of OpenSearch User Groups: Building a Global Community - Kris Freedain and a link to my slide deck.