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LOCAL CHAPTERS
	The Minnesota Chapter of the UPA by David Prigge and Lucy Suits

On a hot and dry day in the desert, a woman met a man.  And the woman met another man.  And the man knew another woman.  And the man the woman met knew another man. And the woman the man knew, knew two more women. 

And the man and the woman met more people, both men and women.  And the men and women the man and the woman met knew still more women and men.

Thus was born the Minnesota Chapter of the UPA, the first official chapter in the United States.

 The important things that helped all of these women and men get together were:

 -     The UPA 1999 Annual Conference in Scottsdale

-     The 1999 UPA Membership Directory

-         Other local organizations, such as SIGCHI

-         Professional relationships and word of mouth

 When all the men and women first got together at a noisy restaurant at The Mall of America, it became obvious that the local chapter was going to work.  Enthusiasm abounded.  We decided to meet monthly at the work sites of our members.

 Running on the platform of "Let's have fun," the honorable Lucy Suits was elected president at our second meeting.  Officer positions were created for all others who had expressed an interest in being officers.

Most of them ran unopposed and were promptly voted in.

 In January 2000, we had our first official meeting as a chapter.  We started as a group of 10 or 12 who regularly came together every second Thursday, and now we are a group of almost 20 who regularly attend.

 We do have fun and we cover some great topics:  positioning of usability within our companies, ROI of usability work, and automated methods of testing like vividence.com.