Red Gate have been running the Friends of Red Gate program for years now, and over that time we've built some great relationships with some truly awesome members of the SQL and .NET communities.

When I took over the running of the program from Annabel in 2011, I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and commitment of our Friends. There were just so many of them, however, that it was hard to make the most of the relationships we had with people, and I wanted to fix that.

I decided to survey all our Friends, to find out what they wanted to get out of, and put into, being in the Friends of Red Gate (FoRG) program. From the results of that survey, I identified 30 FoRGs that were really willing and able to go that step further to help Red Gate improve their tools, improve their relationship with the community, and improve the Friends of Red Gate program.

Those 30 Friends of Red Gate have been awarded 'FoRG+' status. That means they'll:

Have a closer relationship with the product teams, by getting involved in projects

Have even more access to the inside track about the tools they're interested in

Get the opportunity to come visit us at the Red Gate office and really influence the development of the tools.

Plus more, depending on how the individual FoRG+ wants to work with us.

This doesn't mean I've forgotten our other Friends; I'm working on ways to improve their experience of the Friends of Red Gate program. I'll write about them in another post.

If you're an existing Friend of Red Gate, and you're interested in finding out how to get involved in the FoRG+ program, then I'd love to chat to you.

For anyone that's interested in joining the Friend of Red Gate program, take a look at the web page dedicated to the program, and get in touch at [email protected] to be put on the waiting list for our 2013 program.