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735 User Groups Worldwide serving 360,000 User Group Members
260 NORAM (US & Cananda) Groups serving 106,000 User Groups Members
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In This Issue
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UG Leader Summit
CodeCamps and Events Around the World
UG Relations Liason Announcement
User Group Events Held at Conferences
Hosting a Certification Study Group
Register VS 2005 for Free Book Offer
Upcoming Events
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 INETA UG Leader Summit at TechEd·2005
In conjunction with Microsoft’s Tech•Ed, on Sunday June 5th INETA will host the NORAM UG Leader Summit at the JW Marriott Orlando, Grande Lakes in Orlando, FL. This year’s event is a collaborative effort between INETA and Culminis (IT Pro Organization).  All user group leaders are invited to attend at no cost. Please email your name, user group name, city, state, and email address to teched@ineta.org to register.

Agenda
Time Session
8:00 a.m. Registration
8:30 a.m. Welcome
8:45 a.m. Keynote Presentations
Exchange Server Futures
David Thompson, Corporate Vice President, Exchange Server Product Group, Microsoft

Introducing Indigo
Ari Bixhorn, Lead Product Manager, Web Services Strategy, Microsoft
9:45 a.m. Developer and IT Professional Community: Launching into the Future With Microsoft

Joel Shalaby, IT Professional Community Marketing, Microsoft
Amy Sorakas, Developer Community Marketing, Microsoft
10:45 a.m. Break
11:00 a.m. INETA and Culminis Community Overviews
12:00 p.m. Lunch
1:30 p.m. Workshops 1
2:30 p.m. Break
2:45 p.m. Workshops 2
3:45 p.m. Break
4:00 p.m. Workshops 3
5:00 p.m. Break
5:15 p.m. Workshops 4
6:15 p.m. Closing Remarks
6:30 p.m. Social Hour

Workshops

The workshops are informal discussions on a variety of topics related to user groups, and will be led by moderators from the user group community. These are interactive! Participation is encouraged! Each workshop will be a great opportunity to learn from moderators and fellow user group leaders on many important topics, and get ideas to improve your user group.

Check out the workshop schedule online by clicking here "View Workshops"

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Hosting a Certification Study Group
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In addition to the lecture style monthly meetings, many user groups are creating certification study groups that meet throughout the month. Certification study groups are another great way for your user group members to benefit from being part of a community. Michael Wharton, who is a member of the   Piedmont Triad Dot Net User Group  in North Carolina, has created a number of Technology Study Groups and even has a website devoted to this format at www.technostudy.com.



Here are some pointers from Michael on starting and running an effective study group:

7 Steps to forming a Techno-Study Group
A Techno-Study group is a SIG in your Dot Net User group where members meet regularly and study together for the MCSD exams. They work very similar to study groups in high school or college. Everyone in the group reads chapters in a book and then gets together to discuss the material and clear up any vague points. Perspectives from the group are discussed, and finer points can be made clearer. Everyone involved brings a wealth of information to the table. 		Here are the 7 Steps to forming a Techno-Study group
  1. Find six or more people who are interested in forming a group. Most user groups can send out this notice in their monthly newsletter.
  2. Find a place to meet, preferably a conference room with projector and white board, and at a convenient location.
  3. Kick-off meeting: Determine the book(s) to use (hopefully discussed prior to meeting) and assign individuals to each chapter for leading a chapter discussion. Collect money for drinks and snacks, and any other study group needs.
  4. Continue meeting for the next 8 to 10 weeks, 2 hours per meeting. The chapter leader reviews the information in the chapter, but isn’t expected to teach the content. Each week everyone is responsible for reading the information and doing any labs. I like to high-light key points in the book and create some discussion from them. For example, if we are discussing building installations, I may ask how they are doing this in their company.
  5. Practice three simulation exams as a group. Project a simulation exam on the wall, and have the whole group agree on each answer. This is great fun, creates a lot of discussion, and fine tunes tricky concepts.
  6. Plan for next Techno-Study Group.
  7. The next three weeks should be the time for everyone to take the exam, and get a little rest to prepare for the next study group
If you would like more information about study groups, visit Michael’s web site at www.TechnoStudy.com .
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INETA NORAM User Group Relations Announces our Newest User Group Liason's back to top
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for the Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin
Brian Tinkler (Wisconsin .NET Users Group, Waukesha), brian.tinkler@ineta.org

Brian has been a part of INETA in one capacity or another since formal inception back in early 2002. Most recently he has been working on the INETA Academic Committee and the INETA Academic Student Committee. With his extensive experience with the academic community, Brian will make a great judge for the Imagine Cup Nationals in Redmond this year. There, he will get to see first hand, the output of this talented community. Brian started the Wisconsin .NET Users Group in February of 2002. Since then, they have grown impressively. As Brian says, "Every time we think we've already got everyone doing .NET in Wisconsin, we end up surprised when we continue to grow."

Brian also recently started the Wisconsin Windows Users Group, and has plans to roll out an Office Users Group and an MBS Users Group over the next 12-18 months.

Brian, Congratulations and Welcome Aboard!		 for Canada Atlantic (NB, NL, NS, PE) New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island
Amanda Murphy (St. John's .NET User Group, Newfoundland), amanda@funknstyle.com

Amanda has been involved in the .NET from the beginning, but the technology alone wasn't enough to contain her enthusiasm, so she started organizing the local community. The response exceeded expectations, and in 3 days she had 25 e-mails from people wanting to attend the first meeting. Soon, Amanda had started a .NET Certification workshop, and she has begun a campaign at a local university and various educational institutes to draw attention to our technology. Amanda says "I'd be extremely honored to represent and assist INETA here in Atlantic Canada and I really could not be more thrilled about such an opportunity." She recalls how people like Julie Lerman and Joel Semeniuk offered here indispensable guidance in her user groups early days, and says, "I would love to do the same for others!"

Amanda, Congratulations and Welcome Aboard!
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User Group Events Held at Conferences
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When conferences come to town, they bring a talent pool of out of town speakers, and provide a great opportunity for the local user group communities. For example, in Montreal, DevTeach is being held from June 18 -23.  GUVSM, one of the local .NET User Groups, will have their meeting at the conference location. DevTeach will open up the evening's events to the entire local community, for free, as part of the "DevTeach User Group Night" which will include Bonus Sessions.

 The DevTeach organizers (who have close ties to the user group community) and MSDN Canada are also hosting a User Group Leader and Regional Director meeting on Monday night. If you are a Canadian User Group Leader, MSDN will sponsor a free registration for this conference.

Another group taking advantage of the availability of out of town talent, is the Orlando .NET User Group.  In early June, they will be holding their user group meeting at the Tech•Ed convention center location . Stay tuned to Orlando .NET's website for more details as plans finalize.

If you have an event coming to town, consider how you can leverage the event for your members.
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Code Camps and Events Around the World
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The past month has seen another slew of wonderful community events in the NORAM community and around the world. Most of these originate with the communities that have grown out of your user groups. Here are some highlights from a few events:  

Mid Atlantic Code Camp drew 200 developers to Microsoft's very cool office in Reston, VA. There were 5 tracks and 29 sessions. The Code Camp was from 9am - 9pm and it took the help of many user group leaders to make it happen. The evening prior to the event, D.E. Andrew Duthie organized a meeting of 12 user group leaders from Virginia along with a board representative from INETA.

Atlanta Code Camp. was held on May 15 with 5 tracks and 25 sessions and went from 8am to 6:30pm. The blogosphere is filled the buzz from this Code Camp, which was organized by Mark Dunn and INETA liaison, Michael Earls. 
Raleigh Code Camp was pushed along by U.G. Leader and INETA liaison, Connie Marthinson, and was another rousing success. There were 4 tracks and 30 presentations at this "sold out" event.

DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper! at the Microsoft office in Reading, U.K. This event had three tracks, eighteen sessions, fifteen speakers and over two hundred and fifty registered attendees.

Test Driven Development Workshop. This was put on by Scott Bellware and the Dallas .NET User Group and was free full day event that drilled deep into TDD and Unit Testing.

Others included, Code Camp Oz in Australia, Greater PA Code Camp  and the 6th Day of .NET in Chicago!

Congrats to everyone for the fantastic successes that have been reverberating around the blogosphere!!
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Register Visual Studio 2005 Beta2 for a free online book from Micrsoft Press back to top
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Download and register your copy of Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 today, and receive access to a free developer book from Microsoft Press. Chose from online versions of Introducing ASP.NET 2.0, Introducing Microsoft® Visual Basic® 2005, and Writing Secure Code, 2nd Edition.

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/get/
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Upcoming Events
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Texas .NET User Group Olympics http://www.dotnetolympics.org/
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Editor: Julia Lerman [INETA Board Member, Vermont .NET User Group Leader, .NET MVP]

Designer: Sheri Nawrocki [INETA Marketing Committee, .NET Developer, Graphic Designer]

Special thanks to Scott Swigart for his contributions to this newsletter.

Archived newsletters are available on the INETA website at www.ineta.org/newsletters.

Please send news (and pictures) from your user group so we can include it in a future newsletter! Contact us at:
newsletter@ineta.org.

We welcome your feedback on this newsletter. Please contact newsletter@ineta.org.
International .NET Association 2005 
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