INETA Newseltter - January 2005

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Keep Your User Group Up to Date

Please be sure to keep your user group data up to date on the INETA website. Your group's website URL, your contact information and your group size are important pieces of information. If people are going to the INETA website to find a user group, and your link is broken, they won't be able to find you. You must be logged in to the INETA website to gain access to edit your information. Click Here

The Great INETA Survey

Thanks to all the user group leaders that completed the October 2004 INETA Meeting Attendance Survey. We had 247 user groups around the world complete the survey representing over 200,000 user group members! This information will help INETA improve its services in many ways going forward.

The winner's of the XBOX for a user group raffle were:
APAC-Dot NET Link, Porirua, New Zealand
Europe-Clikear, Madrid, Spain
USA/Canada-DHSMMug, Springfield, VA

INETA 2004' UG Leader Summit - TechEd in San Diego

INETA Interviews Executive Director, Samantha Spears

Q. How did you hear about INETA?
A. I first learned about INETA at Microsoft’s TechEd and PDC conferences in 2003 as well as with their visibility with the Imagine Cup. INETA’s Academic branch was my first introduction as I was working with professors in my prior association management experience.

Q. Where do you live?
A.I am actually a Georgia Peach, a true native, and live in the suburbs of Atlanta.

Q. What experiences from AIS will directly help INETA?
A. Working with a volunteer driven organization provides a good backdrop for moving into the INETA structure. The business experience as chief staff officer and my background in association management will also lend itself to assisting us as we move INETA forward. I think most useful will be the technical development and web-based growth at AIS that will help me more easily ease into the arena of working with professional developers as well. Finally, my experience as a member of the Microsoft Faculty Advisory Board brought to the forefront a lot of information about the latest and up-and-coming product plans and trends in the industry.

INETA Appoints Two New Board Members!

Chris Pels leads the Boston .NET User Group.

Julie Lerman leads the Vermont .NET User Group.

The International .NET Association (INETA) has appointed two new board members for a three year term. This brings the board membership to seven people. The two new board members are Chris Pels and Julie Lerman.

Both of these folks have gone out of their way to help make INETA what it is today. They are both outstanding volunteers and are eager to help INETA grow in this next year. The board position is a volunteer position and has a lot of responsibility. INETA manages a good-sized budget to help support the massive amount of .NET user groups out there in the world. There is a lot to do in this area and we are real big believers in "community helping community for the love of technology".

Stay up-to-date with INETA News BookMark the INETA Site Today!

How To Get Involved - A Call For Volunteers

INETA relies heavily on the ideas, personal time, and energy of its membership, leaders, and officers. If you are a user group leader – or even an enthusiastic supporter of the .NET user community looking for a way to help, grow with your peers, and find out about volunteer opportunities. Throughout 2005, INETA will also be holding organizational and planning meetings, virtually and in various locations. If you would like to become part of the INETA volunteer team, please email volunteers@ineta.org.

INETA Speakers Participate in Benefit Auction for Tsunami Relief Efforts Jan 23 - Feb 2

INETA speakers from all of the INETA worldwide regions joined together with other .NET Celebrities to auction off one hour of their consulting time to benefit Aceh Aid at IDEP, a Sumatran aid organization that is doing amazing and heroic work to help the people of Aceh and Western Sumatra. The auction is being held on eBay. Bidding starts at $100 and all money goes directly to AAAI. Each of the top 30 winning bidders will be able to pick the brains of one of these gurus for an hour. We all hope for this auction to be a raging success and that we will see repeats of the ".NET Celebrities Auction for Aceh Aid at IDEP" because we have so many talented geeks at our disposal! The auction should still be active when this newsletter arrives in your inbox. Follow this link for more information. The eBay seller fees are being picked up as a donation by thinktecture which boasts two INETA Europe speakers and the head of INETA Europe, Christian Nagel.

.NET Celebrities

INETA Announces Two New Committee Chairs
Bill Wolff

Bill Wolff has accepted the position of Chair of the INETA Speaker Committee, one of the 5 committees working with the INETA Board of Directors overseeing all the activities of INETA. Bill is taking over the previous co-Chair position held by Scott Bellware.

The Speaker Committee Chair oversees the INETA Speaker Bureau consisting of 45 industry renowned presenters. The Committee includes two noted speaker representatives, Keith Pleas and Ken Getz, and as administrator, Nancy Mesquita. Together they manage a sizable budget that provides 250+ speaking events per year to 100+ NORAM user groups. Duties include speaker nomination, selection, event coordination, travel assistance, and scheduling.

Chris Wallace

Chris Wallace has accepted the position of Chair of the INETA User Group Relations Committee, the largest of the 5 committees working with the INETA Board of Directors overseeing all the activities of INETA. Chris is taking over the previous co-Chair position held by Chris Pels and Julie Lerman, both of whom have moved to positions on the Board.

The User Group Relations Chair oversees the User Group Relations Committee made up of a Steering Sub Committee of 10 members and 20 regional User Group Liaisons who have personal contact with every INETA user group in the United States and Canada (NORAM) comprising 250 user groups and 101,000 members.

About INETA Committees

The INETA Committee Chair position also is a member of several major groups and committees keeping INETA functioning. These include the major working group of the 7 member Board, all 5 Committee Chairs (Academic, Infrastructure, Marketing, Speakers and User Group Relations), the INETA primary Microsoft contacts, and the INETA Executive Director; as well as a growing community relationship with Culminis.

Besides the challenging day to day activities of INETA, the next major activity will be planning for Microsoft TechEd 2005 including the annual INETA User Group Leader’s Summit, INETA's participation in the Microsoft TechEd 2005 Community Pavilion and the famous TechEd 2005 Birds of a Feather program.

.NET User Groups Unite for First Annual Heartland Developers Conference

In an effort to build a more tightly knit .NET community within the Midwest region, the Heartland Developers Network (www.heartlanddn.com) was born. Comprised of the User Groups located in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota, HDN hopes to provide a website community communication portal for all of the UG members. In addition to the website which will host developer profiles, forums, job postings, event calendars, area news, blogs, and a variety of other functionality, HDN is also trying to make the community more active offline through area events. The first event for HDN was the First Annual Heartland Developers Conference (http://www.heartlanddn.com). The conference was organized by the HDN user group leaders with help from the regional Microsoft office and was organized from scratch with the developer in mind. After only two months of planning, HDC '04 sold out with over 140 developers registered and over 200 on the waiting list. With several Gold and Silver level sponsorships sold to regional and national vendors, the conference was provided to the community for only $18 per attendee. The conference featured a Microsoft sponsored pre-conference party at the Holiday Inn hotel on Thursday night, followed by sessions all day Friday. The event was been broken up into two separate tracks: ".NET Today" and ".NET Tomorrow". Each track featured 5 sessions on a variety of topics. Additionally, there will was a keynote morning session to kick things off, and a closing session to end the day featuring giveaways the likes of Xbox, books, vendor vouchers, and packs of fully licensed development software. With a wide array of speakers from the Midwest to the East Coast (thanks INTEA! :), HDC '04 will was the biggest Midwest user group event of the year, and will hopefully grow with the years to come. The feedback and wait list shows developers appreciate quality Midwest events at such a low cost. The following awards were also given out at the conference:

Heartland Developers Network Community Champion 2004 – Jeff Brand, Microsoft

Heartland Developers Network User Group Leader of the Year 2004 – Joe Olsen, Omaha.NET

HDC 2005 is already I the works and this year we are planning a two day event with 500 attendees, more speakers, and more social events. This year’s conference will also include a 6 month marketing campaign to get people registered and excited about the event. We will also be targeting developers outside our region as well in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago.

For more information on the Heartland Developer Conference, please see the website at http://www.heartlanddc.com. If you are interested in putting a conference together in your region, or for more information on the Heartland Developers Network, email jolsen@heartlanddc.com for any information.

Austin Interop Leaders - Story ->

Pictured Left to Right:

Steve Teleki, IEEE Austin
Jeff Smith, Austin Software Process Improvement Network
Paul Smith, International Association of Software Architects
Rob Ratcliff, Austin Java Users Group
Scott Bellware, Austin .NET User Group
Stuart Baurmann, Austin XML Users Group
Deb Ayers, Austin Java Users Group

Coordinating INETA speakers with nearby user groups

INETA Speaker Tim Huckaby's three-night 'Bama Road was a smash hit in the summer in the cities of Huntsville, Birmingham, and Montgomery, Alabama. Tim hit user groups in those cities on three consecutive nights, giving his presentation, "Building WMI and AD Management tools - .NET 101 for the System Administrator".

The roadshow was organized through INETA by Dan Wygant, HUNTUG Public Relations Chairman and INETA User Group liaison for Alabama. Dan said "It's my opinion this is a great thing for other UG Liaisons to attempt as well, provided the presenter and user groups are enthusiastic about it." Bruce Thomas of MADEV agrees: "Scheduling speakers for multi-days/multi-groups within a small radius is a wonderful use of resources and should be a default consideration for scheduling speakers in the future." Wallace Allison of BSDA said "We held a special meeting for Tim's presentation, and I believe all who attended would be happy to do it again...". Of the roadshow format, speaker Tim Huckaby said "The 3 day tour format suits me very well because I can quickly hit three users groups effectively in one day longer than it takes to do one."

Sounds like a win-win-win situation for INETA, speakers, and the user group members.

If you do not know the user group leaders that are in your region, be sure to contact your INETA liaison to help with some introductions!

Austin Interop

On October 12th, six user groups in Austin, TX came together to present Austin Interop, a day-long event focusing on interoperability between .NET and J2EE systems.

The event featured presentations by Bruce Tate and Ted Neward, Jon Kern, Roger Sessions, Coner Brankin, and J Sawyer.

The event grew from a seed of an idea that was sown during Steve Ballmer’s address at the MVP Summit in April. Microsoft and Sun had just entered into an agreement to settle all pending litigation, and to work together towards greater interoperability of their products. Ballmer mentioned the settlement briefly during the address and also gave a brief nod to INETA. Scott Bellware from Austin.NET was inspired by the idea of the " holy trinity of interop, community, and Steve Ballmer ". He contacted the leaders of the other technology user groups in the Austin and together, with the help of INETA Speaker, .NET Guru AND Java Guru, Ted Neward, created a memorable event.

The event went off quite well. The attendees, speakers, and sponsors were very happy with the results. They are already planning another event in Austin and working with groups in other cities to help them put an intra-group event together.

As was seen in Tech Galaxy another intra-technology user group event held in Florida last spring (and being repeated this April), creating an intra-group event opened up a greater potential for technology community in Austin that simply wouldn’t be accomplished if the same folks were simply to show up at the same technology symposium . It simply made things better for the user groups as well as for their members. Scott Bellware said, "Working together to make Austin Interop happen added a new quality to our user group community, and I’m definitely looking to seeing where the next one takes us. "

Read More at http://www.austininterop.org

Around the World

LATAM: INETA’s Latin America region continues to grow. Marden Menendez, who is the liaison for Brazil, is thrilled to share with us that there are now more than 70 INETA groups in Brazil and a new one has recently formed in the North Region of Brazil which is what we know as the Tropical Rainforest. Imagine! .NET is everywhere! (still trying to get some short news items from other regions) Check out the LATAM Newsletter.