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Happy 5th Birthday INETA NorAm! |
Five years ago this month a small group of user group leaders got together to form an organization that would benefit leaders of .NET focused user groups in the United States. Microsoft joined as the Charter Sponsor, and as they say, the rest is history. In five short years INETA has grown from that small contingent of user group leaders to a worldwide organization with five regions representing over 800 user groups and 450,000 user group members.
During this time .NET has evolved and become a major player in the development plans of many companies around the world. Our core emphasis as an organization remains focused on the in-person interaction at user group meetings. The advent and expansion of collaboration and "social networking" tools have been good supplements to user group meetings, but nothing is more valuable than getting together in person to share knowledge and network with your peers. We look forward to serving the user group community for many years to come.
Board Meeting
During the weekend of February 17-18th. the NorAm Board will be meeting in Jamaica for a weekend of strategic planning, project status updates, and work on business tasks. During the weekend about 75% of the time will be spent in meetings with the remaining time for social activities to get to know each other which helps us work better as a team. INETA pays the travel expenses, yet Board members volunteer their time without compensation which is a significant commitment of several days away from work and family. In the March newsletter I'll report back with details on what we discussed and some of the major decisions. If you have any questions or concerns that you would like the Board to address in our meeting please contact me and I'll get them on the agenda.
Elections
As mentioned last month nominations are being accepted for the upcoming Board elections. Please read the accompanying article on the elections and submit any nominations before the 2.15.2007 deadline.
Volunteer Opportunities
As I mention each month, we continue to need volunteers to assist in the Marketing, Sponsorship, and Technology/Web Site areas for INETA North America.
If you have time and are interested please contact our Administrative Director,
Nancy Mesquita.
Chris Pels, President, INETA NorAm chris.pels@ineta.org
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Nominate Someone for the INETA North America Board of Directors |
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Elections are being held for the INETA NorAm Board of Directors in mid-March. From now through February 15, 2007 any user group leader of an INETA registered user group in the United States and Canada can nominate an individual for a Board position. The nominee can be any member of the developer community and does not have to be a user group leader. Experience and familiarity with the operation and needs of the user group community is beneficial. You cannot nominate yourself, but any other user group leader may, so get someone to nominate you.
All positions are a 2-year term running from July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2009. Nominees must reside in the United States or Canada. Nominations are being accepted for the following positions:
- President: Provide strategic direction, oversee business operations, interface with other worldwide regions, ensure business and project goals are being met.
- Vice President: Assist the President with strategic planning, administrative operations, and project management.
- Secretary: Maintain all corporate records, contracts, and oversee the election process.
- Treasurer: Oversee financial and accounting including bookkeeping, budgeting, tax returns, and financial reporting.
- Vice President of Community Activities: Oversee projects related to the user group community like INETA Live and regional user group leader summits.
- Vice President of Marketing: Provide marketing and communication support for projects and business operations.
- Vice President of Membership: Oversee individual and user group membership management including application approval and project related to increasing and maintaining quality members.
- Vice President of Speakers: Oversee the allocation and logistics of the INETA Speakers program.
- Vice President of Technology: Provide technical functionality for business operations and project implementation including infrastructure and the web site.
This is a great opportunity to work with fellow volunteers from user groups around the United States and Canada as well as get some experience running a business that can help you professionally. Furthermore, you can help foster the larger user group community. Board members are required to attend 1-hr weekly conference calls and up to two in-person weekend meetings (all expenses paid) each year.
Submit nominations to
Jason Beres, Secretary (noram.secretary@ineta.org)
by midnight Thursday, 2/15/2007 which include:
- Full name
- Mailing address
- Email address
- Phone #
- Board position desired
- Nominee's resume
- Brief description on why you think the nominee would make a good candidate for the position.
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DEVCONNECTIONS ORLANDO - 2007 |
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As a User Group leader and member of INETA, the largest and hottest event in the industry for developers invites you to participate in earning free passes for you and some of your members. Microsoft ASP.NET and Visual Studio Connections, SQL Connections and Sharepoint Connections Event, March 25 - 28 in Orlando would like to offer your user group members discounted registration to our event. We will create a custom code for your group to take advantage of this offer. In addition, for every 5 members that register using this code, you can earn 1 free registration to our Spring 2007 event (THAT'S a $1395 VALUE!)
If you are not familiar with this event, check out www.devconnections.com.
It will take place at the Orlando World Center Marriott March 25-28 in Orlando Florida and all attendees get 4 conferences for the price of one.
Microsoft ASP.NET, Visual Studio and .Net, SQL Server and SharePoint Connections!
With all of the new product releases out there, get one up on the competition!
In exchange for the discounted registration and free pass accrual, we ask that you post our banners and promote Connections on your User Group website.
Please contact me today, as our fall event in Las Vegas SOLD OUT with nearly 5000 attendees!
We offer over 150+ in-depth session delivered by over 100+ Microsoft and industry experts, a partner expo and exciting networking parties located at a world class resort.
My contact information is below if you want to take advantage of this offer.
Joan O'Connell
Conference Coordinator
Tech Conferences
731 Main St, Suite C3
Monroe, CT 06468
(203) 268-3204
(203) 261-3884 Fax
joan@devconnections.com
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Exam Insurance |
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Birds of a Feather - Call for Topics for TechEd 2007 in Orlando |
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INETA is again co-chairing the Birds of a Feather track at TechEd 2007, sharing the duties with our sister organization, Culminis, on the IT Professional side of the house. As the two premier user group associations for Microsoft technologies, we bring the community face to TechEd. And you can get involved, help us, and help INETA in four different ways!
If you haven't been to one, a Birds of a Feather session is an open discussion lead by a moderator. They are not presentations, there are no projectors. Unlike the keynotes and breakout session, unlike everything else at TechEd, Birds of a Feather sessions are about people talking with people - connecting, sharing, networking, and creating community. It's that simple, and that's what we do best.
The BoFs are of, by, and for the community, which is a critical part of their success. Together the INETA and Culminis BoF chairs solicit session proposals - the public votes on sessions they want to attend - and then we select, schedule, publicize and run the Birds of a Feather sessions. From beginning to end, the BoFs belong to the community.
Building on our success of the past several years, conference sponsor Microsoft is continuing the increased visibility and integration of the Birds of a Feather session into the TechEd conference. Tuesday evening, June 5, is an All-BoF Night from 6:00 to 10:00 PM. The evening will feature multiple concurrent sessions in multiple timeslots. With many topics to choose from, you are bound to find several that interest you. Come early, stay late. Make an evening of it.
By popular request, Birds of a Feather sessions will again run during the daytime, Monday through Friday, June 4th - 8th, parallel with the conference breakout sessions. This represents a sustained commitment of time, money, and space in the BoFs, building on last year's dramatic increase and reflecting well on the quality job that we've done at past conferences.
BoF Submissions and voting both close on March 20th. Get involved now! You can have an positive impact and help make the Birds of a Feather sessions a success at TechEd.
1. Propose a Topic. If you're going to be at TechEd in Orlando, if there's a topic you'd like to discuss with your peers and you're willing to moderate the discussion, submit a topic. Just click through to the TechEd BoF Submission Page.
2. Vote. Keep an eye on the TechEd BoF Voting Page and as you see topics appear that you are interested in, vote for them!
3. Get the word out. Blog or post in forums about the Call for Topics, about the voting, and about your favorite topics.
4. Stay Tuned. Keep an eye on the TechEd Community Page and look for more information here in upcoming issues of the INETA Newsletter.
Birds of a feather really do flock together! See you in Orlando!
Bob Goodearl and Stuart Celarier
Birds of a Feather track co-chairs, TechEd 2007
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Speaker's Corner with Les Pinter |
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Who knew that one of the INETA NORAM speakers created the starter bits for MS-Word! Les Pinter has a fascinating background that extends far beyond his life as a programmer.
Our very own Julia Lerman
catches up with Les.
Do you think you were born a geek, or was there a turning point in your life that drove you to programming?
When I was about six, my father told me that we were Hungarian, and that Hungarians had to learn lots of languages. He meant, of course, that if you lived in Hungary you had to learn languages because no one studies Hungarian. But I went down to the neighborhood library and found a Russian dictionary and memorized the Cyrillic alphabet. So I think I was born pretty nerdy.
But there was a turning point of sorts. I was teaching finance at the University of Houston in 1979 and moonlighting at COBOL consulting when a high-school friend, Mike Griffin, asked me to help him start a company to sell the word processor he had written, which we called the Magic Wand. Nine months later, Bill Gates called and asked to buy the source code. He came to Houston the next day, gave me a personal check, and I handed him the source code to what became Microsoft Word. That was the end of my academic career. So if there was a turning point, it was September 26, 1979.
What are your favorite .NET technologies?
WinForms UserControls are my pet technology, and I like anything involving database development. I also love to write PocketPC applications. They're like haiku: You have this little bitty canvas on which to express yourself. But it's actually easier, because there are so many things you can't do. I'm also on the IdeaBlade advisory board, and their ORM product, which builds typed datasets on steroids, is amazing.
Where do you live?
We're bi-coastal (I love to say that). We have homes in San Mateo, California and in Wayland, Massachusetts. I have clients in Australia, the United States and Mexico, and employ programmers in Argentina, Brazil and Russia. And one of my daughters lives in Mexico City. So I probably live in Marriotts more than in my houses.
What do you do for your "day job?"
I'm a contract programmer, plain and simple; have been for 26 years. If I'm awake, I'm writing a program, either at a keyboard or in my head. It's the most fun you can have with your clothes on. I spend at least three days a week on site with clients, and make four to six trips a year outside of the US. I have a home office with broadband at both homes, so I pretty much either program or sleep. But I'm not complaining.
You're also on the INETA/Latin American Speakers' Bureau. What type of experiences have you had speaking in Latin America?
I gave 17 presentations in Latin America in 2003, during several tours. I once gave seven talks in 10 days in Brazil; didn't see anything of the country, just auditoriums, airports, taxis and hotels. Languages are my hobby; I speak both Spanish and Portuguese. I also speak French and Russian, and have done database seminars in all four languages, plus English. I got a standing ovation after a talk to about 400 students at a university in Caracas. The Microsoft guy there told me he'd never seen anything like it.
You have started a fund in your son’s name to continue the awesome work he did with the Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program in Berkley, CA. What’s the fund and what is BORP?
My son, who was my business partner, died five years ago. He was president of the Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program in Berkeley and was coach of the wheelchair basketball program there for many years. We support BORP financially, and are establishing the John Pinter Memorial Scholarship Fund to help pay college expenses for physically challenged young people at Berkeley. BORP is a wonderful organization. It helped my son, and allowed him to help others.
You have a long history with FoxPro. What are you doing to motivate FoxPro developers to add .NET to their skill set?
Well, I wrote a book (SAMS, 2004) about VB.NET for FoxPro developers. But before that, I wrote six books and nearly 300 journal articles about FoxPro. I even published my own month journal for 10 years. It's a hard sell, because FoxPro is really easy to learn and use, and in some ways is preferable for WinForms application development. But .NET is our future. I hope I've given some VFP developers a sense that an interesting and profitable career is waiting for them if they learn .NET. In fact, my business lately consists almost entirely of rewriting FoxPro applications in .NET. So I practice what I preach.
Any final thoughts?
I can't imagine a better career than software development, and I can't imagine a better career platform than .NET. I appreciate the opportunity to proselytize through INETA's worldwide network - in any language.
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Upcoming INETA Speakers Bureau Events |
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| User Group | Location | Speaker | Date |
| Houston .NET User Group | Houston, TX | Chris Menegay | 2/8/07 |
| San Diego .NET User Group ASP.NET SIG | San Diego, CA | Ted Neward | 2/20/07 |
| Denver Visual Studio User Group | Denver, CO | Michele Leroux Bustamante | 2/26/07 |
| Boulder .NET User Group | Boulder, CO | Michele Leroux Bustamante | 2/27/07 |
| Portland Area .NET User Group | Portland, OR | Keith Pleas | 2/28/07 |
| Los Angeles .NET Developers Group | Los Angeles, CA | Russ Nemhauser | 3/5/07 |
| Victoria .NET Developers Association | Victoria, BC | Phil Weber | 3/6/07 |
| Arizona .NET User Group | Scottsdale, AZ | Steven Smith | 3/7/07 |
| Iowa .NET User Group | Des Moines,IA | Paul Sheriff | 3/7/07 |
| Baton Rouge .Net User Group | Baton Rouge, LA | Brian Noyes | 3/16/07 |
| Hawaii Dot Net User Group | Honolulu, HI | Scott Cate | 3/20/07 |
| Lower Alabama .NET User Group | Mobile, AL | Les Pinter | 3/27/07 |
| Visit our live RSS feed of Speakers Bureau Events! |
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Devlink Nashville a "HUGE success" |
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In October 2006, the first DevLink Technical Conference was held in Nashville, Tennessee. The event offered software developers, architects, database administrators and other IT professionals the opportunity to experience a major conference in that area.
Rob Foster, founder of the Nashville .NET user group, reported to us how well things went starting with John Kellar and the DevLink leadership doing a wonderful job promoting to the .NET community in the Nashville area. The speaker's list included some of the most well know speakers in the industry, as well as user group leaders from Nashville, Memphis, and Knoxville. Rob said they had people attending the conference from every state bordering Tennessee, some driving over 8 hours just to attend.
Speaking in regards to recruiting, Rob relayed to us that DevLink has allowed their group to attract many new members, because after the conference, he said "the community better understands who we are and what we do."
The conference featured several industry experts like Markus Egger, Billy Hollis, Kevin McNeish, Eric Sink, Ken Getz, Bill Vaughn and Wally McClure and a 2007 edition will be for two days instead of one because of the tremendous success of the first one. As Rob put it, "attendees can get more of what they want: great speakers and content without the price and weeklong commitment to a larger conference."
For more information on DevLink, go to http://www.devlink.net or contact the Nashville .NET user group.
Ralph Rivas
INETA Newsletter Reporter
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Windows Mobile Offers for INETA Members |
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Develop, Activate, Upgrade. Cool phones, hot deals, and more for Microsoft Developers!
You've earned it. Now Microsoft wants to thank you with great deals on Windows Mobile powered smartphones.
Take advantage of
this offer from T-Mobile or
this offer from Sprint.
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Giving back to the community - leveraging your user group? |
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Giving back to the community is not uncommon for successful individuals and organizations including INETA member user groups. In a sense, a user group is also an altruistic organization in its own right as members volunteer their expertise and time enriching the knowledge and experiences of other fellow members, who may, in some cases, need it for their very livelihoods. INETA certainly encourages groups to be as close to their communities as possible and are proud of our members who involved in local charitable programs. Recently, we heard from Graham Jones of the Vancouver Technology User Group who tuned us into their efforts with the community program 3Spheres of Reciprocity.
I asked Graham about this effort and how it affected his membership. He replied that involvement was not meant to act as any special incentive for group members or VANTUG itself and that he was not looking to see any change in the membership or participation in the group - in essence a truly altruistic endeavor. Other groups in the past have used charitable projects such as building web sites for a local church or charity as a way to get their members to use the skills they talk about during their meetings but would, otherwise, not get a chance to use at their workplaces. In such a scenario, a group could potentially boost the standings of their members and perhaps even attract new people who are looking to leverage the knowledge and work or who also have a charitable streak in them. Care is, of course, taken to insure that they are not using technology for technology's sake and that the benefactor group is not forcing a solution that is overkill or difficult to maintain.
One thing that is clear is that all such efforts and activities should be promoted with the same vigor as the meetings themselves if they are to be successful. A few other user groups have had only limited success when those activities are not followed up with the rest of the group membership. Common sense will guide the erstwhile user group leader towards the most appropriate organization or cause to champion. The potential solutions that can be built for them may even garner local (or national) media attention for those so inclined to promote themselves out there.
Please let us know if your group is contemplating or is deep into such projects as we would like to know how prevalent this may be.
Ralph Rivas
INETA Newsletter Reporter
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From the Editor |
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We just experienced the coldest night this winter here in St. Louis. Thankfully, we've had hardly any snow! Yet during all of this cold weather,
people still turned out for our user group meeting. We're committed to helping you find ways to grow your user group. If you have done something
that you are particularly proud of, drop me an email and share it! Chances are good we'll write a story about it and pass the idea on to the other user
group leaders. If you can get people to come hang out in freezing cold weather, you must be doing something right!
I'm excited to have Ralph Rivas cover the story above entitled "Giving back to the community" about user groups getting involved with non-profit ventures
that benefit the local community. This subject dates way back to the beginning days of INETA. Read the second ever INETA newsletter from August 2002 about how the Florida groups were giving back
even then! I'm sure we've just scratched the surface of charitable giving. Let us know what's happening out there. Be proud!
Scott Spradlin, Vice President - Marketing, INETA NorAm scott.spradlin@ineta.org
Archived newsletters are available on the INETA website at
www.ineta.org/newsletters.
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President's Note
