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What Can INETA North America Do For You? |
INETA is an organization that was created to foster the user group community. Our mission is to provide benefits and services that allow all user groups to better serve their members. We, the Board, are always thinking of new programs that can be offered which would help your user group. This month I ask you, our members, what we could do for your user group? Over the next month we will be finalizing our plans for the coming 6-12 months so send me your suggestions.
What's Happening in Your User Group?
Share the activities and successes of your user group here in our newsletter. Have you held a special event? Has your group contributed to a local charitable activity? Have you done a special project like a study group? Contact our Marketing team at
noram.marketing@ineta.org.
Become a Volunteer
We are always looking for people to join our great group of volunteers and help with a wide variety of tasks, some small to large. If you are interested please contact
noram.volunteers@ineta.org.
Chris Pels, President, INETA NorAm chris.pels@ineta.org
Boston .NET User Group
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INETA Community Leadership Summit - Saturday, June 2, 2007 - Orlando, FL |
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On Saturday June 2 over 50 members of the INETA User Group Community, representing 24 INETA User Groups gathered in Orlando for a
Community Leadership Summit
to share ideas and discuss issues.
The day was made up of a series of workshops that included moderated discussions in key content areas.
Topics included:
- Running a User Group
- Effective Content and Presentations
- User Group Promotion
- Developing Partnerships
Through Community Leadership Summit events, INETA is working to both gather resources and best practices from the community, and to share them with other groups in need.
We are working hard to repackage they key content from the event and to make it available as another INETA resource to the community. Future summits will continue to build on this knowledge base and expand the sharing of resources.
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ONETUG Code Camp really delivers the goods |
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The Orlando user group, under the leadership of MVP Shawn Weisfeld and Jessica Sterner along with MVP Ken Tucker from the Space Coast user group, did double duties this year when they combined a lot of learning with a lot of giving. It followed the almost standard all day technical presentation format, with the following topics being covered:
AJAX, Architecture, ASP.NET, Chalk talk/Presentation, CodeGen, Data, DotNetNuke, GettingStarted, Intrinsics, Office, SharePoint, SmartClient, SMO, SMS, SQL, TBD, TeamSystem, Vista, WCF, Workflow and WPF - I know you are all smart enough to translate all the TLAs yourselves. Additionally the group made a concerted effort to give its local speakers the first opportunity to do the presentations before filling up the remaining slots with regional and Microsoft speakers.
The mission of A Gift For Teaching is to ensure that children in Central Florida have the basic tools for learning by transferring, at no cost, the community's surplus supplies and merchandise into the hands of teachers and school children in need. The schools participating are from the most impoverished areas, based on the percentage of students enrolled in the free and reduced lunch program.
These presentations being interspersed with 600 bottles of water, 700 cans of pop and 100 Pizzas, and a whole lot of free software and Prizes. This made the whole day a major success for the 350 technical aficionados who gave up their family for the day. The following quote from an attendee and presenter, to Shawn, sums it up
"The Orlando Code Camp ROCKED - and you did a really great job hosting the event! Thanks also for letting me tag-team with David Strommer for our session - it was completely full and we had a lot of great feedback."
But the real deliveries came later when Shawn Weisfeld delivered 250 books to a local charity "A Gift For Teaching"
(http://www.agiftforteaching.org), who's mission I have excerpted below;
The donations came from the attendees, who were given an additional raffle ticket for bringing a book, suitable for children. In Shawn's words
"I feel so lucky to have so much, if we all just do the little things to give back we can make this world a much better place."
Shawn has been working with the charity for some time, and it was good to see that he and the ONETUG members could think of the less fortunate while taking the time to add a few more .notches to their technical belts.
Ralph Rivas,
INETA Reporter
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Nominations Accepted for Treasurer Position on the INETA NorAm Board of Directors |
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INETA North America's Treasurer, Michael Wiley, is stepping down from the Board since he has accepted a new position with Microsoft. Michael has done an outstanding job for INETA over the last couple of years and we congratulate him as he moves on to greener pastures.
Nominations are now being accepted from any INETA registered user group leader in Canada or United States for the Treasurer position on the INETA North America Board of Directors until midnight EDT (GMT-5) Friday June 29, 2007. The nominee can be any member of the developer community and does not have to be a user group leader. You cannot nominate yourself, but any other user group leader can nominate you.
The primary duties of the Treasurer position are overseeing financial and accounting activities including bookkeeping, budgeting, tax returns, and financial reporting. A background in corporate finance is preferable. Experience and familiarity with the operation and needs of the user group community is beneficial.
All board positions are a 2-year term running from July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2009 and nominees must reside in the United States or Canada. Board members typically volunteer 20 hours per month of their time on INETA activities including one or more 1-hr weekly conference calls and two 3-day (weekend + 1 day) Board meetings in-person each year (travel expenses paid). Questions about the position including a detailed job description can be obtained from Chris Pels (noram.secretary@ineta.org)
This is a great opportunity to work with fellow volunteers from user groups around the United States and Canada to help foster the larger user group community. In addition, you will get some business experience that may benefit you professionally.
Submit nominations which include the following to Chris Pels (noram.secretary@ineta.org)
by midnight EDT (GMT-5) Friday, 6/29/2007:
- Full name
- Mailing address
- Email address
- Phone #
- Nominee's resume
- Brief description on why you think the nominee would make a good candidate for the Treasurer position including any financial experience.
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CodeZone Community Portal |
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As many of you may know Microsoft has developed CodeZone, a community portal, to support and promote community efforts. One valuable aspect of CodeZone is the User Group Experience, built to complement the current user group offerings provided by INETA. One valuable component for user groups is the User Group kit which include books, software and other swag that leaders can use at the user group meetings.
INETA is collaborating with CodeZone to co-sponsor the next kit shipped to user groups and will be including some additional items for INETA user groups. The deadline for User Group Leaders to sign up for the next kit is coming next week so visit
www.codezone.com
and register your group for the upcoming kit.
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Speaker's Corner with Joel Semeniuk |
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Julia Lerman gives us another insightful
INETA Speaker interview, this time with with Joel Semeniuk.
Although Joel is not a geek, he is a Microsoft Regional Director and Team System guru who hails from Winnipeg where he runs
Imaginet Resources.
What interests you the most of everything you have seen in .NET over the years?
What interests me the most about .NET isn't the technology - it's the way that dev teams work together to write .NET solutions using Microsoft based tools and constantly evolving frameworks and technologies. Technology changes - period - it's the only constant we can count on. What fascinates me is how we can continue to work together as teams that leverage emerging and new technologies. I love the way Microsoft has embraced delivering incremental value to the development world - with this, comes extreme change. Understanding how these changes impact development teams is truly the key.
What was your first computing experience.
My father got my a TRS-80 - I got it home - hooked it up and typed "global thermal nuclear war" (remember the movie War Games?) - and nothing happened. That's when I realized that there was more to this computer stuff than I thought.
What was your path into being a .NET developer.
I have a degree in computer science. I started my first company in my second year of University writing Television scheduling software using FoxPro 2.6 for the Mac - those were good times. I then became and MCT and travelled around North America teaching people Visual Basic, Microsoft Exchange, and Windows Operating System and Services Architecture topics. I then became a VB/C++ developer when working on a large project in Canada in the Investment world... over the years I focused on software architectures and development methodologies all of the time focusing on Microsoft technologies. Then along came .NET - so, we all switched gears and Shazam! - we were writing .NET code.
Do you have a secret past, or have you always been a programmer/geek?
Actually - I try to do everything in my life not to be a geek. I love technology, but that doesn't mean I can't be a rounded person. I used to be heavy into martial arts - specifically Tae Kwon Do. I also used to play in rock and heavy metal bands - rhythm and lead guitar as well as lead and backup vocals depending on the band I was in at the time. I have a passion with Number Theory. I love mowing my lawn. I hate being connected all of the time as I feel it rots my brain and ability to relax.
What's your favorite food?
Macaroni and cheese with mixed in chopped up wieners.
What did you think you wanted to be when you grew up?
I really thought I'd be a CEO of a multi-national company - travelling the world... living the high life.
Are you a 24/7 developer or do you have a life away from the keyboard? (i.e. what do you do for fun?)
I'm the CEO of a multi-national company - I travel the world - and I live the high life. All kidding aside - I'm a father first, a husband second, a CEO third.
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Upcoming INETA Speakers Bureau Events |
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Become an INETA Live Presenter |
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INETA Live is all about sharing expertise with you fellow developers and leaders. They extend your reach far beyond your local
community - all from the convenient location of your computer. Our first year included several topics to help user group with
marketing, attracting sponsors, using SharePoint and creating a web site. While maintaining that type of support, we will be adding
additional webcasts on technical topics. That's where YOU come in.
We need YOUR suggestions for TOPICS and PRESENTERS. I'm sure that most of you have more to share than you expect. Think about how you've
answered a question or two at a meeting, or how a client or co-worker exclaimed over a cool tool or technique that you developed. INETA
Live is the perfect forum for sharing that with others. Combine a few PowerPoint slides with a demo and it's easier than you think.
The bonus is that you're helping others while you're having fun and building credentials. All that is the time it takes for your lunch break.
Still don't know what to present. Well, if it's something you're interested in, then other people reading this newsletter will probably
be interested as well. Technical topics can run the gamut, so I'll leave that up to you. The following are possible topics, but we want to
hear what YOU have to say.
- Networking - how to encourage networking at meetings; techniques to get more out of each encounter; building confidence.
- Boosting Attendance - where to advertise; locating prospects; why don't they return?
- Powerful Presentations - Scheduling Speakers
- Sponsorships - More than a One Night Stand
- Delegate and Elevate - Spreading the work, the honors and the rewards
attracting and rewarding volunteers
- Taking Charge - Setting the tone and running effective meetings
So, are you ready to sign up? Or maybe you just have speaker or topic to suggest. Please email
Teresa.Hennig@INETA.org
For more about INETA webcasts, please visit
LIVE.INETA.org
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From the Editor |
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Well, my time as VP of Marketing for INETA NorAm has come to an end. Thanks to everyone that has helped the marketing division do it's job over
the last two years. It has been a great experience for me and I highly encourage all of you to
get involved with INETA at some level.
All of the board members have teams to help them make things happen. (See "Contacting INETA NorAm" above.)
Next month's newsletter will
introduce you to the new board members. Take that opportunity to volunteer to help make INETA the best it can be for all of our user groups -
we need each other!
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
