As you read this month's newsletter, you will quickly see that it has been another exciting month for INETA. We are preparing to launch several key new programs and already started on improvements to others such as the Speakers Bureau and INETA Live.

In addition we are rapidly approaching our second Community Leadership Summit of the year which will be taking place in Southern California at the end of the month. You can read more below.

We are also looking for your support in helping our fellow community members in Peru that have had their homes and families devastated by a terrible earthquake. In the Peru Relief Efforts article, you will find important information describing how you can help raise money towards this important cause by coordinating activities within your user group.

As we continue the process of building up our services and programs to support our tight community, we are continuously looking for new team members to help us in our various endeavors. Understanding that availability for volunteer work may vary amongst many of you, we appreciate all levels of involvement. For some this might include a permanent role in one of our teams such as Marketing, Technology or Community Activities. For others, it may be writing a short article for our newsletter or website covering an important topic or exciting event in your area. To learn more about how you can get involved with our various divisions, teams and programs, please email noram.volunteers@ineta.org. We would love to hear from you!

Amanda Murphy
President, INETA NorAm
amanda.murphy@ineta.org
St. John's .NET User Group
INETA - The Face of .NET

SoCal Community Leadership Summit is Almost Here

The Southern California INETA Community Leadership Summit is coming! Join user group leaders from all around the region on Saturday September 29 at Quickstart Intelligence Corporate Headquarters in Irvine, CA. Topics will include Developing Partnerships, Effective Content and Presenters, The Future of User Groups and many others. Between sessions, you'll have plenty of time to meet your peers and discuss user group business or just talk shop.

The INETA Southern California User Group Leadership Summit is a great chance for user group leaders to meet with the national INETA leadership and develop ways to work together better, as well as get some great ideas from other user groups on how to improve their operations. Register now at visit http://summit.ineta.org/.

Fellow User Group Members and Leaders,

On August 15th, a 7.9 magnitude earthquake rocked the central coastal region of Peru killing hundreds and leaving many others in the region without electricity, water or suitable living conditions. Some of these people in need include our fellow .NET community members. In times like this helping our fellow community members means more than sharing code, but also providing humanitarian assistance.

INETA NorAm (North America) is launching an effort to raise money for our fellow developers and their families in INETA LatAm and asking local user groups to participate by informing their members at upcoming meetings between now and the end of September.

All funds should be donated directly to either the American Red Cross or World Vision using the links provided below. This ensures that your money is going directly to an organization that can help as well as provide appropriate recognition for your charitable donation.

Ways you can help!

• "Pass the Hat" at your next user group meeting and ask that fellow user group members support our friends in Peru during their time of need. Collect and donate the money on behalf of your group.
• Provide a print out of this message to your user group members at your next meeting and ask that they donate to the cause directly.
• Contact your employer or user group sponsors and ask that they match your donations to the cause.
• Be creative - think of other great ways you can raise funds in your local community.
• Spread the word - notify as many people as possible about our campaign and let's come together to do something for an area that needs it badly.

Thank you for taking the time to help our fellow community members and their families during their time of great need.

Amanda Murphy
President, INETA NorAm
amanda.murphy@ineta.org
St. John's .NET User Group
INETA - The Face of .NET

INETA Speakers Bureau, The Face of .NET, now has 15 new faces!

The INETA Speakers Bureau has long represented some of the top speakers in the North American .NET community. Members of this highly prestigious group of speakers travel from coast to coast each year in Canada and the United States visiting user groups and sharing their deep wisdom around the .NET platform and related technologies. Delivering hundreds of events each year, The INETA Speakers Bureau has been a popular benefit to many member user groups. However as our organization continues to grow...so must the INETA Speakers Bureau.

To answer the needs of our growing community, we are happy to announce that we have expanded the INETA Speakers Bureau to feature even more fantastic speakers. We have just completed a difficult process that started with 73 potential candidates and while considering speaking ability, notoriety, community involvement, product specialty, technical merit and geographic location, we were able to select 15 new speakers to add to the INETA Speakers Bureau.

So please help us welcome:

	Caleb Jenkins long time community leader, former Microsoft Developer Evangelist, training mentor and consultant with Improving Enterprises, Inc. Host, cameraman and editor for http://communitycast.tv/. Caleb lives in Dallas where he continues to date his beautiful wife and busy himself playing candy land and Xbox 360 with their four incredible children. Occasionally he writes curriculum, speaks at conferences, and writes code for silly things like twitter applications. Eventually he'll post some of the gazillion interviews that he's recorded on CommunityCast or blog at http://www.calebjenkins.com/
	Daniel Egan - MCT, MCSD, ASP.NET MVP, Daniel is the founder of Odyssey Consulting Group Inc. (http://www.ocgpros.com/) a Southern California software development company. In addition, Daniel teaches a .NET Certification course and serves on the .NET Advisory board at California State University, Fullerton. He is cofounder of the SoCalDotNet Developers Group and a frequent speaker and conference presenter including SDWest, and MIX07. He has written several articles for asp.netPRO magazine, and is the author of several books including an upcoming title on design patterns from WROX.
	David Yack is the CTO of Colorado Technology Consultants, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner based in Colorado. David specializes in large system architecture, design and integration. David is a Microsoft Regional Director and is also a Microsoft MVP for ASP.NET. David is a frequent speaker at user group and industry events and is co-author of two NET 2.0 related books. David founded and is on the leadership team for the South Colorado .NET User Group and lives in Colorado Springs with his wife and two kids. You can always track David down via his blog at http://blog.davidyack.com/ where he writes about his .NET adventures.
	Don Demsak is an independent consultant in the NJ/NYC metro area who specializes in building enterprise applications with .Net. He has a popular blog at http://www.donxml.com/ and is a Microsoft MVP (for XML, what else?). He is currently immersed in LINQ, C# 3.0, VB 9, and the various LINQ enabled frameworks.
	J. Ambrose Little is a Microsoft Solutions Architect MVP, an ASPInsider, and works as the group lead and codemunicator in the User Experience Group at Infragistics. He's an author of numerous articles, co-author of Wrox Silverlight 1.0, Professional ADO.NET 2, and ASP.NET 2.0 MVP Hacks, and has spoken at various user groups, events, and conferences.
	Jeffrey Palermo makes his living making software teams twice and three times as productive by coaching executive managers all the way down to individual software engineers. Jeffrey is also a master developer, MCSD.Net, Solutions Architect MVP, Austin .Net User Group leader, AgileAustin board member, INETA Speaker and Membership Mentor, Eagle Scout, Aggie, and Iraq war veteran.
	John Papa is a Microsoft C# MVP, consultant, speaker, author, and trainer who specializes in professional application development with Microsoft technologies including VB, C#, .NET and SQL Server. John has written over 50 articles and authored several books on data access technologies including ADO, ADO.NET, XML, and SQL Server. He can often be found speaking at industry conferences, such as VSLive, viewed on MSDN Web Casts, or blogging at codebetter.com/blogs/john.papa
	Kevin McNeish is President and Chief Software Architect of Oak Leaf Enterprises, Inc, and a Microsoft .NET MVP. He is a well-know speaker and trainer throughout North America and Europe including VSLive!, DevTeach (where he serves as one of the .NET chairs), SDC Netherlands, and Advisor DevCon. He is co-author of the book "Professional UML with Visual Studio .NET", author of the book ".NET for Visual FoxPro Developers". He authors articles for CoDe magazine and has been interviewed on the .NET Rocks! Internet Radio Show. He is the Chief Software Architect of the MM .NET Framework and spends about half his time on the road training and mentoring companies to build world-class .NET applications.
	Mark Dunn has over 20 years of experience in the disciplines of software engineering, database administration, and project management. For the past four years, Mark has been awarded MVP status for his contributions to the Visual Studio .Net community and he serves as Microsoft's Regional Director covering the Southeast United States. Mark also co-founded .Net Rocks, an Internet radio program for .Net developers recognized in over 80 countries and now hosted by Microsoft on the MSDN site. Mark is also a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Application Developer, Solution Developer for .Net, and Database Administrator.
	Mark Michaelis is the IDesign architect specializing in WCF and VSTS. Mark was recognized by Microsoft as a Microsoft MVP for Visual Studio Team System and C#. Mark holds a MS in Computer Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology and he serves on several Microsoft Software Design Review teams including WCF, C# and VSTS. Mark speaks at developer conferences both nationally and internationally and has written several articles and books, in addition to maintaining a blog. His most recent book is Essential C# 2.0 (Addison-Wesley, 2006).
	Mark Miller is a C# MVP with strong expertise in decoupled design, plug-in architectures, and great UI. Mark is Chief Architect of the IDE Tools division at Developer Express, and is the visionary force behind productivity tools like CodeRush and Refactor!, as well as the DXCore extensibility layer for Visual Studio. Mark is a member of INETA and a popular speaker at conferences around the world and has been writing software for over two decades.
	Markus Egger is the owner of EPS Software Corporation and specializes in object-oriented development, Internet development, training and consulting. Markus is an international speaker having presented in North America, Europe, and South America. Markus is Publisher of CoDe Magazine and has written numerous articles for publications including CoDe Magazine, MSDN Magazine, Visual Studio Magazine, ASP.NET Pro Magazine, FoxPro Advisor, Fuchs, FoxTalk and Microsoft Office & Database Journal. He is the author of Advanced Object Oriented Programming with Visual FoxPro 6.0, from Hentzenwerke. Markus also received the Microsoft MVP Award (consecutively, from 1996 to 2007, making him one of the longest-running MVPs).
	Nickolas Landry is a principal architect for Infusion in New York, a frequent speaker at major software development conferences, an MVP on Device Application Development, the Vice-President of IASA New York, authors magazine articles on mobility and XNA, and specializes in enterprise mobility with .NET, SOA, architecture & design patterns, High-Performance Computing (HPC), Game Development with XNA, and application security. Contact and Blog: http://home.infusionblogs.com/nlandry.
	Rod Paddock is the editor of CoDe Magazine. Rod has been a software developer for more than 10 years and has worked with tools like Visual Studio .NET SQL Server, Visual Basic, Visual FoxPro, Delphi and numerous others. Rod is President of Dash Point Software, Inc. specializing in developing applications for small to large businesses. Dash Point has delivered applications for numerous corporations like: Six Flags, First Premier Bank, Intel, Microsoft and the US Coast Guard. Rod is also VP of Development for SQL Server tools maker, Red Matrix Technologies. (http://www.redmatrix.com/), member MSDN Canada Speaker Bureau, and author of numerous articles for CoDe Magazine http://www.code-magazine.com/
	Todd C. Bleeker, Ph.D., is regarded as an innovative, resourceful, and competitive technologist with an intense desire to excel. Todd is co-owner of Mindsharp (http://mindsharp.com/), a company that offers top-notch educational opportunities on the SharePoint platform. Todd has architected many solutions for small and large corporations: P&G, Fingerhut, United Healthcare, itiliti (now PeopleClick), Air Canada, State of Minnesota and Bank of Montreal. Todd also presented on Web Services and MCMS at TechEd. Todd loves to soak up whatever technology Microsoft is churning out and lives in Minnesota with his wife and six "high energy" children.

On behalf of all of INETA and our User Group Communities (the whole reason we are here).

Sincerely,

David Walker
VP of Speakers Bureau, INETA NorAm
david.walker@ineta.org
Tulsa Developers .NET
INETA - The Face of .NET

Last month I gave you a broad overview of what it takes to put together a regional developer conference. This month we'll take a look at the structure of the event.

Structuring Your Event
One of the first things you're going to have to decide is how your event will be structured. By 'structure', I'm referring to details such as when to hold the event, how long the event will be, how many sessions, how long each session will run, etc. If you have a large developer community in your geographic area and are anticipating a good turn out, you may want to consider planning multiple 'tracks', or groupings of sessions around a particular subject area (i.e. web development, smart client, security, etc) You can accommodate a large number of people at all levels of expertise by setting up your event with multiple tracks. You'll also need to consider a few characteristics of your intended audience to come up with a structure that fills everyone's needs. Does your local community consist of professional developers or students? Are they experienced .NET developers? Are they interested in a particular area of .NET (i.e. ASP.NET, Smart Client, etc)? These factors will play a part in your decisions on when to hold the event and on the content of the event.

An all day (8:00 am to 5:00 pm) event held on a Saturday that doesn't conflict with holidays, summer vacations or other regional or national developer events seems to be a common event structure. If you're planning on holding the event at a local college or university, you'll also need to take the academic calendar of the school into account. Sessions should run an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes in length. This would give you room for 5 - 7 sessions throughout the day. Don't forget to add short breaks in between time slots to accommodate sessions that run over their allotted time. A lunch break of 45 minutes to an hour for an all day event also needs to figure into the day's schedule. The agenda for a day- long event might look something like this:

Registration/Check-in 8:00 - 9:00
Session 1 9:00 - 10:15
Session 2 11:00 - 12:15
Lunch 12:15 - 1:00
Session 3 1:00 - 2:15
Session 4 2:30 - 3:45
Session 5 4:00 - 5:15
Wrap-up 5:15 - 5:30

The location you select for the event may also have some impact on the structure. If you're holding the event at a small community college, the classrooms may be small and you may be limited in the number of attendees you can handle. Bearing in mind that you'll also undoubtedly have some drop-off in attendance due to 'no-shows', you may want to impose a cap on the number of registrations you'll accept. A cap on registrations will also help you to budget for expenses.

Check back next month when we'll cover putting together your team.

John T. Hopkins
Marketing Committee, INETA NorAm
president@migang.org
Great Lakes Area .NET Users Group
INETA - The Face of .NET

Last month we sent a notice to all of the North American user group leaders about Verio's offer for free web sites. That is right, free web sites for all INETA members. Contact your user group leader today for details on how to participate and claim your new web site.

Verio's EHS (Educational Hosting Services) program provides free Microsoft Windows websites to Developers and Designers to promote Microsoft Windows-based Hosting software and technologies. The Free services will be available through January 30, 2010. This offer is for User Group Members - members must contact their User Group Leader to receive a free website. No credit card is required. Verio's standard usage and privacy policies apply.

As an INETA Platinum sponsor, Verio comes to us as a hosting services provider with over 500,000 hosting customers worldwide and a subsidiary of NTT Communications. Started in 1996 and headquartered in Denver Colorado, Verio is a pioneer in Microsoft Windows-based Hosting and a leader in Windows-based resource virtualization and hosting technology.

As an updated policy arrives for utilization of INETA's vaunted Speakers Bureau program, we decided to take a quick look at how it has been used since we started keeping track in 2002. As a quick recap, the Speakers Bureau supplies high level Experts in the field of .NET at NO COST to INETA members who request them ahead of time - the NO COST feature being the most radical concept in user group support anywhere which we would hope has helped push .NET adoption throughout the world and especially in the United States, .NET's strengths and Microsoft's strong marketing notwithstanding. One would think with such a program that there would be long waiting lists for the large collection of experts and speakers that, when put together, would be the equal of four or five Tech Ed shows. As it turns out, there are some interesting statistics that might surprise you. For this study we will focus on North American groups and, among those we will categorize organizations with under 80 members as SMALL, between 80 and 400 as MID SIZE and over 400 as LARGE.

The first and most obvious one is that 70 of the 241 groups in the INETA membership list have yet to even engage a single speaker. It's evident from the numbers where there have been about 827 separate speaker engagements since 2002 that NO COST may not be enough incentive for some to have a speaker come out. Initially, anecdotal evidence showed that reason was that groups did not really believe it was free. Some thought there was a catch or that some hidden expense was involved. Later on, it became a matter of scheduling where specific speakers were not always available at specific times to accommodate everyone. One of the early policies adopted insured that no single user group monopolized the use of the speakers with large events such as "DAY of .NET" style mini Technical Seminars that usually fell on weekends or in conjunction with several area user groups. The net effect is that, of those 827 events since 2002, 127 of them were associated with SMALL groups, 299 with MID SIZED groups and almost half at 401 associated with the LARGE user groups. Even with limits in place, some user groups have squeezed a number of speakers in that time frame. Of the groups participating, SMALL groups averaged around 3 speakers with a few having as many as 10 speakers, MID SIZE groups averaged around 4 with a number having engaged the 15 through that time and LARGE groups averaged around 6 speakers with an equal number engaging 15.

As we move into a new year, we hope to make the most of this excellent resource by seeing the third of our membership who have yet to get a speaker, do so at their earliest opportunity. Speakers are now scheduled almost a year in advance, are limited and are on a first come first served basis. User group size does not dictate who will get a speaker as there have been speakers presenting in groups as small as six (a hands-on pizza party that we hope to report on for posterity soon.) Stay tuned to this newsletter or the INETA web site for more details on the updated Speaker's Bureau program.

Ralph Rivas
Asst VP of Marketing, INETA NorAm
noram.marketing@ineta.org
Dot Net Basement Club, Northern Illinois Chapter
INETA - The Face of .NET

INETA is excited to support and promote community efforts in a variety of ways. As we continue to grow and expand, we are looking at effective ways to compliment our offerings by partnering with other user group centric initiatives.

INETA has always recognized the value in sharing exciting giveaway and prize items to our members. Recently we contributed to the Codezone User Group Kits to include a great addition that we hope you will enjoy. The Codezone User Group Kits provide books, software and other giveaways for your user group. We plan on contributing to future kits as well so we encourage you to visit www.codezone.com and register your group so you can take advantage of these benefits as they become available.

For the July kit we were very excited to have been able to include a special signed copy of Michele Leroux Bustamante's new book, Learning WCF. This was possible thanks to the generous support by O'Reilly Media and Michele herself for taking the time to sign so many copies of her book. Stay tuned for other exclusive INETA member benefits in future newsletters and communications related to our programs!

Speaking of Michele Leroux Bustamante, Julie Lerman catches up with Michele who has been educating and entertaining INETA user groups since INETA began.

There seems to be a tradition of you telling a slightly naughty joke at the end of your awesome DotNetRocks interviews. How did that start?
In fact there's some history there. First of all, Carl Franklin and I actually go back a ways. We first met at a VBITS conference in 1995. I was in the midst of writing my first book (Instant VB Animation, Wrox Press 1996) sitting in the hotel lounge. He and a few other guys sat nearby and it turned out the other two were from Toronto (where I'm from) so we started talking. Carl and I also had some acquaintances in common from San Diego, like Dave McCarter (who still runs a local user group that he had created back then). Long story short, we kept in touch, and eventually this led to me asking Carl to write the forward for my book. At some point, I'm sure Carl became aware of my past experience as a bartender in Toronto - and of course all bartenders tend to have a repertoire of jokes on hand to keep their clientele entertained. I suppose you might guess that those jokes are not usually so clean. So, when he interviewed me the first time, he caught me off guard and asked me to tell a joke at the end. I told the first one that came to mind, and the rest is history...I felt somewhat obligated to keep it up J

Were you born a geekette or was there a turning point in your life when you discovered the bits & bytes within.
I was probably the farthest thing from a geek until I started working in San Diego. I bartended to put myself through university, and I spent my share of time at pub night ... in fact bartending meant I was one of the few with cash in my pocket. On the nights I worked, there was always a party to go to after the club closed...so I wasn't exactly overly studious...don't ask how I managed to maintain a 4.0 average. I am not sure how I pulled that off having so much fun...LOL. I suppose bartending ensured I kept a personality while exploring being a geek which is usually a much more introverted exercise.

As for university, I initially majored in Accounting/Finance but I had a computer course in first year and thought it was intriguing. My concern, however, was that I might suck at it. So, to be safe I took a double-major...adding Computer Programming to my major...which basically meant that I doubled up my course load for years 2-4.

My first job was at Canadian Pacific in Toronto, doing tech support. Aside from some small projects on the side, in DBASE III+, I didn't start writing code until I moved to San Diego in 1992. That's when I got hooked. At first I enjoyed the beach on weekends, the primary reason I wanted to move there...then, deadlines ensued, and I became somewhat addicted to the never-ending world of technical exploration. I don't think I have stopped since...but I do manage to hit the beach from time to time now.

You're well known as a .NET Plumber. Do your plumbing skills extend to the real world? Can you for example, change the faucet in the kitchen sink?
I'm absolutely useless with things like this. That's what you hire a handy man for. But, I did crazy glue the spring back on a printer this past week - unfortunately the problem goes beyond that so I still bought a new printer.

What turns you on most about the creation of software?
I guess there are several aspects to it. The creativity of the design phase is probably the best part. Drawing boxes and arrows on the whiteboard, brainstorming on the best way to accomplish complex tasks, and learning more about all of the technologies that can help. But, there is also something really satisfying about prototyping pieces of the architecture - for example a security model - and writing the code to carry it out. As much as I love design, I have to write a certain amount of code or I get the shakes. Even when I had VP or CIO positions I found ways to contribute to development; I had to.

Congratulations on your new WCF book. How does writing such an in-depth book impact your knowledge of a technology?
Now that is the right question to ask. After all, why does one write a book in the first place? It is absolutely the best way to become completely intimate with a technology, while also expressing your opinions on it and providing guidance to the community. I am not afraid to say that having command of a technology like WCF at level of detail is very good for business. If you think about it, there are so many details to learn and I have already almost 3 years with the platform from early Alpha onward. That means I can really help people make good decisions about how to apply the technology, and save them money and time. I love that feeling of being able to readily help clients at this level with a technology as relevant and necessary as WCF.

Have you ever had any strange experiences because you are a one of the few female speakers in the .NET community?
I think the funniest encounter I had was years ago, in Germany, at a conference I was invited to speak at. I think it was .NET ONE. I went to the speaker room to do some work, didn't know anyone there. I had a few stares from one or two speakers...and finally one of them asks me, "So, is your husband speaking at this conference?". I replied "No, I am speaking" to which a deep silence followed. Even more shock ensued after I explained the topics I was speaking on...I think it was reflection, emitting code at runtime and some other security-based talks. It was really funny. I got a kick out of it.

What's your favorite food?
When I'm being bad, French fries of any kind...I have never met a fry I didn't like. When I'm being good, a nice filet mignon covered in a gorgonzola and port reduction. Yummy.

How many airline miles did you travel so far this year?
I'm already at 50K I think. But, I don't think I'll make it to 100K, and that is just as well, that means I would never be home.

When you aren't writing and training, what is the flavor of the work that you do? Are you slinging code or something else?
My primary business is architecture consulting and training, with IDesign. I spend most of my time with different clients, some of them long term relationships, helping them design systems and training their teams on core enterprise development concepts including WCF, CardSpace, federation, web services interoperability and globalization. What I love about my work is that I do get to work on a lot of interesting business applications. I'm never bored. Always learning something new.

Julie Lerman
Speakers Bureau Committee, INETA NorAm
noram.speakers@ineta.org
Vermont.NET User Group
INETA - The Face of .NET