In October, our North America Board of Directors met in Seattle for our Fall In Person Meeting. This in person meeting represented the first time the current Board of Directors had the opportunity to assemble for a high impact weekend of strategic planning and status review. While there was much to accomplish and discuss in just a few short days, I feel strongly that we had a highly productive weekend that will serve as an excellent foundation for the operational activities over the next few months.

Possibly one of the biggest challenges we discussed centered around how much user groups have evolved since our organization was initially started. We now represent groups ranging from those looking for assistance to get off the ground to others that have grown into stable and self sustaining groups. As an organization, we want to support all forms of user groups in our community which means that we are evaluating additional approaches and services to meet a variety of evolving needs within the community. We hope that through direct contact with our members via our Community Leadership Summit program, surveys and INETA Live events, we will collect further information directly from our members that will help us outline effective ways we can assist you.

As we continue the process of building up our services and programs to support our growing 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

INETA NorAm Community Activities Blog

The Community Activities Team is now blogging at http://live.ineta.org/blog. Please add us to your subscription list and join us to keep track of the happenings around INETA. We look forward to sharing what's going on with our team, as well as promoting your community activities!

To better serve the distinct needs of the developer and IT professional communities in the United States, Microsoft is excited to announce the expansion of its largest annual technical conference. TechEd U.S. is evolving from a one week conference to two separate back-to-back conferences: TechEd U.S. 2008 Developers, June 3-6, and TechEd U.S. 2008 IT Professionals, June 10-13, in Orlando, FL.

The two week format is designed to provide the same TechEd experience, but with expanded learning opportunities. Whether you are an IT professional or developer, TechEd provides the most comprehensive and relevant technical education experience on current and soon-to-release Microsoft technologies. Come and get deeper insight into specific product roadmaps, enhanced technical training, plus access the latest community resources and engage with Microsoft product groups, partners, and peers - Welcome to TechEd 2008!

Get a sneak peek at new coding technologies with MSDN Events. Free Admission.

Glimpse the future of Web development with Visual Studio 2008. Power up your Silverlight solutions with AJAX and easy-to-use ASP.NET server controls. Plus, take a sneak peek at Microsoft codename "Astoria," which makes it simple to create and consume Data Services for the Web. Register today for these live, free sessions.

More Content. More Power

Get ready for a full day of free, live learning - all the resources and content that you've come to expect from MSDN Events - plus more tips, tools, and examples with MSDN Events Power Series. These brand-new sessions plug you in to the absolute latest technical content for developers. You'll leave with fresh ideas, deeper community contacts and hands-on ways to tame even your toughest coding challenges. Register today for the MSDN Events Power Series and spend the day with us! Register NOW for the event near you:

Canadian User Group Leadership Summit

At the Vancouver DevTeach Conference, INETA is participating in the 2007 Canadian User Group Leader summit on November 26th,. This event will be held at the Vancouver Sheraton Wall Centre and all Canadian User Group Leaders are invited to attend. This will be an opportunity to share experiences and ideas, as well as discuss the role of INETA in supporting Canadian user groups. Attending the User Group Summit will give you a free registration to DevTeach 2007!

John Hopkins continues his series on organizing a conference with his thoughts on Venue Selection

Selecting A Venue

Once your event structure is defined and your team is in place, it is time to shop around for a location. As discussed in last month's article, college and university campuses are ideal locations for developer events. The costs for renting rooms and facilities are usually very reasonable and the classroom environment is very well suited to technical presentations. You may also want to consider a more formal conference facility, such as a hotel conference center, that may allow for a larger number of attendees. However, be aware that a hotel or conference center will charge significantly higher rates. You may also be restricted to using the conference facility's own catering operation, which can be expensive and may require you to purchase a minimum amount of food. And what about fees and deposits for audio/visual services? These may be prohibitive if this is your first conference - especially if you have not received any up-front funding from sponsors.

Let's talk about location; after all, it is crucial to the success of your event. You don't want to hold your event outside the geographic center of your developer community or you'll risk having a poor turnout. Furthermore, if you're locked in on a specific date, the perfect venue may not be available. Be sure that the venue has plenty of room for non-presentation activities, such as registration, vendor displays and eating. Additionally, make certain that the venue's facilities are all adjacent to one another, so you don't have your attendees spread out over a large area.

The best place to make the initial contact with a venue is the front office, or in the case of a college or university, the Computer Science or Engineering department. If these folks can't help you, they will, more than likely, get you to people who can. Make sure you have a good estimate of the number of attendees you'll have, how many rooms you'll need, and what other facilities you're looking for (i.e. dining areas, space for vendor displays, etc.) Give them your list of potential dates, along with the other details we've just outlined, and ask if they can accommodate your event. Be patient, especially when dealing with a college or university CS or Engineering department. Planning conferences is not the primary job responsibility of these folks, so they may have to consult with other departments to get an answer to your request. Definitely have 2 or more potential venues selected as backups, as your preferred venue may be booked on all of the dates you desire. Once you have secured a venue for your event, make sure you have a single contact at the venue to communicate with. You may also want to appoint a venue coordinator for your event team to handle all of the arrangements for the event.

Check back next month when we'll cover recruiting sponsors to help pay for your event.

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

In the time that I've been involved with the Ann Arbor .NET Developer's group, I've been involved in a number of efforts to grow our group all with varying degrees of success. It seems an endless circle of recruiting, advertising and sponsorship drives. Many of you have shared your thoughts with us at one of our many User Group Summits and will continue to do so at our upcoming summits. But what about those who have not attended a summit? Or maybe something new has happened since the last one. Many of you have success stories that other leaders could directly apply their user groups. If you have things you do at your user group that are generating increased numbers, more interesting sessions or even something you just want to share, we want to hear about it. How do you find speakers? Do you do something other than speakers? Where do you get your swag? Where do you meet? How do recruit new members? If you have something to share, email us at noram.marketing@ineta.org. We'd love to talk to you.

Scott Zischerk
Editor, Marketing Committee, INETA NorAm
noram.marketing@ineta.org
Ann Arbor .NET Developers
INETA - The Face of .NET