INETA is a volunteer organization that depends on funding from various sources in order to provide services to our user groups. As you may know, Microsoft is our biggest single funding source. One of my major responsibilities, as Treasurer for INETA, is to prepare our annual budget submission to Microsoft. We are just now finalizing our programs for the new Microsoft fiscal year began July 1. I'd like to share with you the programs we have planned.

Speakers Bureau INETA Noram: Building on the very successful existing program we will be maintaining the allocation of 2 speakers per user group in a 12 month period.

Speakers Bureau, Regional: Working in conjunction with CodeZone and the MVP program we are adding regional speakers, offering greater benefits to our user groups and building a broader team of speaker talent.

Virtual Speakers and User Groups: Virtual speakers and user groups will allow us to significantly broaden our reach to a wider audience leveraging our speaker and INETA Live asset base.

INETA Website: With the release of INETA's new website, this program leverages delivery of content and social interaction to continue growing a vibrant community.

INETA Live: INETA Live has become a tool that allows us to highlight the efforts of our multiple project teams, under one strong brand to market to the community. During the next year, we will be expanding our participation outside of the core Live team to greatly increase our content.

Community Champions: This program specifically recognizes the leadership effort that it takes to run a successful user group community. It provides recognition and reward to user group leaders for their excellent efforts.

INETA Authors: This new program facilitates authoring opportunities for INETA members with book and magazine publishers.

Community Outreach: The Community Outreach program is all about extending the reach of existing INETA and CodeZone audiences and increasing numbers. It is focused on building awareness and membership participation in existing user group programs within the developer community.

Continuing Programs: Newsletter, user group recognition, and membership mentor programs facilitate helping us stay in contact and extend our membership reach. ________________________________________

Summary - Extending Our Reach in FY 2009:

The INETA FY 2009 proposed projects provide the resources to significantly extend our reach to the broader development community with meaningful, quality programs, speakers and content. As always, we value feedback from leaders and members of user groups. If you have any questions, ideas, or concerns please feel free to contact the Board at noram.board@ineta.org.

Mike Vincent

• Sujata Devraj
• Judith B. Calla
• Adnan Masood
• Joseph Guadagno
• Philip Wolfe
• Jess Chadwick
• Christopher Brandsma
• Lou Vega
• Kristin Ferrier
• Brian Hendrson

Nothing good ever happens after midnight

PASS Community Summit 2008

Microsoft has partnered closely with the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) to make their PASS Community Summit 2008 the don't-miss event for Microsoft SQL Server Professionals. The Summit is taking place this year in Seattle on Nov 18-21. Over 3000 attendees are expected for 3 full days of in-depth technical education and training on everything related to SQL Server.

I am pleased to announce a special offer from PASS that has been extended to our community, offering a $100 discount over today's going rate. You will need to use the discount code INET3D at the time of registration to take advantage of this offer.

It would also be great if you helped get the word out for the PASS Community Summit. Please visit http://summit2008.sqlpass.org/promote_pass.html for a numbers of resources including an email signature banner, banner ads, and wallpaper you can use on your own websites / computers / email correspondence to help promote this year's Summit.

Here are some of the highlights you can expect at PASS Community Summit 2008:

• Top-rated industry advice and expertise
• Unparalleled access to the Microsoft SQL Server development team
• Outstanding keynote speakers: Ted Kummert, Tom Casey and David DeWitt
• Over 130 technical and skills development track sessions
• 14 pre-conference seminars

The FarPoint Challenge!

I just came back from a l-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-g (ok, it was three weeks) vacation. I took with my family, putting my user group on hiatus as I drove from Chicago to Seattle, back again and then to New York and back again.  I did all the driving and if that's not enough to know what a trucker feels like, it at least lets me sympathize with one better.  I sort of did the "Great American Road trip" before in my college years and was struck by the differences I have seen from back then to now ... I mean, it's no wonder we can't easily shake our dependence on oil. Driving is so interesting and there seems to be more and more fun and compelling things to see plus more and more services so standardized that making these long trips are a lot more pleasant than I remember.

This is sort of how it is like with INETA for me these days remembering back to the first year. Back then the innovation was the speaker's bureau and how any member group could get just about any speaker, many of them the cream of the crop normally reserved for those big product launches, those huge-hall Tech Ed sessions or for a hefty fee when they come along with that consulting package for your corporate project.  The web site was simple enough and useful back then and we pretty much had enough to make our user groups work better. 

Just looking at Mike Vincent's list of things INETA is doing now just highlights how much more interesting and fun it is for us these days. I know we should be thanking our sponsors who are certainly instrumental in making these new things available for us much as the Federal Government put the money into the original highways.  But in the end, the "attractions" are all local and make every stop on the road worth staying around at for hours or even days at a time.  I equate those local resources that make that happen to our volunteers.  The sponsors might hand us oodles of cash and even hire a large team but they are not "local" ... they are not us!  In the end we make all this come to life or die on the vine if we don't use it.  I like the life part and feel very connected when I help out.  I make my "local" area more interesting and thanks to the others, the rest of it is also compelling and fun to "stop by and enjoy." 

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