INETA Home  |  Speakers Bureau  |  Find a UG Near You  |  Become an INETA Member 
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 In This Issue
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Link Tech·Ed 2010 Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions
Link Windows XP End of Life
Link INETA Membership Survey
Link XNA Game Development for Windows Phone 7 Webcast
Link Why Do Community Members Join A User Group?
Link Community Megaphone
Link Community Champions
Link Conference Announcements
Link Community Events
Link Upcoming Speaker Bureau Events
Link Contact INETA
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 Sponsors
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Microsoft
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 Keeping Up with INETA
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INETA Live! RSS INETA on Twitter INETA Speakers on Twitter INETA Live on Twitter INETA on Facebook INETA on LinkedIn
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Tech·Ed 2010 Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions
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Julie Lerman at the BOFs

Once again the Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) sessions at Tech·Ed 2010 were a resounding success! GITCA (gitca.org) and INETA (ineta.org) volunteers organized 32 BOF sessions that were held throughout the conference. BOF sessions are open technology discussions organized and led by community volunteers. There were some lively discussions on a wide range of topics like Entity Framework 4.0, Starting Your Own Technology Business, jQuery, How Will Cloud Computing Change Your Life, ASP.NET MVC from the Trenches, and more. 

Microsoft again provided generous support in the form of meeting rooms, equipment, and visibility in the conference agenda on par with the other conference sessions. A special thanks to Susan Leiter, our Microsoft contact, who championed our cause and was a genuinely nice person to work with during the planning. Lastly a giant thank-you to all the volunteers and discussion leaders who contributed their time to make the Tech·Ed 2010 BOF sessions a success!

Look for the BOF sessions at Tech·Ed 2011 in Atlanta. Watch the INETA newsletter after the first of the year for announcements about proposing a session and being a volunteer.

The Volunteer BOF Team from GITCA and INETA
Barry, Bob, Chris, Russell, Stuart, Tim
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Windows XP End of Life
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Support (including new security updates) ends April 13, 2010 for Windows Vista Release to Manufacturing (RTM), and July 13, 2010 for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows 2000 Server and Professional. Migration to the latest OS or installation of the most current service pack is recommended.  Server and Client resources are available.
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INETA Membership Survey
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We have just activated our INETA Membership demographics survey. It is a quick survey, just a single page of quick questions that will help us get to know more about you, our members, so we can better serve you. The survey is anonymous but will be valuable to us.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Q7RC9G9
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XNA Game Development for Windows Phone 7
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Join us for a webcast on XNA Game Development for Windows Phone 7 on Thursday, July 15, 10-11 AM Pacific Time, hosted by the AT&T Developer Program.

Discover a developer overview of how to build games for Windows Phone 7 with Microsoft XNA Game Studio 4. Learn about the developer tools, the XNA Framework, and the resources available to build interactive, compelling, games with Windows Phone 7.

In this webcast you will learn how to create games for Windows Phone 7 using XNA Game Studio 4. This session will cover the programming model, how to work with content, game input, and available resources.

All actual attendees can enter to win an AT&T Smartphone. Winner will be notified via email after the Webcast.

To sign up or get more information, please visit: http://bit.ly/cCAIL8
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Why Do Community Members Join A User Group?
Listed below are seven primary reasons why people participate in a user group or online community, following which, are simple steps that any user group leader can take to help meet their member motivations. Understanding the motivations of your members helps you lead your community in a better way.

Benefits and Purpose of User Group Meetings - Communities

Benefits of Joining a Community.

Learning - User Group's provide a unique opportunity for people to learn from their peers.

Networking - The opportunity to network and make new connections with industry peers, make new friends is endless.

Sharing Experiences - Most human beings love to share and highlight their expertise and knowledge. During most community meetings, members share their challenges and experiences with each other.

Job Opportunities - Many a door has opened up due to new contacts made via the community.

Meeting Experts - Typical user group meetings feature an expert speaker who shares knowledge among the community members.

Solutions to Problems - Community members are very helpful in helping one another. Most user group sites feature an online forum enabling interactions between members.



Read the full post at http://blogs.communitiesrus.in/communities/2010/07/03/top-7-reasons-why-people-join-a-user-group-community/
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Community Megaphone
Need to Promote your Events? Try Community Megaphone!

If you've ever wondered if there are additional ways for you to promote your user group and related events, here's one you may want to try. Community Megaphone is a site created by Microsoft Developer Evangelist G. Andrew Duthie to help the community find and promote local events. The goal for Community Megaphone is simplicity, so we focus exclusively on events. Want to add your event? No registration required, just go to the Add Event page, put in your information, and go. We'll make sure everything looks good and then put it up on the system.

Once your event is in the system, potential attendees can find out about it via the Community Megaphone home page, the RSS feed, an iCalendar feed, a customizable web gadget used in many sites across the web, and in the bi-weekly MSDN Flash newsletter. Events entered into Community Megaphone are also automatically shared with the User Group Support Services event calendar (and vice-versa, for US-based events).

If you'd like to integrate Community Megaphone events into your site or application, we provide a variety of ways to consume the data, including the aforementioned RSS feed, and our OData feed for approved events. Additionally, you can add your events to Community Megaphone programmatically via our Web Service API (registration required for API use).

Are there other features that could make your lives easier? Let us know via the Feedback page. Now's a great time to provide feedback, as we're ramping up on our planning for V2 of Community Megaphone, and we want to make sure we make the site even easier to use, and provide more ways to get the word out about your events.

Last, but not least, we recently launched the Community Megaphone Podcast. The podcast is the brainchild of Dane Morgridge, who, with co-host Andrew, highlights local talent and personalities in the .NET community, giving up-and-coming speakers an opportunity to share their interests, knowledge, and community background, and listeners an opportunity to get to know folks that they may get to see speak at their local group or code camp. Know of someone who should be a guest... please let us know!
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Community Champions
Please join us in congratulating the recipients of the Q2 2010 INETA Community Champion Annual Award!
Name Location
Sujata Devraj Huntsville, AL
Rob Wilson Evansville, IN
Chris Hammond San Mateo, CA
Scott Seely Lake County, IL
Joel Cochran Hampton Roads, VA
Chris Coneybeer Mesa, AZ
Eric Hexter Austin, TX
Mark Freedman Stamford, CT
Teresa Burger Dallas, TX
Dru Sellers Lawrence , KS
The purpose of the INETA Community Champion Award program is to recognize individuals with the highest levels of contributions. Those exceptional leaders and volunteers who devote innumerable hours towards hosting user group meetings, organizing Code Camps and special events, mentoring and supporting their members, publishing newsletters, updating web sites, and the list goes on and on. The Community Champion program provides INETA with an opportunity to showcase the efforts of our user group communities as a whole as well as provide individual recognition. Recognition that we hope will open doors to networking opportunities, potential sponsors, future employers or partnerships.

Special thanks to everyone who took the time and energy to participate in this program. Keep contributing to your local developer community and submit your activities through the Champs program. This is your chance to show the world what community leadership is all about and to gain some of the recognition that you deserve! For additional information and to view past winners, please go to Community Champions Award section of the INETA web site.


INETA Community Excellence Award Nominations
We are currently accepting nominations for the Community Excellence Awards. This is given to those who have made a significant and prolonged impact within the developer community. These lifetime awards are presented semi-annually and use a nomination process to select the key individuals who represent the true spirit of community leadership and vision that INETA strives to represent and support. Log in to view past recipients, learn more, and nominate someone by going to the Community Excellence Award section of the INETA website.

Please contact us with any comments and feedback.
INETA Community Champions Team
noram.champs@ineta.org
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 Conference Announcements
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devscovery

Register for Devscovery 2010 Today!

Plan to attend Devscovery 2010 in Redmond September 14th -16th and get 3 days of in-depth .NET content from industry experts like Jeffrey Richter, Jeff Prosise, and John Robbins. Registration code IDC. For more information or to register visit www.devscovery.com.

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 Community Events
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Upcoming Conferences
devLink 2010NashvilleTN08/05-07/10
 
SharePoint Saturdays
SharePoint Saturday ChicagoChicagoIL07/24/10
SharePoint Saturday NYCNYCNY07/31/10
 
SQL Saturdays
SQL Saturday South FloridaMiramarFL07/31/10
 
Code Camps and Other Events
St. Louis Day of .NETSt. LouisMO8/20/2010, 8/21/10
 
Your Code Camp not listed? Send it to us at marketing@ineta.org
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 Upcoming Speaker Bureau Events
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Los Angeles .NET Developers GroupLos AngelesCABrian Noyes07/12/10
San Diego .NET User Group Connected SystemsSan DiegoCABrian Noyes07/13/10
SoCal .NET Architecture User GroupSanta AnaCABrian Noyes07/15/10
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 Contacting INETA North America
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noram.communityactivities@ineta.org The community activities team which coordinates all events and program with the community like launch events, user group leaders summits, etc.
noram.marketing@ineta.org The marketing team responsible for all external correspondence like this newsletter and emails to user group leaders.
noram.membership@ineta.org The membership team responsible for membership applications and member relations.
noram.president@ineta.org Any ideas, concerns, praise, etc. you want to send or if you do not get a response from another email address.
noram.speakers@ineta.org The speakers team responsible for scheduling and coordinating INETA expert speakers.
noram.sponsorship@ineta.org The sponsorship team responsible for acquiring and maintaining sponsors.
noram.technology@ineta.org The technology team responsible for infrastructure and email.
noram.volunteers@ineta.org Inquiries about becoming an INETA NorAm volunteer.
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Archived newsletters are available on the INETA website at www.ineta.org/newsletters.
Copyright 2010 by INETA
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