INETA

DotNetRocks on Building Communities!

Dave Noderer — Sat, 24 May 2008 12:06:06 GMT

Even if you don't listent to DotNetRocks on a regular basis (you should!), if you are a user group leader or interested in starting a user group you should listen to this show.

It is been quite a while since DotNetRocks has had a community focused show.

http://www.dotnetrocks.com/

Show #344 | 5/22/2008 (69 minutes)
Building Communities at Dallas TechFest

Carl and Richard talk with three community leaders in Dallas about building communities, and specifically how you can directly benefit from participating locally.

This DotNetRocks session touchs on many of the most important points about running a user group.

A few things I can add...

- At one point INETA (International .NET Association, www.ineta.org), when the .net community was being built, had large user group leader summits that got a wide variety leaders and potential leaders and everyone always walked away pumped up and excited about all the new ideas they heard about at the sessions. This in my mind was another very significant benefit that INETA delivered. Unfortunately funding dried up as it was hard to make a case for the Microsoft "numbers" system to understand the much deeper reach this had on the community and Microsoft. Everyone leaving one of those meetings had a wide and lasting effect in their respecitve communities. None of us were smart enough to figure out how to translate this comitment to the very large numbers Microsoft likes to see!

- Another benfit of INETA in the early days was to really mentor new user group leaders and potential leaders. This was dropped at some point and personal and ongoing communications between INETA and the user group leaders was stopped. Having helped mentor many hundreds around the world to start user groups this was crucial at one point. The .net community has maturred now and perhaps this type of mentoring is not as important.

- One social / community building thing I like to do is to go around the room and have everyone introduce themselves.

Leaders, speakers and members can get to know who is in the room and what they might be interested in
Many of the developers may not be use to speaking in front of a crowd. I know it is small but believe just this small exercise may help some people out of their shell
It sets the tone for a more interactive meeting.

- I do agree that charging a small annual fee (I don't) is not necessairly bad and may be required if you have to pay for the venue (which usually is not necessary) but it does add a fairly significant additional set of tasks on a monthly basis for someone to collect money, keep track of the members, deposit money, write checks and do a bit of accounting at the very least. My thought is that all admin functions should be kept to a very small minimum, nobody really loves doing them and volunteer hours should be very carefully spent!

- We did a "Code Idol" meeting which was good but none of us could be mean like Simon! In the end, our judges were part of the vote but next time we will rely only on having all the participants face the front wall and have a silent vote by the rasing of hands. I think it is time to do another one!

- Thse days the Microsoft Developer Evangalists are very active in starting and supporting user groups, this was not always the case. So... if you are starting or want to start a user group, definitly find out who your most local DE is! Our DE's Joe Healy, Russ Fustino and Jeff Barnes are very active and Joe keeps the entire state of Florida influencers linked together. If you are having trouble finding out your local DE let me know, I can help you or direct you to someone who can.

- Finding committed volunteers for any organization is always a challenge. As Toy pointed out, you have to ask people to do things. Over time, some will respond and get interested, many will not. In all cases it has to be fun, even if it is a bit of work there has to be personal growth or reward or people will not do it over time.

Thats all for now!

Starting a User Group INETA Live Web Cast

Dave Noderer — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:41:00 GMT

On May 31st 2006 Julie Lerman, Jason Beres and I (Dave Noderer) hosted an INETA Live Web Cast talking about what a user group is, how to get started and how to find resources.

This was lot of fun, I was amazed a how fast the hour went by.

This particular event is at: http://www.ineta.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=11&tabid=63

(Note that I had to set two things in my Windows Media player Tools -> Options “Connect to the Internet (overrides other commands)” and “Enable picture support for devices”

For other INETA Live events visit: http://www.ineta.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabindex=11&tabid=63

Webcast - So you want to start a User Group

Dave Noderer — Wed, 31 May 2006 08:21:00 GMT

Are you looking to start a user group but not really sure where to begin? Maybe you are part of a user group now but want to get more involved in its leadership.

Julie Lerman, Jason Beres and I are dong a webcast for INETA to cover these subjects and answer your questions.

I'm very excited to be particpating with Julie and Jason, both “Rock Star“ INETA speakers and long time developer community activists!

Jason, Shervin and I (plus a few others) formed FlaDotNet many years ago before Jason got the girl, got famous, took a job at Infragistics and move to New Jersy! He and Sheri are new parents of “Ms. Siena Riley Beres“.

Julie has been invovled in INETA for years. It took Julie a couple months of pestering me to get involved with INETA in the early days but she turned out to be one of the best volunteers ever! it has been nice to see her rise in the community.

The show will be live, 5/31/2006 at 3:30 pm EST

Subject: INETA Webcast
Meeting URL: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/microsoft/join
Meeting ID: 2JT56K
Meeting Key: 3SSB7T
Role: Presenter
Audio Conferencing (Toll): +1 (866) 500-6738
Audio Conferencing (Toll-free): +1 (866) 500-6738
Participant Code: 323865

Find Julie's blog at: http://www.thedatafarm.com/blog/

Jason: http://geekswithblogs.net/jberes

Orlando VS 2005 Launch

Dave Noderer — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 15:55:00 GMT

Great event....

Sitting here at the table with INETA and the various user groups from around Florida. People from South Florida (www.fladotnet.com), Orlando (www.onetug.org), Tampa (www.fladotnet.com) and Tallahassee (www.tlhdotnet.net) are helping to staff the booth.

There must be a couple thousand people here and I'm surprised how many do not know about the user groups in their areas... something we are corrrecting on the fly!

Even more amazing is that some people don't really have any idea of what a user group does!!

Florida is a big state and there are people from all over the entire state from the keys, south Florida (both East and West costs), Tampa, Orlando, Melbourn, Datona, Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tallahassee and Pensacola plus a smattering from Atlanta, Pittsburg and NY.

There are a few groups around the state that need to be started or revived... Anyone want to start something in Daytona??

Dave

Atlanta Geek Dinner

Dave Noderer — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 21:42:00 GMT

Thanks to Scoble!

A number of us were here in Atlanta for an INETA board meeting and I happened to notice a geek dinner being hosted by Robert Scoble (http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2005/07/24.html#a10745) in the Atlanta area.

Five of us from the INETA board, Chris Pels, Morgan Baker, Chris Wallace (of Denver), Brian Tinkler and I rented a car and drove to 5 Seasons Brewing.

I did not count but there were something like 25 or 30 people piled into the smoking section / bar. The good news is there were only a couple of smokers and this room also had the pool table and dart boards.

After we had been there a couple of hours, Brian Tinkler (http://geekswithblogs.net/btinkler/) and I started talking to Ken Grisnak (marketing and communications for 5 seasons) was very excited to have the geeks visit, had just discovered blogging and gave us a great tour of the brew room, restaurant and beer garden. It was originally a Friday's but you would never know it now. Turns out they have a large organic menu and good relationship with local farmers. See their website at: http://www.5seasonsbrewing.com/index.html and new today their blog: http://5seasonsbrewing.reger.com/ My wife's brother and his family live near by in Buckhead and I will definitely bring them there next time we visit Atlanta!

We knew a number of the "geeks" as active INETA volunteers we had just been with in Orlando for the User Group Leader Summit. This was my first official geek dinner and did not know what to expect but we ended up having a number of very interesting and productive discussions.

Matt Ranlett (http://www.devcow.com/weblogs/Fun+Times+At+The+Geek+Dinner.aspx) and Brendon Schwartz (yes they are super ug leaders, lots of ideas, energy and enthusiasm) had the idea of connecting a higher level "chalk talk" before or after the MSDN session to attract more people, help get the user groups involved with MSDN and address an audience that is looking for more technical depth than the content normally in the MSDN talks.

We talked to Glen Gordon of Microsoft (DCC in the Atlanta district) who says that although they are going to be doing fewer MSDN events they are trying to raise the technical level from the 100/200 level to the 200/300 level. He is very excited about giving the chalk talks a trial run. This works in very well with the discussions that INETA board member Brian Tinkler has been having with the MSDN people.

We also got to meet the other Chris Wallace (from Atlanta) , Michael Earls (an INETA volunteer), Paul Lockwood and many others whom I did not know and did not have cards.

As always it is great to get out and meet people from other cities doing similar things (User group and work wise) and re-invigorates all of us to volunteer more (ouch!).

INETA at PDC2005 - Week starting Sunday September 11th

Dave Noderer — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 12:37:00 GMT

Planning still in progress but INETA will be running the Birds of a Feather sessions again, Stuart Celarier who did a great job for Teched 2005 has already starting working on them with Microsoft.

Still in discussion what other presence INETA may have at PDC.

INETA Teched 2005 MSN Space - Pictures now available!

Dave Noderer — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 21:13:00 GMT

http://spaces.msn.com/members/INETATechEd2005/

INETA Community Lounge

Dave Noderer — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 00:58:00 GMT

The INETA booth this year is in the Community Cabana area and can be identified by the plastic palm trees, INETA banners and INETA beach balls.

Periodically during the day you may see the INETA Prize Patrol wandering around the convention center, identified by a group of somewhat roudy developers with parrot hats and a boom box. They are looking for people with INETA badge inserts to give prizes to.

Also twice each day there are grand prize drawings.. Prizes inlcude X-Box's, pocket pc's and spot watches, all require the INETA badge insert which are going fast and only a few are available at the booth.

There is a rumor of a secret stash in the Microsoft Technology bus outside of the North Concourse....

INETA User Group Leader Summit!!

Dave Noderer — Tue, 07 Jun 2005 00:53:00 GMT

Again this year, INETA put on a full day User Group Leader Summit on Sunday before Teched. Over 150 people came and was sponsored by both INETA (Developer user groups) and Culminis (IT Pro User Groups).

Besides the intense networking between user group leaders there were a series of workshops in the afternoon. Three tracks covered all sorts of topics including newsletters, marketing, volunteer orgainzation, funding, and leadership for user group leaders. This is a good chance for the North American INETA leadership to meet with a large number of user group leaders from all around the country. Representatives from the other regions also attended.

A number of changes in the board of directors was announced as some of founding members Bill Evjen, Brian Loesgen, Keith Franklin, Keith Pleas and Julie Lerman move onto a newly formed Advisory board. Bill stays on as past president to share his experience with the new board. This group has done a great service to the developer user group community growing INETA to it's current scope of 772 user groups representing 374197 developers in five regions worldwide. Thanks Bill, Brian, Keith, Keith and Julie!!

INETA May Newsletter

Dave Noderer — Fri, 27 May 2005 17:39:00 GMT

Lots of community related information including a schedule for the INETA User Group Leader Summit we are holding on Sunday, June 5th in Orlando in conjunction with Teched...

http://www.ineta.org/newsletters/2005_05.htm