While at the MVP Summit in February I got the chance to set down with Rob Zelt the President of INETA North America. Rob talks about INETA’s mission, programs, and offers information for User Group Leaders on how they can benefit from being an INETA User Group.
Community Events:
INETA Leadership Summit, June 6th at 1 PM at TechEd 2010
INETA is hosting a free Community Leadership Summit in New Orleans at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on Sunday June 6th at 1:00 PM prior to the start of Tech·Ed 2010. The summit is open to Community Leaders from the area, as well as those attending Tech·Ed from across the country and around the world. It is an excellent opportunity for exchanging information and ideas.
For more information about this event check out the INETA website or contact julie.yack@ineta.org.
Community Camp Northwest Arkansas
A Community Camp is a one day free event for community leader by community leaders based a modified version of Open Space Technology. This one day free event is intended to be open forum to share ideas, discuss common challenges, and gain from the experience of other leaders. Community Camps are the perfect opportunity to meet leaders from other groups, benefit from their success stories, and expand your network of contacts.
You can check out my blog post on the event for more info here or you can register.
Wrapping It Up!
If you have an event that brings User Group Leaders together to talk shop let us know and we will announce it on the show. Likewise if you have a topic or something you would like to share with other user group leaders please contact me at show@usergroupradio.com
Until next month keep building community!
I am happy to announce Community Camp Northwest Arkansas to be held May 8th, 2010 in Springdale, AR. I am currently working on the website and taking suggestions on topics.
I want the attendees to build the schedule so if you are planning attending and have a topic you would like to learn or share please email me at jay@jaysmith.us. I plan to be sending out a session survey to let the registered attendees vote on what sessions out of the proposed they would like to have at the event. This way you have complete control over what is discussed at the event and will allow you to maximize your time. If we still have open slots the day of the event we will fill them during the open session.
I am also looking for sponsors for the event, if you are interested in sponsoring Community Camp Northwest Arkansas or future Community Camps in other areas please contact me directly.
I am also working on getting a keynote speaker for the event who can speak about trends and best practices for community.
What is a Community Camp?
A Community Camp is a one day free event for community leader by community leaders based a modified version of Open Space Technology. This one day free event is intended to be open forum to share ideas, discuss common challenges, and gain from the experience of other leaders. Community Camps are the perfect opportunity to meet leaders from other groups, benefit from their success stories, and expand your network of contacts.
Who Should Attend?
This event is open to anyone who is a user group leader, or are involved in the leadership, planning, promotion, or day-to-day operations of a user group community.
When is it?
May 8th, 2010
Where is it?
Tyson Corporate Headquarters
2210 West Oaklawn Drive
Springdale, AR 72762
Where do I register?
I have setup an EventBrite registration to track attendees you can register here http://ccnwa2010.eventbrite.com.
The show has returned, I was not real happy how the first two shows turned out, the interview and content was good but the format just didn’t come together like I hoped. So this show is a little different, you will start to see the show change over the next few episodes. I really want to focus on topics that will benefit the User Group leaders.
In this show I am joined by Zach Young of the Northwest Arkansas .Net User Group and one of the founders of the Virtual Alt .Net or VAN Live Meetings. Zach has shared with us his knowledge and experience using Microsoft Live Meeting to enhance or replace in person meetings.
Here are some resources on live meeting:
Setting Up Livemeeting for a User Group – by Zach Young
LiveMeeting Training at Community Clips – by Zach Young
Zach also mentioned the VAN Meetings (Virtual Alt .NET) you can find out more about that here http://virtualaltnet.com/
As we mentioned on the show if your user group is a INETA group you should already have a Live Meeting account, if you don’t please contact your INETA Membership Mentor to figure out what you need to do to get it. If you are not an INETA user group you can find out more about becoming one at http://ineta.org.
I hope you enjoy the new format and new focus for the show, it was great talking with Zach and learning about he used Live Meeting to not only enhance his local user group meetings but help create a whole new kind of group online completely virtual.
Until next time, Keep building community!
The We Are Microsoft - Charity Challenge Weekend is a software development competition for a good cause.
This 3-day event matches developers with charities to develop applications for those charities. At the end of the 3 days, all of the participants will vote and the winners will be proclaimed champion coders.
The We Are Microsoft – Charity Challenge Weekend is the first kind of event that has become to be known as a Give Camp. The first event was held in January 2008, and since has been duplicated in other states with great success.
In this episode we set down with Toi Wright and Chris Koenig, the brain trust behind this event and talk about what it is, and how you can have one in your area.
In this the first full episode of User Group Radio I had the chance to catch up with Michael Paladino, on of the founders of the Ft. Smith .NET User Group in Ft. Smith, Arkansas.
Resources from the show:
Don’t forget about this month’s community question: Why should I get involved with a user group or technical community? Send your answers to show@usergroupradio.com to be entered into the drawing to win a copy of “The Rational Guide to Building Technical User Communities” by Dr. Greg Low. The winner and favorite answers will be announced in the next episode.
The Community Question of the Month is sponsored by the International .NET User Group.
If you would like to suggest a topic for the show or are interested in supporting this show please email show@usergroupradio.com.
Hey, I got some great new. Recently I was in Redmond, WA for the International .NET Association in person board member, I was there as a proxy for David Walker who is the VP of Speakers Bureau. While I was there I asked if INETA would be interested in sponsoring User Group Radio and they jumped at the idea. So, they are now going to sponsor the Monthly Community Comment segment of the show.
In this segment of the show I will pose a question from the listeners or one myself then in the next show we will read some of the responses and one of them will be picked to win a prize a copy of ‘The Rational Guide to Building Technical Communities’ by Greg Lowe.
I am very excited, this book is a great resource whether you have been leading a group for years or are new to it. There are tones of good ideas in hear that we all can learn from.
If anyone else is interesting in sponsoring the show please contact me at show@usergroupradio.com.
I know many of you have probably been wondering when the real fist episode is going to be out. Well it was planned to be a lot earlier than it will be. I have been very sick for the last 3 weeks, gone all the way from just a cold to having shingles. I have several people agreed to doing interviews now it is down to scheduling the interview and getting it recorded. Hang in there I am getting my ducks in a row and once we get this show off the ground it will be off and running for good.
In the meantime if you have any questions you would like to pose to the community about user groups, technical communities, regional events, etc shot me an email at show@usergroupradio.com.
Over the last several years I have been involved with the developer community that has been growing in Northwest Arkansas. After attending a Community Leadership Summit in Dallas, TX hosting by Caleb Jenkins I realized that many user group leaders struggle with the same problems, after looking around I realized that there wasn't really any resources around to help us. So I decided to start a podcast dedicated to the ones that keep user groups and technical communities going. Hopefully through open dialog and sharing we can help make it easier to keep them running and maybe even take them to the next level.
I am currently working on scheduling several of the shows and getting them ready. Please go ahead and subscribe to the feed and you won't miss a show.
If you are interested in supporting this show please email show@usergroupradio.com