This post is dedicated to Darrell Norton who, although couldn't make it to San Diego this week, I know is with me in spirit while I'm at TechEd.
I came in yesterday (Saturday), a day early, so I'd be able to make the INETA User Group Summit on Sunday. After waking up at 6 AM and going for a jog (I'm on East Coast time so that's really only like 9 AM), I elected to walk to the INETA conference at the Westin instead of take a shuttle. It seemed like a great idea since San Diego has such nice weather, but since I was cheap on my choice of hotels (I'm paying for the hotel out of my pocket) I ended up staying at the one on the other side of the airport from downtown San Diego. It's like a 5+ mile walk. Great for my metabolism, but terrible for me making the INETA Summit on time. 90 minutes after leaving my hotel I arrived at the Summit -- too late for the free breakfast, but the Summit had yet to begin so I was in the clear.
Let's see . . . the Summit was very informative and I see now how INETA gets things done: a few very committed volunteers work their tails off and make the magic happen. That's it! I have a new appreciation for the level of effort involved and I drank the INETA kool-aid (it was free beer, actually) and offered to contribute to the cause, details to follow later. I ran into Julie Lerman (and I didn't call her “J-Ler”, although I was tempted to) and I happened to be sitting next to the regional INETA liaison for my user group WeProgram.net -- Scott Locke -- so it was good to finally meet these people after all this time. I also seemed to always go to the bathroom at the same time as Tim, the Maine Bytes user group guy. He's convinced me being a developer in Maine isn't such a bad idea. I also got to meet some of the California user group folks and the Microsoft Developer Champions -- it's just cool to learn what else is going on with user groups in the country from all these different perspectives. For example, California has 25+ .Net user groups and some can't find a place big enough to meet! If your group has 200+ attendees at each meeting, you need a big facility to support that load. One tactic San Diego's .Net group has taken is to have annual membership at $50/head . . . they've gotten 100 people to sign up so now they've got a $5,000 annual budget.
As for more on the content of the Summit, I learned a few good tips for dealing with vendors and the community and how to handle meetings. It sounds like we need to get Infragistics to one of the WeProgram.Net meetings sometime -- they're user group presentations are NOT sales pitches and really informative. Same goes for Altova, which is great because Altova is coming to WeProgram.Net in a few months! One other thing about dealing with vendors: look to build a long term relationship instead of just a one-night stand. Wintellect's Sara Faatz did a nice piece about this vendor relations topic.
The folks from MSDN came in and did an informal presentation. They confided that MSDN Search is broken -- and they know it -- and they're working on having a sophisticated search out in 6-9 months from now. Until then, www.Google.com is the easiest and fastest out there! One comment from the INETA peanut gallery: “Why doesn't Microsoft just buy Google?” The MSDN speaker chuckled and moved on to the next point.
There were other good points and blog-worthy issues, but I don't feel like digging them out at the moment; I've got to save something for a slow blog day! Suffice it to say that the INETA Summit was a great experience and I'm grateful for the chance to be a part. Maybe we'll get Darrell Norton or Mark DiGiovanni, other fellow WeProgram.Net founders, out to the next one!
Tonight was the highly anticipated (by me) Coding Slave meet-up organized by Rory Blyth. There were about a dozen of us that got together to socialize and discuss Coding Slavish things . . . but I don't know that there was much Coding Slavery in the evening. Many of the guys hadn't read the book yet, but author Bob Reselman brought some freebies out for everyone. While I didn't get to talk much with Bob, it was still a really fun time. Rory Blyth is a very entertaining character. I got to ask Carl Franklin, of .Net Rocks fame, about how he couldn't know what Tightie Whities were . . . turns out he just never heard of 'em. Go figure. Also met a couple boy-wonders from Indiana who run an INETA user group there; one of them is like 25 years old and an Microsoft MVP and an author and general whiz kid. Ian White shared his Cobol, .Net, and WS-I stories with me; I'm subscribed to his weblog effective immediately; he's part of some very interesting things.
There were may others there, even one token Canadian from Calgary, but I don't recall their names or any specifics; I should've taken notes! I know most of them blog, so I'm hoping to catch up with them and get a business card -- they all seem like likeable, interesting guys.
Whew . . . TechEd hasn't even officially started and I'm already feeling a bit beat. Let me conclude with a few quick facts:
- Best free beer of the day: at the INETA sponsored cocktail hour after the Summit; I sat down with some of the ViaNetworks guys and talked adventure racing (www.HRAdventure.com anyone?) and search engine optimization. Got to remember to checkout www.Neboweb.com when I get a chance.
- Number of free garments today: 5 (4 shirts and 1 canvas visor).
- Best giveaway of the day: the free licenses to a ton of developer tools courtesy of INETA's hard work.
- Grant's impression of TechEd Day 0: it's enormous. 11,000 developers. The convention center is a couple blocks long and the sessions will fill it all up tomorrow!
OK, off to bed. It's about midnight on the West Coast (which makes it . . . 3 AM on the East Coast) and I've got a call with a customer at 7:15 tomorrow morning. Seriously. At least this call isn't about MS Access . . .
Happy .Netting!