Dave Bost

Steven Murawski sent me a note today that he is starting a new user group in the greater Milwaukee area with a focus on PowerShell.

About PowerShell Script Club

1. You Always Talk About Script club
2. You Always Talk About Script Club
3. If Someone asks for Help, And You Can Help, You Help
4. Two People Help One Person at One Time
5. One Module Per Person Per Night
6. All Scripts, All PowerShell
7. Scripts will be as short as they can be
8. If This is your First time at Script Club, You Have to Script

I’m a total noob when it comes to PowerShell. I think I’ll need to make a trip up to visit Script Club to learn more. The interesting things is that the meetings are taking place in a municipal courtroom in the Greenfield Law Enforcement center. This club is so dangerous, they need court supervision!

You can find all the details on the group and their upcoming meeting on Steven’s blog.

Community, Wisconsin Events

Tomorrow I’ll be speaking at the Madison Code Camp (MadCamp) where we’re dedicating a whole track to our recent New Efficiency launch events (one of which I participated in Chicago just the other day). In the morning, Kevin Remde will walk the IT Pro set through the new management features in Windows 7, as well as the new enhancements in Windows Server 2008 R2 and what’s coming ahead in Exchange Server 2010.

In the afternoon, I will walk developers through the paces of how to light up their applications on Windows 7 by taking advantage of features such as the Ribbon platform, the Taskbar, Jump Lists, Libraries as well as underlying platform additions such as the new Sensor and Location Platform and Multitouch.

This isn’t all that’s going on at MadCamp but there will be two additional tracks with more great content for IT Pros and Developers alike.

We dug deep into our budget and pulled out some great giveaways including the opportunity to win one of the following:

• Dell Mini 10 Netbook with a copy of Windows 7
• Zune HD
• Games, Books, Peripherals, etc.

I hope you can join us!

follow: http://twitter.com/maddotnet

tweet: #madcamp09

Announcements, Community, Windows, Wisconsin Events, training

One of my colleagues, Brian Prince, has put a call out for anyone heading to DevLink next week that would like to participate in a Technology Community Leadership Summit.

Our goal is to gather together anyone who is rabid about the community: all of the community leaders, speakers, and contributors. We want to get together and share best practices, and learn from each other. This is OPEN. We aren’t just talking about .NET user groups. We are talking Ruby, PHP, Python, OSS, Linux, ALM, and anything else you can think of. It doesn’t have to be a big formal user group; your community might be the small group of folks that crack code at a coffee shop at 7am. Whatever it is, come on over.

In our industry, community is important. The sharing of ideas. The opportunity for self improvement through learning from others. The networking opportunities. When I was in the consulting world, I made sure to attend various community events: User groups, Seminars, Conferences, etc. The interaction with peers from my industry allowed me to share and learn new ideas, new technologies, new ways of doing things. It was a stimulation for my mind and gave me the necessary gusto to excel in my career. Now, as a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft, it is my primary job responsibility to help foster and build these communities. Communities are important. They’re important for you and your career growth, and they’re important for our industry to help drive innovation.

If you’re interested in participating in a community, find your nearest users group. If you’re a community leader and/or contributor who’d like to work with others to share best practices in building a better technical community, head to Nashville on Aug. 12th for the Community Leadership Summit.

If you have any ideas how to build a better community, feel free to leave a comment here and let’s carry on the discussion.

Announcements, Community

…and Homer couldn’t be happier! Ok…not THAT Springfield, but Springfield, IL.

Part of my job as a Microsoft evangelist is fostering developer communities across the region. It just so happens that my region (officially) covers Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. However, I like to help provide support to any and all developers communities where and whenever I can.

One of the areas of the region that hasn’t seen much action in way of community (at least that I know of) is the southern half of the state of Illinois. Well…that all ends now. Darrin Bishop, in partnership with Levi, Ray and Shoup, are bringing the Central Illinois SharePoint Users Group to Springfield, IL.

(You can read the full announcement over on Darrin’s blog.)

I’d like to see additional developers groups started in the southern area. If you’re interested in starting a user group, there are a few organizations like INETA that can be a valuable asset and resource. To learn more, check out INETA’s whitepaper on Starting and Running a User Group.

Announcements, Community, Illinois Events

I just received word today that attendees of the Chicago stop of the MSDN Developers Conference (MDC) will be some of the first people to get their hands on Windows 7 Beta 1 DVDs! All MDC attendees will receive a copy of Windows 7 Beta 1, but Chicago looks to be the first. For the MDC events taking place before Jan. 13th, you will receive your DVD in the mail after Jan. 13th. Bob Familiar has more details on this.

What is the MSDN Developers Conference you might ask? Well, apparently you don’t read my blog as I’ve discussed this already. Don’t worry, I’ll let it pass *THIS TIME*.

Anyhow… MSDN DevCon is a “Best of PDC” show for developers that the Microsoft Evangelist team is bringing to 11 cities across the country.

The Chicago MDC will be taking place on January 13th, 2009 at the Chicago Hyatt Regency. Ron Jacobs will be kicking things off with the morning keynote followed by a number of sessions covering Microsoft’s Cloud Computing initatives, the latest in Client and Presentation development, as well as what’s new in Tooling, Languages and Framework. We’ll also be running a “Community Courtyard” series of sessions throughout the day as well.

Register now for the Chicago MSDN Developers Conference, or check for other MDC’s events happening in your area.

There is a $99 charge but that is peanuts compared to what PDC registration cost. :)

Announcements, Community, Illinois Events, Indiana Events, Wisconsin Events