As an evangelist, my role is two fold - get folks excited about technology and help them bring their own ideas to fruition in the Windows Store or Windows Phone Store. To that end, we have a number of programs designed to support you - whether you're just starting out or have published apps in the Microsoft or other marketplaces; whether you're the hands-on type or prefer the classroom approach; and whether you're a full time Windows app dev by day and exercising your inner geek on your own time.

For developers in the greater Boston area we have created the Boston Windows App Developer Meetup. Through this group we will offer a number of recurring weekly events to cater to your different schedules and learning styles, and we encourage you to sign up on Meetup.com, so you can be informed of topics, venues, and times:

Office Hours provide a regular, weekly opportunity to stop by with application development questions, for troubleshooting, and to get access to devices for testing.  Barring occasional schedule and venue conflicts, these will run on Mondays from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Microsoft Offices in Cambridge. There is no formal agenda, and you’re welcome to drop in at any point during the scheduled time period.

If you can't make it in person, check out my virtual office hours schedule!

In-store Presentations, will follow our Office Hours in the Microsoft Store, starting at 6:30 (so we have a chance to grab a bite at the food court or neighborhood restaurant).  These presentations will cover a variety of topics of interest to Windows Phone and Windows 8 developers, including technical content, design guidelines, market opportunities, the 3rd party ecosystem, etc. We also plan to leverage these events to highlight the successes of area developers who have applications in the Windows Stores.

Workshops will be held at the Microsoft Offices at 1 Cambridge Center or NERD (depending on venue availability). These workshops are focused on providing technical training to build Windows 8 and Windows Phone applications, so we encourage you bring your laptop (with Visual Studio 2012 and Windows 8) as well as code you are working on. Our goal is to start with about an hour of content focused on a particular development technology, such as C#/XAML, HTML5/JavaScript, C++, Windows Azure Mobile Services, as well as partner technologies like Xamarin, GameMaker, GameSalad, and more. The remainder of each three-hour session is open hacking time: work on your app with access to us and other experienced app developers, bounce ideas off each other, and continue progressing toward app publication. The workshops aren’t one time only, so if you can’t make a session or two because of conflicts, the same topics will be offered again in short order.

To help foster a community among those developers that aren’t in the immediate Boston area and whom, unfortunately, we can’t visit as frequently as we’d like, we’ve created two Windows Live Groups. These are essentially group mailing lists through which developers can seek out support from other like-minded souls in the area, and we hope it will foster some friendships and partnerships as well. While we evangelists will publicize information of interest to the groups, we want it to be your forum, so please engage and participate!