Pla.NET Southeast!

Murray Gordon on TechDrawl talking about BizSpark

2009-11-06T18:17:48Z

My ISV Evangelist colleague Murray Gordon will be helping to run the BizSpark incubation week for Windows Azure next week. He got a chance to talk with the fine folks at TechDrawl about the event, the BizSpark program, and a little bit of Windows 7. Great interview, Murray!

The full text of the interview/article is here.

Southeast User Group Leadership Summit - Wrapup

2009-10-27T20:53:00Z

This past weekend Microsoft and O’Reilly Media hosted the first (hopefully annual) Southeast User Group Leadership Summit at Microsoft’s Alpharetta, GA office. SEUGLS as we called it was designed to pull together the leaders of technology user groups around the southeast and allow them to brainstorm, network, and have fun. I was inspired to plant the seeds for this event from a similar event in the Northeast.

O’Reilly was a huge supporter of this event, sending lots of books to give away. Marsee Henon, manager of the User Group and Professional Associations program at O'Reilly Media, even made the trek down to Atlanta and helped out immensely!

There were quite a wide variety of tech groups represented. They included Microsoft groups but also many others like Ruby, PHP, Perl, Linux, Mac, and more. Many groups were from Atlanta, but we got a lot from Alabama & Tennessee, and even some from the Carolinas. The full list is at http://seugls2009.pbworks.com/User-Groups-Attending

The event kicked off with an engaging conversation starter activity based on the Retail Alphabet Game by Joey Katzen. I also scored some cool Microsoft lunchbox coolers for everyone. Then we solicited topics from the leaders, and had breakout sessions to discuss. At the end of each hour of breakouts, each group gave a summary to the others of their conclusions, salient points and next steps.

Putting the notes and summaries of the conversations on the wiki ensures that the information continues to add value to the leader of the groups. The wiki is at http://seugls2009.pbworks.com/ and hopefully will continue to be updated by this community of user group leaders.

The event concluded with a catered dinner, XBOX gaming, time on a Microsoft Surface table, and even Jenga!

Many, many thanks to the “organizing committee” including Marsee, Chris Spruck, Robert Cain, Cheyenne Throckmorton and Brendon Schwartz.

Photos are available via Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=seugls&s=rec

For me personally, this was a very energizing event. Everyone was passionate about running their groups, really shared their best practices, and had some eye opening realizations.It seemed to me to allow folks to forge some great connections. I’m hopeful that the community will want to do this event again next year!

MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow – Fall 2009

2009-10-26T23:34:00Z

Spend an afternoon with the MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow crew as they bring you up to speed on the latest concepts of interest to developers and architects. First, you’ll learn how to build new types of data services that are perfectly suited for today’s lightweight Internet applications. Next, you’ll discover how parallel programming using the new managed libraries in .NET 4 can make your applications fly. Finally, you’ll see how to write apps that capitalize on exciting new capabilities in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

To register, click one of the date/city links below. Please help us fill up these seats, so we can be assured of being able to continue the roadshow in your area!

11/4 - Greensboro, NC

11/5 - Raleigh, NC

11/6 - Columbia, SC

12/8 – Atlanta

12/9 – Montgomery, AL

Also, we have a new logo! Feel free to use it promoting our events in your blogs, to your friends, etc!

Also, if you've read this far, I'll let you in on a little contest we're running:

Be one of the Lucky 7!

The first seven people to register for any of our Fall 2009 MSDN Roadshows (and attend) with the Referral Code of WIN7 will take home a copy of the MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-536): Microsoft® .NET Framework--Application Development Foundation, Second Edition (Approximate Retail Value - $45 USD).* And, if you miss the first 7 window of opportunity, don't worry - we'll have several more to raffle off at each event.
*Government employees and officials not eligible for contest. Must be present to win. Contest ends December 20, 2009

Learn about Windows Mobile Development at WinMoDevCamp Atlanta – October 30

2009-10-22T03:51:21Z

Interested in learning how easy it is to build applications for Windows Mobile? Want to know more about getting your app in the Windows Mobile Marketplace? Want to find out how to win a Microsoft Surface?*

Then join us on October 30th at the WinMoDevCamp Atlanta. This event is a little like a barcamp, a little like training, a little like a hack-a-thon. It’s what you make it to get the most from the day. I’ll be on hand along with Rob Cameron and some other experts on Windows Mobile development

*Note, you won’t win a Surface at this event, but if you submit an app to the Marketplace you might win this contest.

Microsoft BizSpark Incubation Week for Windows Azure @ Atlanta 09Nov09

2009-10-14T19:14:45Z

Here is an awesome opportunity for some enterprising startups to take advantage of what Windows Azure has to offer as a cloud computing platform. There will be many technical (and non-technical) experts available to you at this event. It’s 3 days of training & implementation and concludes with participants exhibiting their solutions, with prizes going to the best ones. To quote from the post below:

The current economic downturn is putting many entrepreneurs under increasing pressure, making it critical to find new resources and ways to reduce costs and inefficiencies. Microsoft BizSpark Incubation Week for Windows Azure is designed to offer following assistance to entrepreneurs.

Learning and building new applications in the cloud or use interoperable services that run on Microsoft infrastructure to extend and enhance your existing applications with help of on-site advisors and off-shore development team

Getting entrepreneurs coaching from guest speakers and a panel of industry experts

Generating marketing buzz for your brand

Creating opportunity to be highlighted at upcoming launch

For more information and to sign up, visit this post: Microsoft ISV and BizSaprk Startup Evangelism : Microsoft BizSpark Incubation Week for Windows Azure @ Atlanta 09Nov09

Upcoming MSDN and TechNet Roadshow events in Pensacola

2009-10-10T13:53:30Z

If you live in the area of Pensacola, FL, here’s a heads up of an MSDN Tiki Hut Roadshow coming to the area.

In the morning, Blain Barton will be presenting the a.m. sessions for IT Pros http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032421533&Culture=en-US

Then, in the afternoon, Joe Healy and Russ Fustino will be talking about Windows7 from developing with Windows 7 to getting rid of VPNs, Expression Blend 3.0, and much more! http://www.devfish.net/fullblogitemview.aspx?blogid=683

Don't miss out on this free training and lots of fun giveaways!

Announcing – Southeast User Group Leadership Summit (SEUGLS) 2009

2009-09-15T18:50:03Z

The date is finally announced for the 2009 Southeast User Group Leadership Summit. – October 24, at the Microsoft office in Alpharetta.

If you are the leader of a technology group in the Southeast, please make plans to attend this great day of collaboration and brainstorming on how to make user groups more successful. The group certainly does not have to be Microsoft focused at all! In fact, we’ve had leaders from groups sign up to attend that focus on ColdFusion, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Linux, and more. I think that’s awesome, and a great opportunity for everyone to network.

I’d also encourage you to attend if you are otherwise heavily involved with the community but not group leaders yourselves. Examples would be evangelists from Microsoft, Adobe and the like. Also, if you are affiliated with INETA, Culminis or other organizations that support groups.

The event will include time for networking, as well as an evening reception with food & drink, and xBox gaming. We’re not starting until lunchtime, so those of you constrained on expenses can drive in that morning.

Does anyone with graphic skills want to take a stab at a logo?

25 new sessions announced at PDC = 25 more reasons to go

2009-09-04T00:04:59Z

I just got an announcement on our internal PDC discussion alias about these sessions that were just announced. Check out http://microsoftpdc.com/ for the details. PDC’s going to be awesome this year. I mean, look at these!

Advanced Diagnostics, Historical Debugging and Test Automation
Advanced Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight
Code Visualization, UML, and DSLs
Developing Advanced Applications with Windows Azure
Developing Rich Reporting Solutions with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
Developing Solutions for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Using the Client Object Model
Developing Solutions with Business Connectivity Services in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010
Document Assembly and Manipulation on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Using Word Services and Open XML
Embodiment: The Third Great Wave of Computing Applications
Extending Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.x
Future Directions for C# and Visual Basic
Introduction to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 StreamInsight
Networking and Web Services in Silverlight
Patterns for Building Scalable and Reliable Applications with Windows Azure
Patterns for Building Scalable and Reliable Applications with Windows Azure
Scaling out Web Applications with Microsoft SQL Azure Databases
Scaling out Web Applications with Microsoft SQL Azure Databases
Scrum for Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
Software + Services Identity Roadmap Update
SQL Azure Database: Under the Hood
Storing and Manipulating Blobs and Files with Windows Azure Storage
Storing and Manipulating Blobs and Files with Windows Azure Storage
Using ADO.NET Data Services
Using ADO.NET Entity Framework
What’s New for Windows Communication Foundation 4
Windows Azure Monitoring, Logging, and Management APIs
Windows Azure Present and Future
Windows Azure Tables and Queues Deep-dive
Workflow Services and “Dublin”

WinMoDevCamp today in Seattle – want one in Atlanta?

2009-08-19T20:31:21Z

Today is the first of many WinMoDevCamps, this one taking place in Redmond. In fact, it’s being streamed live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/%40giovanni

From the WinMoDevCamp site, here’s a synopsis of the event.

WinMoDevCamp is a series of upcoming not-for-profit gatherings to develop applications for the upcoming release of the Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 O/S. The event is currently being planned in 7 cities around the world. Our first Windows Mobile Developer Camp event has been scheduled for August 19 in Redmond, Washington at the Microsoft Campus. You can register now on the form below. Dates will soon be announced for the following additional cities: Austin, London, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, and Toronto. We will also encourage other mobile developers to host their own events on the same dates. This website will have facilities for local events to organize as well.

We’re trying to get one of these together in Atlanta in October, but we need to know from you whether you’d attend. So please add a comment to this blog post to let us know your interest level. Thanks!

Notes from Mobile Camp Atlanta, July 2009

2009-07-21T23:35:45Z

This past Saturday, I had a great time attending Mobile Camp Atlanta / iPhone Camp Atlanta. It worked out nicely holding these events at the same time, because there was a lot of cross conversation from people in each “camp”. ;)

Hats off to Jonathan Freeman of Widget Press as well all the other organizers. The logistics, sound systems and recording equipment were outstanding, as was the full catered continental breakfast. How’d you guys pull that one off?

Although this event was structured for the traditional barcamp style, there weren’t too many people signing up for sessions when they distributed the notecards around 8:15. I don’t know if it was the topic area or the people in attendance, but everyone just seemed to prefer to network rather than commit to a presentation. I held back from signing up for any talks for a while, but eventually I put a few on the board.

First, I did a talk on Microsoft Tag and how it’s the designer and marketers’ barcode. This was an interesting conversation to have, especially given the fact that everyone’s badge at the event had a QR code on it with their contact information. We talked about the pros and cons of having a tag be a pointer to online data versus being encoded right in the barcode. I also showed them the winners of the Tag Slaps contest that Microsoft held recently, illustrating how you can make cool looking tags that are still meaningful data-wise.

My second talk was on the recently announced Windows Mobile Marketplace and how mobile app developers can get in on the ground floor of the marketplace to get their Windows Mobile apps in front of millions of customers with ease. Very timely, considering the Marketplace is about to enter beta. We talked about the vetting process, what standards developers need to follow, and how to their apps hosted. Here’s a good video introducing Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

At the end of the event, I gave away a Samsung Jack, a copy of Visual Studio 2008 Professional, and a few mobile development books. The funny thing was the winner of the phone and I had just been talking previously about all the different choices, and he’d recently dropped his carrier and was searching for a new device/carrier. So there you go!

I had some great conversations during this event. I love showing up to these types of events, because I always meet cool people doing interesting things that otherwise I wouldn’t cross paths with.

Hopefully this will become an annual (some attendees were even wishing for 2 times a year) event, and we’ll see some bigger turnout by Windows Mobile developers next time. I’ll leave you with a few pictures of the event, where someone captured me presenting.

For the full set visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcordell/sets/72157621565529323/

MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow - September 2009

2009-07-21T03:36:00Z

MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow - September 2009 Edition

The MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow is a free developer event with a southern flair, where you will learn about some of the latest developments in Microsoft technologies. For September, 2009, join Microsoft Evangelists Glen Gordon and Brian Hitney and others as they present a half day event packed full of great information for developers and architects. Learn about working with web services from Silverlight, see how to build modular WPF and Silverlight applications and learn what’s in store for future versions of ASP.NET. We’ll provide a snack so you can keep your energy up. In addition to what you learn, you might win one of many cool prizes. Keep in touch with the Roadshow crew’s travels on their Facebook page and Twitter updates tagged with #msdnsfr. If you want to discuss the roadshow, use that hashtag as well!

Click a city below to register

Flickr photos from the road!

www.flickr.com

More in MSDN Southern Fried Roadshow pool

Resources

Stay tuned for links, downloads and more about the topics we'll be presenting on.

Previous Roadshows

Start planning for Southeast User Group Leader summit

2009-07-14T23:18:35Z

A few months ago, my coworker Chris Bowen up in Boston participated in an all-up user group leadership summit. Microsoft was both a sponsor, as well as the event host. O’Reilly media was a sponsor as well.

The event was known as the Northeast User Group Leader Summit (NEULGS) and drew participation from many groups. Most were not even Microsoft focused! The leaders came together to share tips and ask questions on many issues facing technology groups regardless of the actual technology the group is focused on. Everyone shares similar challenges like finding locations, getting speakers, seeking out sponsorship, growing membership, hosting special events, etc.

Given the vibrant and diverse user group community in the Southeast, particularly around Atlanta, I’m hoping to duplicate the success of that event with a Southeast User Group Leader Summit. Hopefully this would be the seeds of an ongoing “meta” collaboration for the leaders of technical/developer user groups. Here is what I’ve put together so far.

I’m seeking a few enterprising individuals in the Atlanta area community to take on responsibility for this. As it’s a “non-partisan” summit, I think it’s best for me to not actually organize it myself (although I’ll participate as a community evangelist). Please let me know through comments, email, or twitter (@glengordon) if you are interested.
We’d need a wiki or some other landing pages for the organizers as well as a way for the user group leaders to sign up to attend. Maybe a facebook group? Not everyone has facebook though.
This would be a barcamp style event, where the participants set the agenda.
I would hope that we’d attract leaders from groups in Birmingham, Huntsville, Montgomery, Greenville SC, Augusta, Macon, and maybe even Chattanooga and Knoxville.
I suggest targeting September, and going with a Saturday. That way we’ll avoid work conflicts, and if people are traveling from several hours away it might make it easier.
Microsoft is willing to host the summit in our offices in Alpharetta. That’s only because the space is free since I’d be acting a host for the event. There would be no Microsoft specific agenda in mind. There are several conference rooms that the attendees to the summit can utilize. If the organizers would rather hold the event at someplace like ATDC, that’s cool too.
I’ve already heard from O’Reilly that they’d like to help as well. If there are any other sponsors/advisors, let’s get them involved.
I’d suggest following the NEULGS practice of inviting 2 members from each group.

In addition to the Microsoft groups locally and nearby Atlanta, I hope the folks I know who run the PHP group, Web Designers group, the Adobe groups, and others will join in. Hopefully you’ll jump in with your group as well!

Thoughts?

Welcome Silverlight 3!

2009-07-10T18:10:27Z

Today marks the official release of the best technologies and tools yet for building rich & interactive Internet web applications. Almost 2 years ago, Silverlight 1.0 set the stage. Then Silverlight 2.0 brought even more power, but Silverlight 3 is where things are really going to take off.

One of the things I appreciate about the teams working on Silverlight and its related tools is it’s not just about cramming more features in (although there are some cool new features like being able to run out of browser, save and open files, etc). They really take the time to understand the workflow that designers and developers follow. Case in point – watch the “Visual Kitchen” video on the launch site (click on the Keynote button on the top). It’s a cute idea – design experience as gourmet cooking – but you’ll forgive the slight goofiness of the premise once they get into the demos. It’s an amazing illustration of using the new SketchFlow capabilities to address many ways designers and developers work with clients, regardless of whether that client is another department or your paying customer. :)

So download all the latest tools for Silverlight 3 at http://silverlight.net/GetStarted/ and… get started!

Don Browning rocks the house at Atlanta Microsoft Professionals meeting

2009-07-07T17:03:45Z

Last night we had a full house at the Microsoft office in Alpharetta for the July meeting of Atlanta Microsoft Professionals. Don Browning from Turner gave a tour of the new architecture features of Visual Studio 2010. Don brought a lot of practical experience to the talk, giving us insight into his team’s development process.

Who knew that so many developers would turn out for what is ostensibly an architecture talk? ;)

Check out Matt Ranlett’s great summary of the meeting. I’m also going to steal his picture of the crowd.

Next geekSpeak – June 24 – WCF Deployment Strategies with Keith Elder

2009-06-23T18:29:55Z

Join us on geekSpeak this Wednesday for a practical look at how to deploy WCF services from a guy who’s been there. Our guest Keith Elder is a team leader and senior software engineer for Quicken Loans, so he’s been on the frontlines of running services in an enterprise. Besides being a popular speaker and running a user group in Mississippi, Keith is a blast to talk to.

If you’ve ever wanted to get your questions about WCF answered, or pick up some excellent tips, this is the geekSpeak for you.

Register today at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032417610&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US