One of the things that I like to do (and used to do more often) is participate in local user groups. Over the summer, I became the Chair of the SDForum Windows SIG -- the most established Windows developer user group in Silicon Valley. This gives me the opportunity to engage with the community, find out what they're interested in and invite notable speakers to present to the group.
Our first meeting will take place this coming Thursday, August 28, at the Microsoft Silicon Valley campus in Mountain View, CA.
I've invited Michael Scherotter, an Industry Architect from the Media and Communications group at Microsoft, to talk about Microsoft Expression Blend for Software Developers. If you are a developer building WPF or Silverlight applications and you want your application to be interactive and dynamic, this is the session for you.
There should be plenty of opportunities to network. Food and drinks will be provided prior to the start of the meeting. All attendees will be given a NFR copy of Expression Studio 2 (all Expression 2 products) at the end of the meeting. Not a bad way to relaunch the Windows SIG. Please join me and say hello.
[Edit: Corrected date of event.]