As Frank
mentioned, a couple of Sydney's user group leaders got together with some of the local DPE team and Sanjay Shetty from
INETA APAC. The purpose of the meeting was a general chat about the current relationship with INETA and Microsoft, and what each side could do in the future.
SDNUG has always had an excellent relationship with the local DPE team, and the efforts of
Chuck and
Andrew have been massively helpful to us through the years.
SDNUG, as well as (it seems) every other user group in Australia and New Zealand has had a weak relationship with INETA, and the general feedback is that it is hard to understand what INETA APAC offers, and how we can take advantage of these offerings. Sanjay mentioned that INETA APAC could help with providing speakers to a user group every quarter, but the process still seemed random and unclear to me. A general tour like the old MSDN Update tours of 2004 where a speaker went out on the road and local user groups had the option of having them present would be a lot simpler and clearer to me than trying to organise a once off event. If the administrative burden of any offering like INETA exceeds the benefit of the offering, user groups won't bother with the hassle. This isn't to denigrate the hard work done by every one at INETA, and I appreciate they are volunteers doing all this hard work without a lot of thanks.
At a local DPE level, my main feedback was to ensure that any program that was launched has the legs and funding to last more than one year. Short-run programs (which in a user group sense is anything under two years) make our life harder rather than easier. It takes quite a few meetings to ramp up to support any offering like MSDN Connections, and if the program only had funding/ support for a year or so, the program will be slowing down by the time we're ramping up the enthusiasm and support.
Also, I spoke to
Craig Bailey from the
Sydney Foxpro group, and they missed out on their invite. Foxpro snubbed - how could Coatsey let this happen :) (he was in Canberra for the day at the launch of
their VSTS group in his defence).
Overall, the session was a happy and productive affair - a big thanks to Monique and Frank for the invite. Thanks to Sanjay for taking the time to listen and explain - hopefully INETA APAC and the ANZ user groups will form a tighter working relationship over the coming years.
In response to
Glav's tag, here are five things you didn't want to know about me:
Software is actually my third career - the Australian Army (4 years) and Coastal Engineering (3 years) preceded it. I much prefer software.
I have a Masters Degree in Engineering from RMIT that I did by research. The topic was The Effect of Beach Dewatering as a Viable Coastal Protection System in Micro-tidal Environments.
I only drive Toyota's, but would consider a Lexus
My last date of full-time employment was 25 Feb 2000.
I had an MSDN subscription back when you used to get all those foreign language discs. My CD contain IE 3.02 Estonian remains unused. I keep it just in case.
Glav tagged most of my small circle of Sydney-based .NET. Derek and Sam doesn't blog. Has young Paul been done?