Post XML Night in Vermont

Tools

XML night was fun at VTdotNET last night. We had 30 people attending our meeting. This is about our mean – vs. average. We have actually had 50 at a few meetings and sometimes we have closer to 20, but it is more likely to have 30 than anything.

Joe Stagner, our MS Community Champion (though I think those titles are changing YET again) was one of the speakers. The DCC (hmm – so that d stands for something, maybe Developer Community Champion) are just about the only people in the entire corporation that do not have to account for sales, so Joe is in a nice position. These are the people responsible for the MSDN Events. Unfortunately, because of low attendance, Burlington is off the list for MSDN events. We all talked about this last night. It seems a combination of content and timing has been a problem. The first series was VSTO and Smart Clients  – the VSTO turned off a lot of people – sorry Paul – as not critical enough to leave the office for a 1/2 day. The second, on March 2nd (I was at DevDays Hartford) was both “Town Meeting Day” in Vermont and also the middle of a school break so a double whammy for a lot of people. THe end result is what I gather must become a high cost per person for putting the events together. However, since I have access to numerous free facilities, and Joe loves Burlington, we are going to try to work something out that will be very low budget, content that is driven by our user group and a win-win for everyone (including Joe).

Joe also came with  a box of many MSDN t-shirts, which disappeared so quickly that I had to ask for one (from someone who had taken two :-)) and some other goodies.

With the great focus on security lately, Joe talked about security in XML, and Dave Burke has already pointed out what was also to me a new and interesting fact – that you can encrypt xml data at the node level. Cool.

The other presentation was a tour around XML Spy and some of Altova’s other flagship products. XML Spy of course is VERY cool, but I was really blown away by Authentic (which is free) and even more so by StyleVision (which is currently separate, but will be bundled into the next version of XML Spy). I almost cried when I saw StyleVision, thinking about the PAIN and AGONY I went through learning XSLT about 3 years ago when I was creating some very complex reports on the web. This is also a great way to learn XPath, while StyleVision helps you out.

Trace Galloway (who gave a damned good technical presentation considering he’s a marketing guy!) also brought a box filled with beautiful bright red XMLSpy t-shirts and raffled off the Pro version of XML Spy. I owe an apology for my protective reaction when the winner was a bright database programmer who works for Bloomberg in NYC who was visiting his pal Ali (a VTdotNet member) and tagged along to the meeting. My gut instinct was “geeze, someone from the group should get it” – but everyone looked at me like I was being a Nazi (though I was really just being a protective momma bird). But Mike was SO excited to win the product that I know it is in VERY good hands and that he will benefit greatly from the products. Hopefully he will also be talking about how great it is to go visit the Vermont.NET user group for at least a few weeks!!

Trace was really impressed with the turnout at our meeting. He says he has been to user group meetings in the Boston area with comparable attendance. He actually suggested that I try to get Don Box to come to the group, but I think he understood when I laughed that idea off. I’m sure there would be a few people in Vermont who would probably pee in their pants if I told them Don Box was coming to speak. (oops sorry Leon, there I go again…)

So we do have an outstanding line up coming up in Vermont. Over the next few months we have our year’s INETA Speakers: Tim Huckaby, Michele Leroux Bustamante and Rocky Lhotka in October. And also Don Kiely, who is coming from Alaska on his frequent flyer miles in July. Not too shabby, eh?

Tablet Team is blogging

Community Cheerleading

Well, I think that we pushed Arin Goldberg over the edge at the MVP Summit because today he started a blog! Yippee. Arin is the architect of the TabletPC SDK as well as the Technical Evangelist. I had a bunch of fun crashing his TabletPC MVP dinner at the Rainier club (in my jeans and Tevas – oops) and then hanging out with him and a bunch of other Tablet folks including Chris de Herrera on Thursday. It was amazing to hear Arin and Chris comparing notes on the gazillions of mobile devices they have owned through the years. I don’t think either of them has missed one that ever came on the market!

Tonight isXML Night in Vermont!

Just Rambling

What a great way to follow up to my night of sushi with the XML MVPs and some of the XML luminaries  – it is XML night at Vermont .NET tonight!

We have Microsoft Community Champion Joe Stagner coming to talk about securing your XML and also a walk through of XMLSpy by Altova‘s Trace Galloway. We have all been looking forward to this for a while.

I was thinking about something very funny about that dinner. Sam Gentile was way on the other side of the room but I found out that as different as we are, we have one really icchy thing in common. We both love to eat Uni. It is really gross but so yummy and fun to gross everyone out, too. I don’t’ stop with the Uni though. I gotta have a quail egg on it. Eeeeeeeeew! (evil laugh) Holy crap! I just googled Uni to find y’all a link and just read a much too detailed description and will probably NEVER EAT IT AGAIN. aieeeeeeee…….

A new user group in Toronto

Community Cheerleading

Toronto is a BIG city and there are a few user gruops in the area, though they are all many many miles (and sometimes hours) apart.

Kate Gregory, who has been instrumental to the Toronto .NET User group has started a new group called “GTA East .NET” (Greater Toronto Area East). They will have their inaugural meeting on April 20th.

Knowing Kate (who is an MSDN Regional Director, a prolific writer and speaker, a woman with boundless energy that I can NEVER get over – her energy or the gal herself who I adore), this will be a wonderful addition to the INETA community.

I still can’t get her blog into my aggregator. I have the same problem with my own blog – they are both dasBlog sites. I have a number of other dasBlog sites in my aggregator. What gives?

Lora Heiny on dearth of young women MVPs

Just Rambling

Lora talks about the obvious technology male/female ratio that played out at the MVP summit as it does elsewhere.

“Not surprising. It’s the tech industry, afterall. Wow – I can say that way too easily, and it is a standard excuse when you’re looking at groups of people who are in their late 20s and older. Is this acceptable with the college age and younger crowd though? “

She brings up an interesting point about the very young MVPs – teens and college students. The only college age MVP female I konw is Stacey Yasenka from Ohio. I met her when I kept asking “isn’t there even ONE girl in the Student Ambassador program.” She now proudly tells me there are three! But there were even some highschool boys – I still have not gotten over the shock that Brian Desmond is 16 – but no girls that we are aware of. Lora talks about her teenage neices and their experiences online which turned them away from talking about technology online. Again, none of this is political – it’s just that age old question – “why?”.  Loren also commented on this blog and referred to it as the bathroom index. I almost got booed for teasing the guys in their long line for the men’s room when I got to trot right into the lineless ladie’s room at the summit.

Remember that Developers are only part of the MVP program

Community Cheerleading

Although there is another discussion of the MVP program going on over at Roy Osherove’s blog and is continued elsewhere, this is a topic that I was thinking about before that all started.

While I was at Seattle, I found that a few of the developers who were new MVP’s didn’t fully comprehend the MVP program, though they were all deserving MVPs. I think that this has a lot to do with the fact that many of these developers are so used to their (our –if you are talking about .NET) community – within the blogs, at conferences like TechEd and PDC  – that I think this seemed to them as one more extension of that.

Having most of the developers in the same hotel didn’t help this situation I think.

So why am I saying that I don’t think some of them understand the program? Because of some of the things that I heard. For example, at the end of the summit – I was talking with an MVP and mentioned something about the TabletPC MVPs. I had to explain that some were developers, like Loren Heiny and some were more geared towards the end users, like Lora Heiny and Peter Rysavy. The response of this person I was talking to was “but they aren’t developers. How can they be MVPs?”. It wasn’t a criticism of Loren, Lora or Peter in anyway, only a misconception about the MVP program.

Another case in point was hearing someone say, upon meeting another MVP who has been an MVP for a LONG LONG time and very deservingly, too – that the long time MVP should not be an MVP. The person making the statement was using their own opinion of the other’s “level of expertise” as the reason. 

And I hear over and over comments about XBOX MVPs or FrontPage MVPs, etc. with respect to the fact that they don’t have the same merit as a developer.

All of this really bugs me. I am not saying that those who are expressing this lack of comprehension of the program don’t deserve to be MVPs – all of them do. But I think that there are a lot of people who really need to understand more fully what the program is all about.

I think it levels the playing field. It is not about being the smartest person in your field, though it is about being a very knowledgeable person in your field. But the community aspect of it is being forgotten. And many people have a hard time defining it. It used to be based on newsgroup participation, because that is something that can be counted. But now there are so many venues for participation, that Microsoft has redefined how they look for MVPs. And it is not just ONE thing.

Just as an example, I have very different levels of community involvement. I have never been a newsgroup person (well, only minimally) though I did spend an enormous amount of time answering questions on the aspadvice lists. Currently I am not spending a lot of time on those lists but I participate in the community heavily in other ways (my blog is only a small part of that). I became an MVP in June – before the big wave – and because of my lack of newsgroup participation, was very quiet about it. I wasn’t sure how the other MVP’s would react and I was sure that other people would make an assumption that it was because of X or Y, though in fact it was the combination of many things that drove my original MVP lead, Emily Freet, to pull me into the program.

But wait , now I sound like I am justifying my own MVP status, which is not where I meant to go with this.

I thought it was VERY cool to be among so many other types of MVPs. That is what we all had in common – that we were MVPs, regardless of our technologies. BUt that we all were the type of people who love what we do and like to help other people. Yeah, yeah – I’m sure there are some rolling -eyes, ‘get off the pulpit Pollyanna’. But sorry, that IS what the MVP program is all about. A willingness to take time out of your day to help others without expecting anything in return.

here from the MVP site:

  • Recognized: Microsoft MVPs are acknowledged by peers and also by Microsoft for their active participation in Microsoft technical communities around the globe.
  • Credible: Microsoft MVPs have demonstrated practical expertise providing the highest quality information and content.
  • Accessible: Microsoft MVPs are active technical community leaders sharing their experience with peers.

ok – now I have to go do something where I do get something in return – not just gratitude but some funding as well.

Some cool web job openings in Vermont

Jobs

Burton Snowboards is looking for a new Internet Director and an Internet Project Manager. I think all Burton jobs come with a free pass to Stowe or something like that. here: http://www.burton.com/Company/jobs.asp 

There is a bank in Stowe that has been adverstising for a while for Web Developer (VB, ASP, .NET, SQL etc). Stowe is an awesome area to live in. EverBank is also looking for a Content Specialist.You can find those two jobs here  — go to Search then filter on “Stowe, Vermont“.

Ambrose Little’s MVP Summit pics and WS-Sushi

Just Rambling

Ambrose has a great collection of pictures.

For links to Ambrose’s, here are his blogs:

Day 4: write up, pictures

Day 3 : write up, pictures

Day 2 write up, pictures

Day 1 pictures

And thanks to Kirk Allen Evans for inviting me to the XML dinner on Monday night. As a general “.NET MVP”, I had a hard time picking and choosing where to go during the day and the evening. I was fortunate enough to spend time with a number of different groups, including ASP.NET, VB, Tablet PC and XML. Here is Kirk’s photo from the XML dinner (I was hardly the only non-XML MVP there…) which was a blast. Thanks also to Don Box and Dare Obasanjo for picking up the tab which must have actually required a Sumo wrestler’s strength  – imagine Sushi for 45+! Of course, that means thanks BillG. It reminds me of a job I once had, with an expense account. Anytime I paid a bill, the joke was “Thank Hugh” rather than thank you, since Hugh was the name of our boss. I thought I would link to the company, but geeze, I might get fined by Congress or something.