INETA Reminiscences

I attended the INETA West coast leadership summit last weekend, where I moderated one session and co-presented another.

It’s been a very long time since I did an INETA post, and this may well be my last. It was kind of weird re-engaging with INETA after leaving a couple of years ago after 3 years or so of service. It got me thinking back, and a floodgate of nostalgic reminiscences hit me, listed here in rough chronological order.

·         I remembered the initial call from Bill Evjen saying “Hi Brian, I have this idea I want to speak with you about”. Heck, I even remember the  office I was sitting in

·         I remembered the initial meeting held at Microsoft on a rainy (natch!) October Seattle day where we white-boarded this thing called INETA and what it may look like. I remember the prioritization exercise we went through, and remember putting together the list of speakers for what would ultimately become the INETA Speaker Bureau

·         I remembered the energy, enthusiasm and excitement shared by us all in those early days. We were building something new and unique, something that we all knew was poised to make a huge difference in the developer community

·         I remembered the countless hours and hard work by all spent preparing for our launch at the February VS-live. There was only a handful of us, Kevin Briody, Eric Ewing, Rob Howard from Microsoft, Bill, Keith Franklin and I, and a couple of other folks

·         I remembered how challenging it was to deal with success after the launch. We had planned to get NorAm fully built out, but before we knew it, we were fielding calls from the entire world. I remembered working with Christian Nagel, Sanjay Shetty, Colt Kwong, Jose Berrios, Goksin Bakir and others to jump-start INETA in the EU, Asia/Pacific, Middle East and South America

·         I remembered what fun it was when we held our leadership summits at TechEd and brought together user group leaders from around the world

·         I remembered the transitions on the team, as great people left, and new great people came in. There are FAR too many names to list!

Those days are gone, but live on in the memories of those that were there. We had a lot of fun, I got to work with a great group of people, and formed lasting friendships.

INETA today, based on what I saw last weekend, continues on as a dynamic organization charged with helping the community. The core services we put in place in those nascent days live on, and new ones have been added. The faces are all new, and they have a regional focus, but the energy and enthusiasm seems the same. None of the leadership today was around at the beginning, but under their stewardship, the organization carries on and appears to be well-run, providing a valuable service to the global developer community. It makes me proud to see that the wheels the team set in motion so long ago are still turning. The volunteers at INETA work very hard behind the scenes, devoting so much of their “free” time to the community. They should be commended for their efforts.

If you’re a user group leader of a .NET-oriented group, and have not done so, I would urge you to go to ineta.org and register your group so they can support you.

You may want to go one step further, and volunteer to help the org itself, make a difference on a larger scale, and make your own fond memories!