'Tis the season of local and regional events for both the Cleveland tech community and the Microsoft Heartland region. I've already posted what I'm looking forward to in the next couple months, but wait... there's more! Some events have already announced their summer dates - so save the dates on your calendars and check these out!

CodeStock (June 26-27, 2009)

Michael Neel and his team down in Knoxville, TN are putting together CodeStock once again. This year, they're opening the event even more for the community - they're having their attendees vote on what talks they want to hear. They've received around 185 submissions and need the help in deciding who to bring in. They've also added more rooms for Open Spaces sessions.

For $25, you get conference content, the chance to networking with a great group of developers (and DBAs and sysadmins and whoever else shows up), lunch, and a T-shirt. Although that doesn't cover hotel or transportation, that's still a lot cheaper than a lot of conferences that have this material. If you register before May 15th, you too can vote on the sessions. But register today, because after June 1, that CodeStock clown will get ugly and up the price to $45. (And I heard rumors that if you sign up after June 27th that they're charging $250... but that might be another conference's deal.)

Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it down there, but I hope to catch up with the TN crew at devLink later this summer.

For more information about CodeStock, check out their site at http://www.codestock.org/

PyOhio (July 25-26, 2009)

After experiencing the gathering of the Python community at PyCon 09, I've agreed to help out with planning this year's PyOhio. Expect to hear about it more as we get closer to the date, as I'm in charge of publicity this year.

This year, they've changed their venue from Columbus Metropolitan Library to Ohio State University. There will be planned talks, lightning talks, poster sessions, and Open Spaces all related to the Python community - including all implementations of Python.

Stay tuned to the PyOhio website at http://www.pyohio.org/ or follow us on Twitter as @pyohio.

devLink (August 13-15, 2009)

This is one of the least expensive conferences with of its size in this area. For $75, you get 3 days of content - covering a wide span of topics related to or concerning developers. You get keynotes, planned talks, and Open Spaces. You get a chance to network with some of the region's most talented developers.

A friend had recommended that I attend devLink, and last year was my first year. I met an amazing amount of people - some from nearby and some from Arkansas, Alabama, and even further away. I enjoyed the planned talks, but my favorite parts hands down were the Open Spaces on Microsoft and Open Source (with Sara Ford's funny drawings on the notes) and on Creating Community (with so many active people in their local communities and regional communities).

I will be debuting my "Going Cross-Platform with C#" talk this year at devLink. I'm a C# developer by day, and I tinker with the .NET cross-platform awesomeness known as Mono after work. I tend to talk about Mono more in my IronPython talks, but this time around I'll be using my day language to show how to take advantage of Mono for cross-platform support. I also plan on showing MonoDevelop, which allows you to develop in C# from a non-Windows platform.

devLink is being held in Nashville, TN this year. For more details, check out their site at: http://www.devlink.net/

Conclusion

There are a lot of events going on, and it's hard to pick and choose among all of them. If you get a chance to learn more and network with a community, I'd highly recommend it. I will be attending a few of them, and I hope to see you out there!

Labels: Cleveland tech events, CodeStock, devLink, events, PyOhio

What happens when you get the word out to the community that there's going to be this event called Ignite Cleveland coming to town? You get some of Cleveland's amazing talent together, sharing knowledge, networking, and just having a fun night.

This past Saturday, I attended the first Ignite Cleveland, with a lot of excitement and high expectations. Andrew Kavanaugh and Jon Stahl did an excellent job organizing the event. The turnout was amazing, and it was great to meet so many talented people in the area.

I met the challenge of 20 slides, auto-advancing after 15 seconds, bringing the presentation to a total of 5 minutes. The topic I went with was "Marketing Your Event Online", as I've had to do that for Cleveland Day of .NET and I've noticed a lot of other strategies that could work if implemented properly. It may seem weird that a developer has and understands marketing strategies, but when you organize events and are active in the community, having marketing skills can be a huge help.

My slides can be found here:

The sites that I refer to in my presentation include:

• Eventful: especially good for travelling events (events that move between cities, for example)


• Crowdvine: which provides customizable features to learn more about your attendees and their backgrounds


• MySpace: great for announcing events and reaching a younger demographic


• Facebook: great for reaching college students and older


• Meetup: great for user groups and tracking frequent meetings, their attendees, and any feedback from the attendees


• Twitter: can reach a wide audience in a short amount of time, especially if the word gets out to people who are interested in the topic(s) at hand

All examples in my presentation are Cleveland-based events or initiatives.

Besides the above links, I also mentioned that having your own site to get the word out about your event would be a good idea - as long as you include the who, what, where, and when, people will come. I used Cleveland Day of .NET and Ignite Cleveland as examples of this, and I also mentioned my community site - Cleveland Tech Events, where groups can also promote their meetings and events that pertain to the technical community of Cleveland. My goal for that site is to have one site to unite all the technical groups - we'll see how well that works!

I really enjoyed meeting a lot of Cleveland's talent in person, and I look forward to next quarter's Ignite Cleveland event!

Labels: Andrew Kavanaugh, Cleveland tech events, IgniteCle, Jon Stahl, LeanDog

I'd like to introduce Cleveland Tech Events. Cleveland has a very widespread technical community, but I've found that a lot of people haven't heard of the other groups in the area. In an effort to bring the groups together so that we can have a wider audience to get event information out, I've set up this site.

I've got an RSS feed setup for its front page, and you can subscribe here. All posts will also show up on Twitter as the user clevtechevents.

If you know of a group that isn't listed in the resources links on the site, please get me the group's name and their website address so that I can add them. If you want to be able to add your group's information on your own, sign up for an account and let me know so that I can set you up with the ability to post your group's events and other news. And if you want to get your information out there but don't want to sign up for an account, please email me the information and I'll get it up there.

Please spread the word and let's show the other communities what happens when all the technical user groups get together and work as a united community! Check out Cleveland Tech Events for the latest news and events from the various groups throughout the community.

Labels: Cleveland tech events, clevtechevents, Twitter

I'm going to apologize ahead of time for the lack of code and technical blog posts. I've been working on presentations for a couple upcoming events, and I'm looking forward to a lot of others. So, what're the tech events that are coming up?

ArcReady/MSDN Unleashed

Every now and then, there are Microsoft events that make their way to Cleveland. ArcReady and MSDN Unlimited are two of those events, and together they make a day of the event. These events are coming to Cleveland this Thursday, October 9th. ArcReady is in the morning, and MSDN Unleashed will be in the afternoon. This event is being held at the Microsoft office in Independence. Check out ArcReady registration and MSDN Unleashed registration for more details.

Ohio North SQL SIG Meeting

Allen White has posted the October agenda for the Ohio North SQL SIG meeting on his blog. This month's meeting is this Thursday, October 9th. This group meets the 2nd Thursday of the month at the Microsoft office in Independence.

Bennett Adelson-sponsored .NET SIG Meeting

The Bennett Adelson-sponsored .NET SIG meeting will go over jQuery on Tuesday, October 14th. This group meets the 2nd Tuesday of the month at the Microsoft office in Independence.

Ann Arbor Day of .NET

I'm looking forward to Ann Arbor Day of .NET for many reasons. Most of all, I'm looking forward to seeing my friends again. I'm also presenting on the SQL 2008 data types. For those who saw my presentation last month, this is not the same presentation. I've taken parts from that presentation and expanded the talk a bit more to get into FILESTREAM.

Ann Arbor Day of .NET is being held on Saturday, October 18th at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, Michigan. For those who attended Ann Arbor GiveCamp, this event is at the same campus.

This event is FREE to attend, but registration is advised, as this event will fill up. So register today!

Software Freedom Day

What is Free Software? Do businesses really use it? What are the benefits of it versus the costs of it? Come out and see sessions on various aspects of FOSS and other Free Software concepts at Software Freedom Day on Monday, October 27th, at the Gemini Center in Fairview Park (Cleveland-area). I'll be speaking on python and all of its goodness. For more information, check out their website at: http://www.softwarefreedomday-cleveland.org/. Hope to see some of you there!

.NET University

Jim Holmes and Jeff Blankenburg have gathered some of the speakers from the community to put on this introduction to .NET that's being held down in Columbus on Saturday, November 8th. If you know of any junior developers or even developers who are just getting acquainted with .NET, this event is definitely for them. Check out Jim's entry on it or go straight to the registration page! (Hurry up and register - as there weren't many seats left from what Jeff said.)

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If you have an event going on that you want me to blog about, drop me a message and I'll make sure to include it in an upcoming post.

Labels: .NET SIG, .NET University, Ann Arbor Day of .NET, Cleveland tech events, Jeff Blankenburg, Jim Holmes, Software Freedom Day, SQL SIG

The Cleveland Sharepoint Users Group will be meeting this Wednesday, August 27th, at the Cleveland Microsoft Office at 4pm-6:30pm. Bill English, an author and educator focused on SharePoint technologies, will be speaking on "Findability and Taxonomies: Notes from the Field". For more information, check out their website at: http://www.sharepointcleveland.com/.

Also on Wednesday, Corey Haines announced a geek dinner with Chris Woodruff, one of our fellow Tweeps (people from Twitter), starting at
6pm at Great Lakes Brewing Company. All are welcome to attend!

While checking out the GCPCUG C#/VB.NET SIG site, I found out that this month's meeting has been rescheduled to Thursday, August 28th at 6:30-8:30pm. That's right -- it is moved to this Thursday and will not be on Tuesday. Joe Fiorini will be presenting on MVC (Model View Controller). Unfortunately, I am unable to make it since I have other plans I cannot break, but I highly recommend checking this group's meetings out if you have time. They meet up at the Sogeti Auditorium (lower level at Beacon Place) for the meeting, and they typically go out to The Winking Lizard after the meeting. For more information and to reserve your spot, check out their site.

If you happen to know any other Cleveland tech events that you want me to blog about, please drop me an email at sarah at codinggeekette dot com with the event information and I'll include it here.

Labels: Chris Woodruff, Cleveland tech events, Corey Haines, Joe Fiorini, Microsoft, Sharepoint, Sogeti