Joseph Guadagno

Gangplank Jr Track at Code Camp Jr.

Got a kid interested in Technology?  Bring them to  the Gankplank Jr track at Code Camp Jr. taking place at Desert Code Camp.

Schedule for the day

Computers will be provided, feel free to bring a laptop if you have.

Lunch will be provided by Gangplank Jr.

If you have any Ardunio sets or Lego Mindstorm NXT sets feel free to bring them.

Register to attend: codecampjr2009.eventbrite.com

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Joseph Guadagno

jguadagno@sevdnug.org

Recommended for kids from 4-18 years of age.

It is recommended that the kids are at reading age.

* Schedule is subject to change.

Desert Code Camp is back

The next Desert Code Camp is scheduled for Saturday November 7th, 2009 at DeVry University.  Great sessions, networking, food, and WIFI (yes WIFI) will be provided. So come out learn, teach, network. It will be great.

Location:

DeVry University
2149 W. Dunlap Ave (map)
Phoenix, Arizona 85021

Submit your talks, sessions, ideas for talks at the Desert Code Camp site.

On Twitter follow @DesertCodeCamp, @AZGroups, and @SEVDNUG for more information updates. Tweet up the event with the hashtag of #DCC09.

LaidOffCampPhx was a success!

Hats off to Rachel Reese for successfully organizing the first Laid Off Camp Phoenix. The event went smooth as could be.  I think the highlight of the event was watching all of the networking that went on during the event and after the event at Liberty Market.

Thanks to the sponsors below and all of the volunteers for contributing to the success of the event.

Below is a list of resources that were available in the program.

Curtis Miller took some picture of the event and posted them on Flickr.

Sponsors

Resources

Phoenix Workforce Connection

Bureau of Labor Statistics: Resource for Job Seekers

HireFlyer Job Bank

Get a Freelancer

10 til 2

Working in Gilbert, Arizona

Volunteers

Perri Collins

Xanthe Horste

Charlene Kingston

Derek Neighbors

Evo Terra

Lorin Twaits

Debbie Walker

Ann Watson-Barber

Phoenix Geek Tag

Join us for the first PHX Geek Tag at Stratum LaserTag.  All Phoenix Geeks, Marketers, Designers and such are invited. Three games are included in the price of $25.99 along with unlimited fountain drinks. After the socializing, and games are done, join us after the event for some drinks a dinner at Salty Senoritia's. This is not included in the price.  You will be responsible for your own food and drink.

There event has been rescheduled for August 24th.  please join us.

There is limited space available so please register in advance at: http://phxgeektag-blog.eventbrite.com/.

Then we head to Salty Senoritia's for some food an drink.

Tweet up the event with the Hashtag of #PHXGeekTag.

Being Appreciated

In the last two years I have been busy in the Phoenix, AZ area trying to strengthen the technology community by putting together conferences like the The Best of PDC 08, AZGroups Scott Guthrie event and lunches like TechLunchSouth.  Every once in a while I sit back and wonder if it is all worth?  Am I making a difference? What impact am I making on the Phoenix technology area.

Well to my surprise when I got back from my short family vacation is received a Thank You note in the mail. Here are the contents of the note.

Joe,

I’d like to thank you or all your efforts that you put into developing the designer / .net / nerd community around here. Working at such a small shop, its a challenge for me to develop a network of peers & trusted resources. I’m not able to participate much, but the few events I’ve been able to attend are very beneficial.

With much appreciation for your time & effort,

J.A. (Name withheld)

So to J.A and the others that I have helped, you’re welcome! It’s nice to know that my work is helpful to some and being appreciated.

Phoenix Community Evangelists United

At Desert Code Camp this past Saturday, a bunch of community evangelists and community members got together (about 20) to talk about ways to improve the Arizona technology community. Here is a synopsis of what we talked about.

Desert Code Camp

For future Desert Code Camps, it would be nice to have a central place for the PowerPoint® slides and code samples.  There are too many locations to get the content.  In most cases, you will not know where to get the content unless you show up to the session.

In addition, at future code camps, attendees should receive a flyer or handout about the different users groups in the area plus upcoming events.

Meeting and Events

Announcements

One of the biggest problems we seem to have is getting the word out for meetings or events. There are a few reasons for this, multiple calendars, multiple technologies, and community evangelists that do not know other community evangelists outside of their discipline.  There were three decisions that way made to hopefully alleviate this issue.

1. The Google calendar at AZGroups.org would be used to display all technology / business events in the state. If you do not have access to this calendar contact Scott Cate or myself to arrange access.
2. All event organizers will forward event information to at least 3 other community evangelist who will in turn forward the event information to 3 other community evangelist.
3. We will look into the way the Arizona Tech Council handles this, they send out monthly emails.
4. We will look into getting our events listed on the AZIPA mailing list.

Locations

We talked about possible locations of potential bigger future events and user group meetings.  The following places were brought up as candidates.

For conferences, the Desert Willow Conference center (near the Buttes in Tempe).  This also could potentially serve as a future location of Desert Code Camp.

For user group meetings, Boulders on Broadway was mentioned as good place for small user groups meetings (if you do not mind the occasional noise).

Increase Attendance

We talked about ways to increase attendance at user group meetings and events. Most of the attendees said we need to get quality speakers but could not come up with a way to attract quality speakers. We also talked about looking into ways of getting talented speakers to speaker at more events / meetings and share their vast knowledge.

As a side note, some one brought up recording events to make them available to people who are not able to attend.  Most though that by having the events recorded would decrease the attendance.

Action Items

Although no one person was handed out any action items from the open forum there are a few action items that need to be done by all to keep the Arizona technology community growing.

1. Constant communication between the community evangelists.  I suggest a mailing of the community evangelist, or potentially a monthly or quarterly meeting of community evangelist like we had a Desert Code Camp.
2. Evangelize you own events and the events of others.
3. Potentially create a site that list the user groups (of all technologies in Arizona) that can be searched.
4. Look into having “Unconferences” in between the Desert Code Camps, one quarter we have a code camp, the next quarter we have an unconference, the a code camp, etc.

Closing

In closing, I would like to thank the wide variety of attendees from a wide array of technologies and disciplines that attended. I also would like to commend everyone one that participated and shared their thoughts in an open, honest and respectably way.

If you have any comments and/or suggestions feel free to leave a comment or send me an email via the contact me page.

Phoenix AZ Community Leaders Unite

This Saturday, June 13th, 2009, is the next Desert Code Camp. While I am co teaching on session on “Write your first desktop .net app (or, Write you own Twitter Client for .net)” with Saul Mora, I am heading up two community based sessions. the first session is open to the “general public” and is titled “Open forum with Community Leaders”. The intend of this session is to provide an open forum between the community members of Phoenix and the community leaders of Phoenix. So if you are a community leader, or are attending Desert Code Camp, stop by the session and share you thoughts and feedback on the technology community in Phoenix.  The second session is a “private invite only” session for the community leaders of ALL TECHNOLOGIES in the Phoenix area.  In this session, I want to get the community leaders together to talk about ways we can improve the technology community in Phoenix.  If you are interested in this session, please contact me jguadagno [ at ] sevdnug.org, I will forward you the room and time information once it is scheduled.

Tech Lunch South (July 09)

Eat... Talk... Network... Learn
Meet up with other technologies professionals for lunch. Lunch begins at 11:30am and you are responsible for your own lunch.  Here is the June schedule.

Twitter up the event with the hash tag of #TechLunchSouth

A list of all Tech Lunch South’s can be found at http://sevdnug.org/Events/TechLunchSouth.aspx

Tech Lunch South (June 09)

Eat... Talk... Network... Learn
Meet up with other technologies professionals for lunch. Lunch begins at 11:30am and you are responsible for your own lunch.  Here is the June schedule.

Twitter up the event with the hash tag of #TechLunchSouth

A list of all Tech Lunch South’s can be found at http://sevdnug.org/Events/TechLunchSouth.aspx

My 2000th Tweet

I almost let the milestone of my 2000th tweet go by without saying anything profound other than ‘yea 2000…’’. I thought I would make a more productive tweet and that is the purpose of this post.

In reality this post should be labeled “What I have learned from Twitter”

I have learned that Twitter can:

1. May you more productive and at the same time less productive (Gotta close TweetDeck once in a while)
2. Can help find you find new friends or colleagues and the same time you can make new enemies. Sometimes you have to be careful what you Tweet
3. You can learn stuff. There are tons of people that post blog entries, articles and news stories.
4. You can get support for products, there are companies like Telerik, DevExpress, and others on Twitter
5. You can find out about local events, crime and more in your area.
6. You can even get Spammed (in case you missed the spam from your email)
7. OH, and you can even get “free laptops" for following people :)

Overall, I think, if used properly, Twitter can be an effective tool for networking, marketing and learning.

Some Twitter Lingo

RT: ReTweet, give credit where credit is due

DM: Direct Message

D: Used to direct message someone

@<username> : indicates the tweet is for or about a person

#<hashtag> : a hash tag is used to group items together for easier searching an stuff. Like #TechLunchSouth or #MVP09.

Follow me on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/jgudagno