And here we are, the Sinergija 09 event is almost over, but I still had the chance to have a quick chat with Tomislav Bronzin.
Tomislav is a Microsoft MVP, Regional Director and INETA Europe Vice President.
And here are some insights and suggestions for User Groups and Communities: hope you’ll enjoy it 
Interview with Tomislav Bronzin, Solutions Architect MVP
As Tomislav said during the interview, you can reach him offline at the next Developers BootCamp event…
Cristian Lefter, SQL Server MVP from Romania, kindly agreed on having a small talk about about his experience as a community contributor, UG Lead and MVP in Romania.
Interview with Cristian Lefter, SQL Server MVP
Cristian is the User Group Lead of the Romanian SQL Server User Group so you can reach him there 
and here we are again, late in the evening and after a great community roundtable with Microsoft MVPs, community leaders and students (I’ll post some photos very soon!), having a short talk with Tudor Damian, Virtual Machine MVP.
Interview with Tudor Damian, Virtual Machine MVP
This time I had the pleasure to interview Zeljka Knezovic, Communications Server MVP from Croatia. Zeljka is Senior Advisor for teachers who teach Computer Science in primary and secondary schools in the Education and Teacher Training Agency of Croatia.
Interview with Zeljka Knezovic, Communications Server MVP
See you tomorrow for more fast facts and chit-chatting ! 
..and here is another chance to meet a CEE MVP “face-to-face”:
Andrej Radinger, one of the most popular Windows Mobile trainer and speaker in the field (you can probably meet him @ Mobility Day events) and INETA speaker in Central and Eastern Europe. But let’s listen to his story:
Interview with Andrej Radinger, Windows Mobile MVP
(I’m sorry for the zooming feature: my camera is pretty good with pictures but not as good with videos 
)
And here we are again with another MVP, this time an ITPro:
Damir Dizdarevic, Management Infrastructure MVP from Bosnia-Herzegovina: Damir is the co-founder and active member of the MS Community BiH User Group in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Interview with Damir Dizdarevic, Management Infrastructure MVP
Here at Sinergija 09 I had the pleasure to have a quick chat with Emil Stoychev, Silverlight MVP from Bulgaria.
Emil is the is the co-founder and active contributor of SilverlightShow, a Community User Group 100% dedicated to Microsoft Silverlight.
But let’s hear it from his own words:
Interview with Emil Stoychev, Silverlight MVP from Bulgaria
More news to come: keep in touch ! 
On November the 28th, the Polish SQL Server User Group organized this “meetup” event to celebrate its second birthday.
The User Group is “a community of Microsoft SQL Server geeks/Professionals/users and enthusiasts who voluntarily share their experiences and knowledge on SQL Server. PLSSUG is the official chapter of PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) in Poland, it’s a non-profit group and very available to cooperate with other SQL Server Communities and User Groups around the World.”
And the agenda, (pretty intense), highlighting MVPs like Damian Widera, Marcin Szeliga, Marcin Gol, Pawel Potasiński, Marek Adamczuk and other independent experts in this area of expertise, will cover from Data Mining to Stored Procedures, from Gemini to SQL Server Services Virtualization. If you pass by and wanna meet a great group of professionals, just go here and register: it’s free !
Link to: SQLDay 2009 - 2nd Anniversary of Polish SQL Server User Group
One of the biggest IT Conference in CEE is now starts its engine: from the 17th to the 19th of November, ITPros, Developers and Information Workers can benefit of an early bird price (until the 5th of November) for Sinergija 09 that will be held in Beograd, Serbia.
The event will be split in these main areas:
Business Intelligence and Database platform Developer Tools Office and SharePoint Unified Communication, Messaging and Mobility Server, Management tools and Security Windows Client Microsoft Business Solution Business Track Sponsor sessions Featuring: Damir Dizdarevic, Tomislav Bronzin, Maciej Pilecki, Andrej Radinger, Zeljka Knezovic, Ivan Pavlovic, Srđan Božović, Dragoslav Ogar and many other Microsoft MVPs and consultants and professional speakers from the Region, the event is really a great opportunity to hear from the top gurus about Microsoft Technologies, best practices and Case Studies.
As you can see by reading the Agenda, lots of topics will be covered so you won’t probably miss this chance !
Link to: Sinergija 09
Over the last ten months, a volunteer team of 7 Microsoft MVPs, 30 community developers, 5 solution/ISV/hosting partners, and 4 non-governmental organizations have spent our evenings and weekends working on a very unique philanthropic software business called HopeMongers.
Community Playground ($16,000 remaining) Bukaya, Uganda
HopeMongers’ software enables a whole new kind of philanthropy, microgiving, helping you give as little as $10 to the work and people you care about most and see the direct impact – the before AND the after – of the money you gave. We believe this plan picks up where micro-finance and traditional models of philanthropy leave off. From digging wells in Ethiopia to building libraries in India, this website lets you give as little as $10 to specific people and projects in the developing world and keep track of the impact your gifts have had.
With a microgiving you can really make a difference…
Link to: HopeMongers - Microgiving for the world's poor.
I am very glad to inform you that, on 22nd of October, the Greek .NET User Group dotNETZone.gr organized its first Architecture Days event. Among the community speakers there’ll be presenters is Udi Dahan – “the software simplist” - and Diomidis Spinellis – author of the book “Beautiful Architecture”.
Thanks to George J. Capnias and the entire crew for making this happen !!
Link to: dotNETZone Architecture Days Athens ’09
One of the most important Italian IT Conference on Microsoft Technologies is starting its engine (24-25-26 November 09) !
Microsoft TechDays-WPC2009 is a 3 deep-dive technical days dedicated to ITPros and Developers. From Windows 7 to Windows Server 2008 R2, from SQL Server to Exchange Server 2010 to Windows Azure, Silverlight and many more!
So, as you can imagine, the Agenda is pretty intense, highlighting some of the most important lectures and professional speakers in Italy, including 20 MVPs !
Of course there will be an Ask The Expert area where attendees can elaborate their questions to the speakers and other MVPs who will voluntarily attend the Conference to help them troubleshooting their technical issues.
Stay tuned for more info on its Facebook Group and the Linkedin one !
Link to: Microsoft TechDays WPC 2009
When: 22th October 09 (from 9 to 16.30). Location: Hotel International, Zagreb (Croatia)
Ekobit DevArena 2009 is a technological conference strongly focused on IT professionals that use Microsoft tools and technologies. The idea behind the conference is to provide high-level technological knowledge for participants, so all sessions are held by IT pros with lots of experience in the real world software projects. Team System, BizTalk Server, MOSS, SQL Server, Silverlight are some of the technological areas we are going to dive deep into! You can find here more about the conference. Almost all sessions will be held in Croatian language, while the sessions described in English will be delivered in English.
From Visual Studio 2010 to BizTalk Server 2009, from Expression Blend to Silverlight 3, some of the most important speakers will be delivering very technical sessions throughout the whole day. Highlighting MVPs Ognjen Bajic, Dejan Sarka, Dean Vitner, Vibor Cipan, Tomislav Bronzin and Fernando Guerrero: this is something you definitely don’t wanna miss!
The Microsoft Vizija Conference is taking place today and tomorrow (7-8 October,09), the largest Technical Conference held in F.Y.R.O. Macedonia for IT Professionals, Developers and IT Managers.
The conference is divided in 4 different tracks (from Level 100 to Level 400):
- Business solutions and methodologies
- Applications Development, tools and technologies
- Communication, collaboration and mobile technologies
- Infrastructure and Security
The lectures have been made with the support of the local User Groups: PASS Macedonia, Macedonian Exchange User Group (MEUG) and Macedonian .NET User Group, featuring MVPs Aleksandar Talev, Boban Stojanovski, Vladimir Meloski, Dejan Foro, Tomislav Bronzin, Damir Dizdarevic and Daniel Joskovski, together with User Group Presidents and other International guests from abroad.
Link to: Насловна - Визија 7
Tra un viaggio, un OOF 
), una “twitterata” qua e là (e chi più ne ha più ne metta!) e l’utilizzo spasmodico di Microsoft VizAct 2000 () finalmente trovo il tempo per parlare della nostra, anzi delle nostre, magnifiche giornate passate insieme.
L’evento si è tenuto il 18 e 19 Settembre qui a Milano in Microsoft Italia. E per la prima volta in Italia, abbiamo unito le forze io ed il Team DPE (Developer & Platform Evangelism) così da coinvolgere sia gli MVP che gli User Group President Italiani. Un’ottima occasione, oltre che di fare networking, anche di coinvolgere quelli che giornalmente “masticano” community tutti i giorni nelle attivià da qui fino all’estate.
L’evento ha visto la partecipazione di 56 MVP + 12 User Group President, sia lato Dev che lato ITPro (con annessa premiazione).
Siamo partiti con la keynote in cui abbiamo visto la “Vision” di Microsoft per tutto l’anno a venire per poi passare a vari argomenti tra cui gli Online Services, Expression e Windows Mobile. Contemporaneamente, gli UG Lead (molti dei quali sono anche MVP) si sono riuniti in altre conference room per parlare dei piani di ingaggio delle community per il prossimo anno.
Ovviamente tanto spazio è stato dedicato al networking tra i maggiori rappresentanti delle community nostrane insieme ai nostri Microsoft MVP: sicuramente uno dei maggiori benefit dell’essere presenti.
Ringraziare chi ha permesso la riuscita di questo evento è cosa ardua perchè molti hanno collaborato in maniera diversa: dagli speaker Anders Nilsson, Giorgio Cifani, Pietro Panepinto, Manuel Maina, Danilo Lissoni, Roberto Cavallini, Vincenzo Di Russo, il nostro immancabile Licantropo e poi la Raffaella Verticchio e Marina Brumat per l’organizzazione dell’evento ed ovviamente tutta DPE che è stata presente in massa (da Gabriele Castellani a Giorgio Malusardi a Renato Giorgini a Sara Puppis a Valeria Bonomi eccetera eccetera).
Ma soprattutto grazie a voi, per la vostra immutata passione per la tecnologia, per il vostro disinteressato interesse nell’aiutare chi ha problemi con i nostri prodotti e che giornalmente dedicano prezioso tempo per questa sì gratificante ma anche ovviamente “time-consuming” attività al di fuori dell’orario di lavoro. Persone diverse, con stili diversi e background diversi che vengono accomunate dalla stessa Passione che ogni giorno mi anima a fare questo lavoro (alle volte bene, altre volte male ). Solo grazie al vostro entusiasmo io esisto in quanto MVP Lead !
Grazie a tutti (ma davvero a TUTTI) per il vostro entusiasmo e per la vostra fiducia rinnovata nei miei confronti: sono sicuro che sarà un altro anno spettacolare !!!
P.S: Gastone quest’anno non ha vinto l’ambito premio: che la fortuna sia girata???
