Sometimes we forget what MSDN really stands for. And for sure “MS” is not the most important part of the acronym. MS Developers Network. The Devs4Devs event in South Africa that I had a pleasure to participate today – was an amazing proof that networking of technical community is the key to success (and not only to it).

What I liked about the event – is that the majority of questions to presenters were answered by people from the auditorium (not only presenters!). Implication #1 The local experts are here. They are available to share their knowledge. Thank you guys!

What I didn’t like about the event – I felt bad that we as Microsoft do not provide any platform for local community to collaborate except these offline events. Offline events are great, but we need to find something that local community can rely on anytime.

We have MSDN and TechNet Forums in South Africa. But let’s make sure people know about these resources!

Another great example that I will be retelling in other biz trips… People were complaining on broadband access and speed required to get the bits of betas/trials of MS products. The only one thing I could offer to them was.. to share the bits – if you’ve download the bits why not to share with others? And one of the attendees stood  up asking “Can anyone share bits of Visual Studio 2010 right now?” – I was super glad to see few people ready to pass the USB sticks to copy VS2010 beta bits :) This is how it’s supposed to be! Local community (IT Pros or Developers) should be able to ask questions and get help from their neighbors.

Thanks once again for the chance to have the first hand experience meeting with the ZA community!

Not only the truth, but also the name of the event I participated in Nairobi, Kenya on Nov 25.

Emmanuel, Stewart, team thanks a lot for making this happening!

What I really liked about the event - is the feeling of a real hunger for information from the community. What I didn’t like – is that I got another prove that we, as Microsoft, are not doing a good job informing out tech guys about the ways of getting information. I heard a lot of these from the audience:

1. “what do you mean I can download it publicly?”
2. “really? are these e-learnings and webcasts for free?”
3. “what forums you mention where I can ask my question? TechNet/MSDN?”

From now on I commit to make sure these MSDN links are known to all MEA developers communities I meet, talk and/or e-mail (and the same links on TechNet are known for IT Pros):

• Bits of betas/trials + activation keys http://msdn.microsoft.com/evalcenter/
• Webcasts http://www.microsoft.com/events/webcasts/
• Free E-Learnings http://learning.microsoft.com/manager/Catalog.aspx?view=free
• vLabs http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/aa570323.aspx
• How-do-I videos http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/bb629407.aspx
• Forums http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/

ppt and other stuff will be available in this post

Ping me if you have ay questions guys!

This is the event to attend this winter! Deep content about new products + local insights and understanding of implementation (not just like ‘Look how cool Win7 is!”, but “here are 1-2-3 steps on how to use Win7 in your current IT-infra and dev process”)

Looking forward to see you at GDC’09

Good news – all attendees of GDC’09 will be offered special conditions to participate in TechEd Middle East (Dubai, Mar 2010 1-3). So stay tuned and register for GDC now!

Just would like to say big thank you for Jordanian IT community drivers! (I’m sure I’ll not name them all, but these particular guys were really amazingly helpful with helping me to understand local IT needs and how Microsoft can help) – Muhanad, Hikmat, Suliman, Mohamed, thank you!

Guys, just to sum up our looooong conversations:

• required UG support services: share what you need, ping your contacts @ http://www.usergroupsupportservices.com/ and let me know about results)
• next UG meeting to be online broadcasted: let me know details of upcoming event and you’re @ microsoft.com!
• broad impact challenge: I’m keep asking you what would be the best reward for people who help IT Community the most. just for my information :)

Let me know if I forgot something! ready to share whatever I can :)

P.S. Want to have the same support for you IT community activities from Microsoft and partners? Just ping me through a comment or email!

Like one of my friends says: the Earth is actually not a globe, but a cube – that’s why so many people are meeting each other right behind the corner :)

During my biz trip to Jordan I had a meeting with local user group leads. An I was really surprised when one of them suddenly switched from Arabic and start to talk in very good Russian :)

As I found out in further discussion, Hikmat Kanaan, one of the the main driver of  Jordan IT Pros, spent 5 years in Russia helping local IT industry in 199x. Then he got back to Palestine to land a lot of amazing IT-projects to eliminate digital illiteracy. Fun thing that appeared in discussion as well – they were collaborating with Intel in Palestine and used the such exotic Intel’s equipment as Digital Microscope. We used the same stuff during Intel University Campus Program in Russia. Looks like global companies can really land global impact. And I really glad when it’s positive impact.

Now Hikmat is in Jordan, helping to land Rue of Law project in Jordan, and helps to form IT Community jointly with other active members and MVPs – I’ll definitely will write next post about those great guys as well.

Looking forward to great discussions we started here with MVP community and UG leads here. The team and myself are really keen to help you to help  IT people to do the most with Microsoft and take as much benefits of being in IT as possible.