Just wanted to publicly thank the SoCal .NET Developers Group for having me out as their inaugural speaker, and also to single out Mark, Art, and Daniel for making the experience so solidly perfect.

User groups just kick ass. I’ve largely stayed away from them since joining Microsoft because I feel that it should be an opportunity for people from the community (who have books, consulting skills, and so on to sell) to share what they know with the rest of Their People. It shouldn’t be Microsoft coming along and hogging the show.

This time, though, I’m not worried about it. It was easily the most fun I’ve ever had speaking. Something about user groups makes talks fun. The people who show up genuinely want to be there – they’re tacking an extra three unpaid hours onto their days once a month to come together and talk shop. You can feel that they’re interested, excited, and ready to engage.

It results in the most ass-kickingest kick-ass exchanges. You get barraged with questions, and your own talk turns into another form of education for yourself. Walking out of there, I had my head filled with questions that I hadn’t thought to ask when I was putting the talks together (and I’ll be ready next time, you bastards!).

Anyway, yeah…

Thanks for the superb experience.

For anyone who gets the chance to speak at one of these events, the audience is lively/entertaining/fearless, and the people running the show have their act together.

It’s nifty :)