WPUG Needs You!

Let’s assume you’re one of the 130+ people who’ve been to one of the three WPUG meetings that have taken place so far. You’ll know how good and useful it can be to learn from and with others. If you’ve been to one of our previous meetings you’ll also know that we’ve had some people give demos of the applications they’ve been making. This has also proven to have been one of the most popular parts of past meetings. This is because real world examples are almost always more interesting than the contrived demos usually required for giving a talk. Real world experiences also bring up points and tips that aren’t covered in the official documentation or even known by anyone else.

Having a person (or persons) give a talk from the front can be a great way to learn. But it isn’t the only way.

That’s why with our next meeting (on November 30th at EMC) we’re going to do something different. It’s just going to be demos!

This is why WE NEED YOU!

One, often overlooked, but, very important part of user groups is the community of people who have a shared interest. In our case it’s an interest in developing great Windows Phone 7 apps. For this to work, for our community to grow and us to not just be a group of people who’s common interest is sitting and listening to the same talks, requires more than just coming along to meetings and listening. It needs people (you?) to be prepared to get up and talk about their experiences.

It doesn’t matter if your app is finished. It doesn’t matter if it’s released yet. It doesn’t even matter if you passed marketplace testing. If you’ve made, or are still making, a Windows Phone 7 application and would like (or could be persuaded) to talk about it, we’d love to hear about it.

We’re hoping that in addition to just showing your app you’ll also share a little of what you learnt in the process and any specific issues you had to overcome.

You can talk for between 5 and 20 minutes depending on what suits you. But if you want a longer period we hope that because you’ve got lots of lessons to share. Please get in contact via email or twitter if you would like to talk about your app.

Of course we’re not going to force people to talk if they don’t want to or aren’t allowed to talk about what they’ve been working on (for whatever reason). So please come along even if you just want to listen. ;)

Thanks to Microsoft, we were able to invite everyone who has spoken or demoed at previous meetings to the official WP7 developer party. (Dave Hawes created a video blog about it.)
Unfortunately we can’t promise the same for everyone who gives a demo this time. We will however have some swag available for all who give demos plus we’ll have a new slim line XBox to give away to the demo which is voted as the audience’s favourite.

As is tradition, we’ll also head to a nearby pub afterwards to continue the discussions.

Please register via EventBrite and we’ll see you on the 30^th!