Chip is wondering if the New Jersey developer community would be interested in a user group focused on building User Interfaces using the various Microsoft tools/technologies. Chip has been looking to start up a user group, but like a lot of us, his interests vary widely, and he wants to make sure that there would be enough interest, and good content, to create yet another thriving user group. My plan for New Jersey has always been to try to get lots of small, local user groups going. Having one or 2 user groups for most communities would probably be enough for the quanitiy of developers. But because New Jersey has so many developers (and with being a small state, we have a large sense of community), and they are so spread out over the state, I've always believed that we need more local groups. I've joked that my goal is to make it possible for any developer in New Jersey to find a user group within 20 miles of either his home or his work. In New Jersey, during the evening rush hour, to takes about an hour to travel 20 miles, and most developers are not willing to travel more than an hour to get to a user group meeting. The 20 mile radius is roughly equivilant to the size of each county, and thus, my one user group for each New Jersey county idea. I don't really expect to get one in every county, but 15 thriving user groups may be possible. But enough about what I'm trying to do, and more about this group.
As Chip mentioned in his post:
WPF,CAB, ASP.NET, AJAX, Web Parts, User Controls, SharePoint, XAML, Smart Client, Mobility, Tablets, Office 2007, SQL Server Reporting, and component vendors like Jersey's own Infragistics. And isn't Vista as much about cool UI as it is about security? Beside everybody knows the UI is the cool stuff and everything else is just the plumbing. And we all know what goes through the plumbing ;)
Yes, there is plenty of material that a user interface user group can focus on, and there is certainly the WOW factor. But, if the data tier developers can have their own user group in New Jersey (NJSQL), there is certainly need for the human side of development. Chip is looking for some feed back, so if you are interested in a group like this, please leave him some feedback on his blog post. He was thinking of locating it back in Berkeley Heights (since that is local to him, and it happens to be where the NJMSDEV group was held for years until the Microsoft NJ office moved back to Iselin). I'm sure others would like it closer to them, but, if you are interested, let him know.