An update on what's going on with this site
It's been a month or so since I've blogged, but here's a quick update / rant on what's been happening with the site from an org / admin point of view in case you seriously aint got anything better to read right now (c:
(a) We kicked off our website's online registration system this month. This is a huge improvement for us because privacy problems with the previous arrangements (Microsoft taking regisrations for us on their website) wasn't working. Privacy constraints meant they couldn't give us a list of who had attended our events so we couldn't effectively promote future events. I chucked a serious wobbly with MS staff over this issue & nearly did a gasket before coming back to earth & getting back on with the job a few weeks back. I probably owe an apology to a few MS people who I went off at but probably didn't realise the damage we suffered through July / August.
(b) A number of expert developers from around Australia have generously volunteered their time to help us develop features for the website. Thanks for the offers & work so far from:
* Greg Obleshchuk (Mel)
* Mary Bray (Can)
* Rowan Burke (Syd)
* Thomas Williams (Mel)
* Vijay Vijayaratnam (Syd)
* Phillip Carter's (Mel) also helped a great deal with testing, ideas etc
* Greg Low's (Bris) joined the fray today, which is a special blessing given his incredible talent.
We're controlling our source code with much appreciated sponsorship from SourceGear, who's Vault product lets us all work easily together whilst at the same time being thousands of kilometers apart. The best thing with Vault is that it uses SQL Server as a repository so backup's are reliable & a cinch for SQL guys like us. fogBUGz have also helped out with their bug / feature tracking software which is helping us keep organised.
(c) User Group meetings are consistently happening in most states, with growing attendances. In Melb, our surveyed satisfaction rates are growing as we're learning more about what our local audience wants to hear. We've had two spanking meetings in the last two months (Greg Low on SQL05 CLR coding & Dave Lean on SQL05 DTS (SSIS)) which have received very high satisfaction feedback ratings. Greg Low's presentation was a sell-out, with 140 registering for the night. Our list of presenters is also growing which is great because getting enough good presenters has been the hardest part in all of this. I'm hoping that if we can build on this & encourage more people to try out presenting, we will be able to run an annual SQL conference in Australia sometime soon using a starting list of local presenters, augmented by a few o/s ring-ins.
(d) We've had two more Australian SQL Server MVP's awarded recently - each participating in the User Group activities. Congratulations to Grant Paisley (Syd) & Mary Bray (Canb)!
(e) I've received an amazing amount of partnership & help with this site from Rowan Burke (Syd). We're either on the email or phone nearly every day & sometimes late into the night working through little issues & ideas. This partnership effort is the backbone of the site's early progress & success.
(f) The website's membership is growing every day which is really encouraging. Thanks to everyone who's signed up & apologies to anyone who's been mucked about by our curly registration process. We're working on it at present & hopefully we'll have a few improvements up soon.