I've been on a couple of the calls and have personally volunteered to help both regionally and globally where ever I can. I'm currently acting as the
Regional SharePoint Evangelist for the Pacific Northwest. You can see various community personalities in this broad list.
You'll find Arno on this list as well. He's been going pretty wild with his community efforts lately. You've likely been to
SharePoint Magazine, if not you'll have to check it out. It's community and support has been growing across facebook, and the blogosphere.
I was glad to hear the SharePoint Best Practices Conference went off well. Ben Curry and company did a bang up job, and from what I hear a good time was had by all. Mike Watson said it was one of the best conferences he'd ever been to. I hope they consider doing another one, I promise to be there and present if you'll have me. Sorry I missed this one due to my recent month long Asia trip...
There are 2 key things you need to get out of this post....
1) If you are a SharePoint or ASP.NET focused SharePoint group please
register with ISPA. You'll find the resources and connections will beat anything you'll find elsewhere. Looking for good speakers... That's definitely a specialty.
2) If you are a SharePoint Professional and are looking for a way to keep connected to the community and share. (Also not bad for the resume...) Then join
signup to join ISPA. Also look at the
global list of SharePoint User Groups... they are literally everywhere. I can tell you from personal experience as I've presented at SPUGs from Jordan, Israel, Australia, Hawaii, Ohio, Washington (2X), Utah, and hopes to visit Minneapolis and NJ/NY, Baltimore and more...
If you thought this was just some hairbrained idea of Bob's, you're wrong. This has already come together and has a proven track record of delivering quality results for people, groups, and the community in general. I've seen Lawrence recently recognize the group as one of the proofs that the community is solid and self sustaining. It is impressive to see how the community has been coming together and in my views and perspective beats any other MS product community hands down.
Awesome to see
Bamboo Solutions stepping up and helping. There really is a place where ISVs can help broaden the base of User Groups.
Congratulations ISPA board and users on a successful organization that can easily be recognized. I look forward to continuing efforts and serving with you... ISPA loves SPUGs.