Auckland gets SLAMD

Wednesday 15th June marked the first meeting of Auckland's Silverlight and Mobile Developer group.

If you've heard of Windows Phone 7, then there's a fair chance you've heard of AlphaJax, and if not then go check it out, it's award-winningly good. Keith Patton, the man behind AlphaJax just happens to be a friend, and he mentioned how he thought it would be a good idea to run a WP7 user group.

I'd been contemplating a XAML-focussed group for a while, and this seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up, so I jumped in and said "let's do it"

The name, incidentally, comes from Wellington's SLAMD group run by my Datacom colleague and friend, Sky along with Silverlight MVP Andrew

So - decision made - we would start up a group, organise a sponsor or two and kick things off... But where to start? Tradition tells us we need to organise a speaker, arrange some chairs and maybe a pillow for that one guy who nods off at the back. You know the one.

Well, we didn't want to do that - we wanted to find out who the XAML developers in Auckland were and interact with them... Put some names to faces and share some stories - so that's what we did. No agenda, no speaker, just a load of devs geeking out over some shiny handsets and swapping stories...

The Good

We made a load of connections - if the objective was to meet 'n greet, then mission accomplished!

It was great to have some vocal WP7 enthusiasts at the meeting, notably Windows Phone MVP Ben and Microsoft DPE Nigel who kept the conversation going.

We had some gorgeous mango lassi, provided by the amazing local gelato magician, Giapo

The Bad(ish)

We didn't order enough pizza! To those that turned up around 6.30 to find it all gone, I sincerely apologise! We will get more next time, for sure!

The informal chit-chat format just about worked - but only just. We'll definitely set more structure around the next meeting... But I don't want to lose the social aspect of the group

As a XAML geek, I'm looking forward to more focus on the development side - as fun as it was to look at a good range of handsets - I'm more keen on learning about creating some jaw-dropping apps - not just for phones, but also for Silverlight and yes! even WPF :)

The Ugly

Still can't quite believe he wore that badge...