Lake County .net User Group (lcnug): Mike Hall Interviews Scott Seely

- Okay, so first off, lakecounty . NET user group was founded by myself and another gentleman named Tim Stahl. Tim and I both saw the need to have a user group in the northern burbs just because of the fact that the Chicago area, due to the traffic and the way that everything, everybody's kind of spread out, people don't like driving more than 40 minutes from home. - Right. - Because of that, you wind up with user groups, some in Chicago, some in the north, some out in the western burbs. I don't know of any down in the southern burbs, obviously, but that's what wound up happening, so Tim and I both live north of Chicago and wanted something closer to home and going to Downers Row for our . NET user group meetings. So that's why we founded the group, was pretty much, we didn't like driving. - Right. - And we wanted to, and we like going to user group meetings. Right now, lakecounty, we've got a, we have attendees, so our mailing list, I guess, is the best way to measure that, and about 500 different people have shown interest at one point or another, so that's about how many people we notify every time that we have a meeting. On average, we get about 20 to 40 people, typically closer to the 20 side, for when folks show up.

- It seems that we have, like, you'll go on streets where you'll have five or six people who will be there several months in a row, and then it just kind of turns over. We have some folks who've been going pretty regularly for the past several years, and that makeup just changes. You have people who, that's part of the regular schedule for a while, then they get a new contract somewhere else, they go elsewhere, and then when that contract ends, they're closer to home, they also start showing up again. - Oh, okay. So, they're regulars, but just life, sometimes. - Life happens, yeah. As far as the regional director thing goes, that's just a honorary title, which means, for Microsoft, saying, "Hi, you've been very active "in the community. " So, my regional director's a kind of a weird name. I don't actually have a region I'm responsible for. - Yeah, it sounds like a real title. - Oh yeah, it sounds real. - It is a real title, it's just that it's not paid. - It's not a descriptive title. - Yeah, yeah, it's like. - I'm neither a director at Microsoft, nor do I have a region. Typically, what they do is they say that, for a given population center, they'll decide to fund a regional director, and the funding happens at Microsoft, where they have, there's a person that's actually paid at corporate to make sure that we're getting the right information. There are people at corporate who spend time with us, on internal stuff, telling us what's happening, so we can better articulate it to the community, and drive events so that folks know what's going on. - So, it's kind of like a spokesperson. - Yeah. - For, like, you're so well known in the community in Chicago, that you're a great person to talk to you to be like a pivot for getting all that information. - Right, or I'm at least well enough known to Microsoft that I have the ambition to get stuff done, and eventually then the fame comes as a result of the program. Someone who's willing to do the work that's required. - Yeah. - And it's a karma-based system. Microsoft doesn't pay you, but the opportunities themselves, that's where you get your benefits. - Okay, and when they say region, you're talking Chicagoland region. It isn't Midwest or anything. - Well, so there's another, there are several RDs nearby. We have, there's, I believe it's Dan Walleen, I hope I'm not mistaken where Dan is actually located. We have a few folks over at Michigan. We've got Rocky Locka up in Minnesota. There's me, and then if you start heading south, you can't get to anybody until you get to Marcus Eggers in Texas, and Todd Fine sitting in Georgia. But between Illinois, so you have Missouri, so what's the state between Missouri and-- - No geography. - Yeah, because of my geography, horrible. Louisiana, nothing. And it doesn't reflect on the IT community, it just reflects on people who have stood up in the community, and Microsoft just decided to move them up to that level. - Okay. - But yeah, they're scared throughout. And then when you get to the south again, all of a sudden, you get concentrations, like there's a guy named Todd Fine and Mark Dunn, they're both fairly close to each other. So until Rocky and I being close to each other between Chicago and Minneapolis.