What are good topics for presentations at .NET Users Groups

Question

What are good things to present on at .NET Users Group meetings?

Answer 1

It depends on the overall expertise and focus of people in the group. In general, I would go with reviewing new additions to .Net (examples: new language features of .Net 3.5, MVC, Ajax), programming methodologies/techniques and how they integrate with .Net, things like that. If you need more ideas, check out one of the popular .Net podcasts and report on what they discussed.

Answer 2

It really depends on the experience level of the members. I'm a strong believer in the "Back to Basics" approach, I think it works well for the average crowd (but obviously not for a highly experienced crowd).

Topics like delegates, reflection, generics, linq, etc. are good ones. In my user group meeting we often review topics taken from the MCPD certifications curriculum. We find that many people going to our user group meetings are interested in the certification and this helps them get an idea of what it entails.

Answer 3

I try not to look at the podcasts because your attendees are probably already listening to them. Presenting the same material is not always beneficial and you may lose members who have "heard it all before". Do a "festival day" or something where you present a whole heap of ideas in short bursts and then ask people what they'd like to see more of

Answer 4

Channel 9 Videos always provide a good resource for discussion points and content. Also considering doing talks on what the latest trends are in the IT Industry in your area/region. I find currently that talks on VS2008/MOSS 2007 and Silverlight tends to draw a lot of people.

Answer 5

I'm planning to do a presentation about IronRuby to my .NET user group next month.

Using my mac :-)

Answer 6

ASP.NET MVC is a hot topic right now.

I saw a presentation of it at my last user group meeting in my town.