Greetings all,

First I want to specifically welcome our members from outside the DFW area.  While we are definitely focused on the region, as I noted in a previous email we can have a lot of fun expanding our scope.

As a Nokia Developer Ambassador I cover a specific geographical area, which is North Texas and into Oklahoma.  It will likely include parts of New Mexico, Arkansas, Louisiana and even other states if I can spread myself that thin!  But I also want to establish relationships with people and groups around the globe.  I have many friends and professional contacts in Tampere, Finland for example so it makes sense to connect with their Windows Phone group (http://www.meetup.com/Tampere-Windows-Phone-Developer-Meetup/).  Same goes without saying for Austin (http://www.meetup.com/Win-App-Devs/); even though that's covered by Greg Stoll, we can find ways to compete and even collaborate.

The main challenge of course is networking.  It would be cool if we could actually pull global members into hackathons.  Some events are global/virtual anyway and I will keep my eye out for opportunities there (please share any I miss!).  But even for DFW hackathons, if it's allowed maybe we can find ways of bringing our distant members to the table.

And of course our activities are not limited to hackathons; any of us can form virtual development teams based on our diverse membership.

So be thinking about this, since I expect more global members to be joining soon!

On a somewhat related note, I have changed our message board to a forum.  I will be adding a private subforum for proposed projects to this site.  The section will be hidden from non-members, and all members can add/edit posts.  Let's use that for group project management.  Please be respectful of what others have started.

Thanks,

Randy