Just wanted to share an event that I’ll be speaking at later this month, it will be my first time ever with this group so I’m excited to be able to meet a bunch of new tech-minded folks in the Chicago area! I’d love to see some familiar faces as well, and who among us doesn’t need better database skills? Polaris Solutions is also sponsoring this meeting, so dinner is on us

Chicago Suburban SQL Server User Group
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DATE:

Tuesday June 20, 2017

AGENDA:
5:30PM - Doors Open
6:00PM - Meeting Start with Dinner, Networking, & Open Q&A (bring your questions!)
6:30PM - Announcements, Sponsor Presentation, & Main Presentation

REGISTER:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chisub-ssug-june-meeting-tickets-35162771797

TITLE: Fear and (Self) Loathing in IT – A Healthy Discussion on Imposter Syndrome
ABSTRACT: 
Many of us feel nervous or fearful about raising our voices or speaking our opinions out loud - whether at a business meeting, a team retrospective, a conference, or even from your cubicle chair. We sometimes feel hesitant to fully engage with our team and be ourselves lest we be “found out” as someone who really doesn’t belong, isn’t smart/experienced enough, or who doesn’t deserve to be there. If you’re wondering what Imposter Syndrome is, or how you would even know if it affects you or a team mate, think about the following questions:
* Do you feel like no matter how much you study or prepare for a new challenge, that you’ll just never be ready for it and that people are crazy to even trust you with real responsibilities?
* Do you panic at the idea of asking for help when you get stuck on a challenging problem because everyone will think you have no idea what you’re doing? 
* Do you continually beat yourself up about minor mistakes that likely no one else even remembers, or noticed in the first place?
* Are you constantly comparing yourselves to peers, friends, or event Twitter followers and finding that you just never seem to stack up?
If you answered yes to any (or maybe all) of these questions, you might be experiencing Imposter Syndrome. You may even recognize some of these behaviors in loved ones, coworkers, and friends. And it’s not silly, trivial, or something you’ll “just grow out of”. Many people have been experiencing Imposter Syndrome since childhood. But when does this anxiety become unhealthy? Is Imposter syndrome something we really even NEED to cure? I’d like to share some of my own adventures in embracing my fears, learning to trust myself and others, getting comfortable with asking for help, and developing shame resilience. I’ll also talk about the unexpected and very positive outcomes that followed taking the leap to embrace my “phoniness”.
So whether your roles in life include team lead, manager, scrum master-in-training, tester, project manager, significant other, and/or parent - recognizing Imposter Syndrome in yourself and others and knowing how to thrive with it is an important skill to develop!

SPEAKER BIO:
Angela Dugan is a Principal Consultant for Polaris Solutions, a software technology and agile/DevOps process consulting firm based in Chicago. Her focus as a Principal Consultant is supporting her clients in increasing their agility and improving their DevOps capabilities through training and coaching their people, streamlining their processes, and implementing modern automation and collaboration tools. Angela has been in the software industry since 1999, is an active tech community contributor, and organizes a number of local meetups and conferences including IAMCP Women in Tech, Chicago Code Camp, ThatConference, and St. Louis DevUp. She is a Microsoft ALM MVP, a Certified Scrum master, and a SAFe Program Consultant.
Outside of wrangling organizational transformations, Angela is an avid board gamer, an accidental Crossfitter, an aspiring crafty diva, and a Twitter addict. She is constantly working on her 1910 house in Oak Park with her husband David, where they raise two ornery chickens Betsy and Gertrude and a rambunctious GSP named Sadie.

So if you’ve installed and started playing around with the latest version of Visual Studio Microsoft Test Manager (MTM), you might have noticed this “Warning”: “Consider using the Test hub in web access instead of Microsoft Test Manager”

::gulps::

Now, for those of us who have been using MTM and web access for years, we saw this coming a while ago, it’s no secret that Microsoft has been putting a TON of effort into making the web testing experience first class! And truth be told, I have some concerned customers. And heck, I was a curmudgeon at first too

:: bah, in my day we used clunky old desktop tools that hogged all of our CPU and memory and we LIKED it! ::

I’ve spent a lot of time building out complex test plans, do I lose all of that?

Absolutely not, it is all still there. And I’d even argue that it is more intuitive to find what you need on the web!

But what about my rich exploratory testing experience complete with data collection?

OK, fair, it’s not *quite* all there just yet, but it’s getting closer, and what it DOES have is what 90% of my customers use on a day-to-day basis anyway.

What about those nifty built-in reports that I rely on?

HA, there are much BETTER reports today, including some nifty dashboard widgets to make it so that everyone can see the reports, not just MTM users. 

What about some of my advanced features like cloning test cases, suites, and plans?!?

OK, you got me, not everything exists on the web yet, but you do still have the ability to use the desktop tool while you’re waiting for more advanced options to become available on the web

So fear not, loyal MTM users! MTM is not dead, yet, but the writing is on the wall. While you may not see 100% of the features from MTM in the web based tooling today, as in right this second, it gets closer to feature parity with every update so wait 5 minutes and hit refresh. This is especially true especially if you’re connecting to Visual Studio Team Services instead of TFS on-premises. VSTS gets updated every 3 weeks, while on-premises and client based tools get updated closer to once a quarter.  And MTM, well my friends, it’s not getting much love these days so I’ll be honest, you should start transitioning soon!

Looking for help updating your environment or getting trained on the new system? Give me or any of my fellow team members at Polaris Solutions a buzz!

It’s a new age, a new era, where Microsoft is leading the Open Source revolution.

//BUILD is the Microsoft Developer event of the year where we learn about the strategy and direction that the technology will take. Join us for the Best of Build, a half day developer focused event that will take you thru the latest features and share what's compelling and exciting. Explore the possible at Best of Build 2017.

The schedule will cover:

• Build 2017 Keynote Highlights
• Mobile Center
• Going Serverless with Azure Functions
• Hackfest/Pizza Party

REGISTER now to secure your seat!

Where and when

Thu, June 1, 2017
8:30 AM – 1:00 PM CDT

Microsoft Office - Chicago/Downers Grove
3025 Highland Pkwy
Suite 300
Downers Grove, IL 60515

Not in Chicago? No problem, this roadshow is traveling the country. More scheduled cities are listed below with more coming soon!

• 5/22 – St Louis http://bit.ly/bob17stl
• 5/23 – Kansas City http://bit.ly/bob17kc
• 5/24 – Omaha http://bit.ly/bob17omaha
• 5/25 – Des Moines http://bit.ly/bob17dsm
• 5/26 – Minneapolis http://bit.ly/bob17msp
• 5/31 – Austin http://bit.ly/bob17aus
• 6/2 - Milwaukee http://bit.ly/bob17mke
• 6/5 – New York City  http://bit.ly/bob17nyc
• 6/7 - Tampa http://bit.ly/bob17fl
• 6/9 - Atlanta http://bit.ly/bob17ga
• 6/12 - Portland http://bit.ly/bob17or
• 6/14 - San Diego http://bit.ly/bob17sd
• 6/15 - Phoenix http://bit.ly/bob17az
• 6/16 - Denver http://bit.ly/bob17co

In order to be successful in today's global marketplace, organizations are moving to a more agile approach to software development. In order to be competitive, organizations must look to reduce lead times from years to weeks. One of the barriers to this are the lead times of provisioning infrastructure. Enter DevOps. And what is one way DevOps can accomplish such a herculean feat…Infrastructure as Code!

Infrastructure as Code is all about automating the work of IT Operations and treating it like application code. This session will be jam-packed with Visual Studio, Git, VSTS, PowerShell, ARM, Azure, OMS, DSC and more as we show how we can automate the provisioning and management of our infrastructure…all as code.

How are your environments provisioned today? Are you still racking servers, managing environments on a spreadsheet or deploying infrastructure with "Next…Next…Finish"? If so, this session is for you!

Attendees will learn the following objectives:

• What Infrastructure as Code is
• How Azure can help automate the process of environment provisioning
• Create a full end-to-end solution of automating infrastructure and operations

Dinner will be provided for all registered attendees!

Agenda

6:00PM: Dinner and networking

6:30PM: Presentation begins

8:00PM: Closing remarks

About the speaker: Christopher Mank is the Co-founder and Chief Technologist at White Ficus and a Cloud and Datacenter MVP with a focus in ALM/DevOps and automation. He engages with customers to understand how they plan, build, test, and release software today and help them do it better with automation across the entire lifecycle.
Christopher has technical expertise in Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS), TFS, System Center, .Net, PowerShell, SQL Server, Azure, ARM, Azure Automation, DSC, OMS, and Application Insights.

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Special Announcement and discount code for Polaris event attendees:

Visual Studio Live! is coming to Chicago this Fall!

Visual Studio Live! (VSLive!™) is thrilled to be returning to Chicago, September 18-21 at the Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile! Developers, software architects, engineers and designers will be on a mission to code during four days of unbiased and cutting-edge education on the Microsoft Platform. Cruise through the hottest topics, jam with industry and Microsoft insiders and let loose with your peers -- all designed to give you the best in independent training to help make you a coding rock star!

Exclusive savings: register with priority code CHUG04 to save $500 off the standard 4-day rate! More info: http://bit.ly/CHUG04home

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In June we have another great opportunity to talk to someone at Microsoft who has walked the path that many of us are looking to walk. Please join us in hearing from someone who knows how rocky an agile transformation can be, particularly in a MASSIVE company like Microsoft.More about Microsoft's agile and DevOps journey can be found on their website.

Dinner will be provided.

Description of the talk:

Everyone accepts that agile methods and practices work… but how do you apply them at scale without stifling the creativity, autonomy, and energy of your teams? Listen as Aaron Bjork describes how Microsoft has undergone radical changes in recent years to build a culture of “Aligned Autonomy”. Aaron will share stories from before and after, and talk about some of the key changes that have contributed to the new Microsoft

Agenda:

6:00pm: Grab dinner and a seat!

6:30pm: The DevOps show begins

PLEASE REGISTER HERE, Aon security regulations require it!

Speaker Bio:

Aaron Bjork is a Principal Group Program Manager working in Microsoft’s Developer Division where drives all investments in work management, agile project management, reporting, and collaboration for Microsoft’s Visual Studio Team Services and Team Foundation Server products.

Aaron joined Microsoft in 2002 working as a software engineer and development lead on the Visual Studio product line. Prior to joining Microsoft, Aaron worked for various startups in the Seattle area. Aaron is passionate about Agile, DevOps, and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and has a strong desire to see teams improve their software engineering practices & culture.

Aaron holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Washington. When he’s not writing code or designing new features, you’ll find him doing projects with his family on their hobby farm or working to lower his handicap on the golf course.

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If you are driving to this event, don't forget that you can get great deals on parking using SpotHero!

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Special Announcement and discount code for Polaris event attendees:

Visual Studio Live! is coming to Chicago this Fall!

Visual Studio Live! (VSLive!™) is thrilled to be returning to Chicago, September 18-21 at the Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile! Developers, software architects, engineers and designers will be on a mission to code during four days of unbiased and cutting-edge education on the Microsoft Platform. Cruise through the hottest topics, jam with industry and Microsoft insiders and let loose with your peers -- all designed to give you the best in independent training to help make you a coding rock star!

Exclusive savings: register with priority code CHUG04 to save $500 off the standard 4-day rate! More info: http://bit.ly/CHUG04home

Polaris is a proud sponsor of the St. Louis Silver Linings conference this year, and I wanted to pass on the news about this amazing event in case you haven’t had a chance to check it out.

 
St. Louis Silver Linings is the largest conference in the region covering three big trends in the IT industry: DevOps, Data Sciences, and Cloud Computing.

The event is on May 2nd and kicks off with a keynote from Veronica S. Smith, data scientist and founder of data2insight. Following the keynote, the conference will feature breakout sessions covering topics from data science, big data, machine learning, intelligent cloud, DevOps, tooling, and more! Visit the speakers page to see the list of distinguished speakers already confirmed.

Event Info
May 2, 2017
7:00 AM – 6:00 PM CDT
St. Charles Convention Center
1 Convention Center Plaza
St. Charles, MO 63303

Register Now to reserve your seat!

In case you hadn’t seen the announcements, there is a great, free event coming to the Chicagoland area to celebrate the launch of Visual Studio 2017! Details and registration link below…

Since Visual Studio launched 20 years ago it has evolved to become a favorite IDE of the casual to professional developer. With the launch of Visual Studio 2017 Microsoft has stepped up their game with improvements to make it easier to work with Cloud, Mobile and Web, as well as a number of productivity improvements.

Join us for a morning of exploring the possible with Mike Benkovich (@mbenko) and Mitch Muenster (@mobileRez) as we take a look the latest tools and technologies with Visual Studio, Xamarin and the Mobile Center, and DevOps with Team Services. The day starts at 8:30 and ends with a hackfest/install pizza party.

Tentative agenda:

• 8:30 – Hello Visual Studio
• 9:45 – Exploring Mobile Stack
• 11:00 – DevOps, .NET Core, Docker and more
• 12:00 – Pizza & Hackfest

When: Mon, April 17, 2017

8:30 AM – 1:00 PM CDT

Where: Microsoft Office - Downers Grove

3025 Highland Pkwy

Suite 300

Downers Grove, IL 60515

View Map

Register today!

DevOps is about people, process and products. Getting it all right requires effort but the benefits to your organization and customers can be huge. Microsoft has a fantastic set of products that can adapt to any language on any platform. In this demo-heavy session, Donovan Brown will show you how to go from "zero to DevOps" like a pro. Starting from just a blank desktop, he will create a new team project and a complete pipeline. He will also deploy an ASP.NET MVC application into Azure, all live and hands on. Why is DevOps one of the hottest topics? Because it hurts the most. Luckily, Donovan's unofficial tag line is #RubDevOpsOnIt and he's here to make it all better.

This is going to be an action packed event, and a rare opportunity to speak to the Principal DevOps Program Manager at Microsoft himself. So come ready to drink from the DevOps firehose!

Agenda for Wed, April 12, 2017

6:00pm: Grab dinner and a seat!

6:30pm: The DevOps show begins

Register soon on our Events page as the event will likely sell out!

Location: Microsoft Midwest District

200 East Randolph Street

#200

Chicago, IL 60601

View Map

Speaker: Donovan Brown, Principal DevOps Program Manager, Microsoft

Meet the Man in the Black Shirt. Donovan Brown is a Principal DevOps Program Manager on Microsoft's US Developer Division team. Before joining Microsoft, Donovan spent seven years as a Process Consultant and a Certified Scrum Master. Developer Tools are his thing. Donovan has travelled the globe helping companies in the U.S., Canada, India, Germany, and the UK develop solutions using agile practices, Visual Studio, and Team Foundation Server in industries as broad as Communications, Health Care, Energy, and Financial Services. What else keeps the wheels spinning on The Man in The Black Shirt? Donovan's also an avid programmer, often finding ways to integrate software into his other hobbies and activities, one of which is Professional Air Hockey where he has ranked as high as 11 in the world.

Please note: Due to Aon Center security, you MUST be registered to attend.

If you are a Team Foundation Server customer, you may already understand how valuable it is to bring your teams together in one place to orchestrate your entire development lifecycle. Now that Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) has been launched, there are many compelling reasons to consider migrating your on-premises Team Foundation Server to the cloud.

Please join us as we share our key insights and action plans for migrating your enterprise to VSTS.

Our partners at OpsHub will share their story about integrating VSTS with other enterprise services in their organization, and how it has helped them create a more productive and customer focused ecosystem. They will take us through their journey from the pre-agile phase to the customer-obsessed phase and share their insights on leveraging the power of integration to deliver quality product and services in a shorter cycle time.

Complimentary lunch will be provided. Seating is limited. Please register to attend!

Key Takeaways:

Highlights of VSTS capabilities

Navigating the ALM and DevOps ecosystem

Migration Considerations

Integration with other enterprise services

Next Steps

Date and Time: Thu, March 30, 2017 from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM CDT

Location

Microsoft - Downer's Grove

3025 Highland Parkway

Suite #200

Downers Grove, IL 60515

Presenters:

Angela Dugan is a Principal Consultant for Polaris Solutions, a consulting firm based out of Chicago, Denver, and St. Louis. Angela has been in software since 1999, filling roles including business analyst, developer, tester, project manager, and agile coach. Prior to joining Polaris, Angela spent 5 years as a TFS specialist with Microsoft, where her passion for working with the local community was sparked. In 2011 she followed her passion for problem solving to Polaris, and now runs their ALM Practice. Angela runs the Chicago ALM user group, is an active organizer/speaker at local conferences including ThatConference, is a Microsoft ALM MVP, a Certified Scrum master, and a SAFe Program Consultant.

Sandeep Jain is the founder and CEO of OpsHub Inc. His vision for making software integration and migration a customer-friendly affair is the driving force behind OpsHub. Sandeep has 25 years of experience in the software industry. He has been at the forefront of driving agile transformation through his expertise in ALM and DevOps integration and has filed more than 20 patents in the domain.

Building security requires you to be pre-registered.  Please sign up on our events page.

Have you seen Team Foundation Server (TFS) and its cloud based sibling Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) lately? TFS/VSTS has evolved significantly over the past 2 – 3 years. In this presentation and demo we will take a look at some of the newer features such as the Agile planning tool updates, Git integration enhancements, cross platform build and release tools, (You can now build Java, iOS and Android apps!) and the browser based manual testing tools.

Have you thought about migrating from TFS to VSTS? Microsoft now has migration tools to move to VSTS without losing anything that you currently have in TFS. Angela Dugan will be walking you through some options for migrating to VSTS, including the new high-fidelity migration tool.

This session will be on the heels of Microsoft’s virtual launch event for Visual Studio 2017 and before The 360 on Innovative Application event on March 16th so, it will be packed with tons of information about the changes that Microsoft has made in Visual Studio 2017, TFS 2017 and VSTS.

Make sure to REGISTER for the event by March 13th, 2017!

Agenda

6:00PM: Dinner and networking

6:30PM: Presentation begins

8:00PM: Closing remarks

Speaker Bios

Dave Burnison works as a technology specialist for Microsoft's application lifecycle management product line and Azure development workloads. Dave is super-passionate about ALM and the software development life cycle, and has worked in the software development industry his entire career. Having worked for both startups and large companies, his strength is his knowledge of the overall software development lifecycle paired with technical skills which allow him to create and manage ALM systems, processes and procedures that enable software development teams to become as efficient and productive as possible. On the personal front, when he’s not at work Dave enjoys spending time with his family and friends, being involved in his church, and following the NFL and NASCAR.

Angela Dugan is a Principal Consultant and Practice Manager for Polaris Solutions, a software technology and process consulting firm based in Chicago. Her focus as Practice Manager is supporting clients through training and coaching as they work together to increase their agility and improve their DevOps practices. Angela has been in the industry since 1999, and spent over 5 years as a technology evangelist with Microsoft. Angela is an active technology community member in Chicago and organizes several local conferences including Chicago Code Camp, ThatConference, and St. Louis DevUp. She is a Microsoft ALM MVP, a Certified Scrum master, and a SAFe Program Consultant. Outside of wrangling TFS, Angela is an avid board gamer, an aspiring runner, and a Twitter addict. She is constantly working on her 1910 house in Oak Park with her husband David, where they raise two ornery chickens named Betsy and Gertrude, and a rambunctious puppy named Sadie.  And yes, that goes about as well as you’d imagine

Make sure to REGISTER for the event by March 13th, 2017!