About NNUG

History

The idea for NNUG came about in April 2001, when .NET user groups were starting up in larger cities in the USA. Several of the initiators were Microsoft Regional Directors. Regional Directors are not employed by Microsoft; they are independent architects and developers who, through the RD role, learn Microsoft technology, share their knowledge with local developer communities, and pass feedback from those communities back to Microsoft.

The idea of establishing a .NET user group in Norway was raised with attendees at MSDN seminars and WinCity in the spring of 2001. The response was good, and in August 2001 a website was launched, www.nnug.no.

The first meeting was held on 30 October 2001 in Oslo. Invitations went out to everyone who had registered with NNUG by then, and through Microsoft’s MSDN mailing list. 60 people attended. There were three technical presentations by people who had worked with .NET. After the technical part there was an open discussion about what NNUG should do. Among the suggestions were:

• Pub evenings
• Closed discussion groups on the website
• Forming a board for NNUG
• More user group meetings

Everyone interested in helping to run NNUG going forward was invited to sign up. Four people did, and a board for NNUG was formed.

Since then many user group meetings have been held, and many people have registered as members.