I met Robin back in Roanoke, VA about 6 years ago at the first meeting of the Roanoke Valley .NET User Group. She loves to point out that this meeting also happened to be at an IHOP (hey, it was my first user group and it seemed like a good idea at the time...) Robin and I became fast friends and she inherited the user group after I moved away and has kept it going strong to this very day. She is definitely one of the coolest people I know, but I'll let you find that out for yourself, by reading these NINE Questions with Robin Edwards:
1. Where are you from?
I call Roanoke, VA home now, but I grew up in West Virginia and will always have to call that my first home. Go Mountaineers!
2. What do you do / Who do you work for / What is your product? Give us the "10 second pitch" on why I should use your product or services.
I work for the County of Roanoke. Most of my recent work has been focused on SharePoint. We're rolling it out slowly; hoping to have a well-defined architecture before we turn it loose to the organization. I also work for a consulting firm (business analysis, design and coding). They take a strong stance against cowboy coding, and put focus on design. Not that there's anything wrong with cowboys....
3. How did you get to where you are now?
I actually have an accounting degree with an associate data processing degree. My first job was as a programmer for a bank. They put more weight on the business knowledge of the programmer so I kind of lucked into my first IT job. Family has played a large role in where I am now. I moved to Roanoke (from WV) for a job that made it easier to support my son. When my kids started high-school, I went to part-time work so I could be home more. During that time, I moved from the mainframe world to the Microsoft world (Visual Basic 4) doing some consulting and training. About the time .NET came out, the kids were out of school and I went back to work fulltime. That's when I found my first user group (and some guy named Chris).
4. What's your area of technical expertise?
Visual Basic, of course!! and SharePoint. I also work with the business side of technology as well. I believe business analysis and project management are both essential to a successful product.
5. You run a couple of user groups in Roanoke, VA. How's that going? Any special challenges in that region?
I am involved with the leadership of a .NET UG and a SharePoint UG. Both groups are good in that they have a leadership team; not just one person. The RV.NUG has met monthly for over 6 years now. They have a very strong core membership.
Being in an area that is about 3 hours from any large city makes it difficult for some presenters to get to us. However, due to the passion of our user community, we have some presenters that enjoy our groups so much; they actually ask to come back every year. Shout-outs to the other mid-Atlantic user groups, our great Microsoft DE and INETA for helping with this.
6. You do some speaking, blogging / twittering. What's the most recent event you spoke at and how did it go?
I spoke at SharePoint Saturday, Virginia Beach. It went great. SharePoint Saturday is a lot like a Code Camp, except it's all SharePoint with tracks for developers, administrators and power users. I have to give Roanoke Code Camp a shout-out even though I didn't speak. It was our third Code Camp and it is my favorite event every year.
7. You're also a Microsoft MVP. What's that experience been like for you?
It was an honor to be nominated and even more so to be awarded. I was on the Microsoft Campus for the first time at the MVP Summit. One of my best experiences as an MVP has been sitting on the Redmond campus with the VB product team and several MVPs that I've followed for years, listening to them discuss upcoming releases.
Being an MVP has really expanded my network too. I’ve made a lot of new friends. I think it’s made it easier to lead user groups as a result.
8. Any non-technical hobbies / interests? What's something the world doesn't already know about Robin Edwards?
I love to cook and plan food for large groups of people. I recently prepared individual parfaits for a friend's wedding rehearsal. I like finding and trying new recipes (of course, I modify them as I go – can you bake iteratively?). Every now and then the UG "has" to be my testers.
9. Last of all (everyone gets this one) any interesting tattoos?
Nope! If I had get one, it just might be Saphira.