User Group Skills Gap

Bill Wagner and Julia Lerman talk about terrific solutions to bridging skills gaps in User Group presentations. (Bill's post here; Julia's here) The prime benefit of good user groups like the one in Columbus (or Cincinnati, although I've never attended it) is the advanced level of material and presenters offered. But what about UG memebers who are entry-level developers, or like myself, moving into .NET development after time in other domains? Bill and Julia's answer is to have a "pre-presentation" before the main meeting. This first session is geared to .NET "newbies" and should dovetail in with the "main" presentation of the evening. I'm working on starting a .NET UG here in the Dayton area. I'm going to keep this in mind as I move forward with growing a local community.