It has been a while since the group has been active however there are
a variety of events happening in the Des Moines area that I wanted to
make sure that all were aware of.

First off happening today is Whuffaoke. As you are fans of BarCamp I
thought you should know Tara Hunt will be in town today and talking at
Impromptu Studio about social capital and her book The Whuffie Factor.
The event starts at 4pm and runs through the night with local speakers
and Karaoke. For more information and to register for this free event
see: http://whuffaokedm.eventbrite.com/. Even if you do not register
please still come and hang out!

At the end of this month will also be Iowa's first Startup Weekend in
Des Moines. Startup Weekend is an event where developers, designers
and other business folk come together over the weekend and hammer out
new and interesting projects that can become Startups on their own.
The event starts July 31st. It will cost a little ($40) for a ticket
but money will be used to purchase food, drinks and pay for the venue.
For more information see: http://dsm.startupweekend.com/

A little further into the future is also Iowa Code Camp. It is
scheduled for November 7, 2009 and information can be found at
http://iowacodecamp.com/.

I have also started working with others to plan Highlight Midwest here
in Des Moines. We are tentatively looking for late October potentially
the 22, 23, or 24. Highlight Midwest was held in Kansas City last year
and follows some of the BarCamp format with other formal discussions.
We will be posting updates as we have them to http://highlightmidwest.org.

Other notes but I do not have much information at this time: 1) Kansas
City will be holding a PreDevCamp for those interested in creating
apps for the Palm Pre and 2) Omaha is also working on a BarCamp for
later this year.

Enjoy and let me know if you would like to see additional updates like
this one. If not for other news I recommend checking out Mike
Templeton's latest project, TechSentry (http://www.techsentry.org)

Rob