A laager basically means a circle of wagons pulled together for defensive reasons. The phrase originated in high german, and is now obsolete Afrikaans. Dictionary.com has a great definition here :: http://www.devfish.net/FullBlogItemView.aspx?BlogId=64 .
A geek laager is a circling up of developers (aka geeks) for a short period of time. When I'm in a town for a user group or developer meeting, I try and have informat chats, or laagers, with anyone who wants to drop by. Conversations topics can be varied, as well as the meeting places.
These meetings are also known as devBrainPicks. You get to pick the brains of the resident developers.
This is a non-structured open discussion with no specific topic or speaker, but is simply a round-table discussion group. The idea is for each person to bring a topic. We'll have a hat (or something) we'll pass around. The group will offer up opinions on the topics for up to 5 minutes per person. Then we'll pass the hat. After that open discussion ensues. After all topics are exhausted we will be too. Discussion items can include .NET, the local developer community, systems lifecycle developer, latest toys like a zune or robot, xbox games, et cetera. Bring your laptop if you want to show some code but don't get a soda spilled on it.
This is a buy your own food, buy your own drinks type event. Microsoft won't be picking up the tab for anything. Sorry.
We need to know how many folks are going to show just to avoid a space overrun. Registration limited to the first 50. Please register at the following URL.
Registration site: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=113753
Event Code: 113753
Noted registrants to date:
Shervin Shakibi, MSDN Regional Director, MVP, Microsoft Gold Partner
Joe Healy, Microsoft, Developer Evangelist - Florida
Dave Noderer, Computerways.com, MVP, Microsoft Gold Partner