Community Guest Blog post by By Anne Thallman
Community involvement and work full time? Impossible!
Have you ever attended a user group meeting in Atlanta? Did you know that there are over 40 user groups in Atlanta? If you have never attended a local technology user group or are curious of the benefits you could derive from regular participation in user groups, then read on to discover how you can stay current in your favorite technologies, meet like-minded individuals, and give back to the community.
Users’ groups
According to Wikipedia, a users' group is a type of club focused on the use of a particular technology, usually (but not always) computer-related. Users' groups started in the early days of mainframe computers, as a way to share sometimes hard-won knowledge and useful software, usually written by end users independently of the factory-supplied programming efforts. Today, the variety of users’ groups is as overwhelming as the technology available from Microsoft to Mac to Ruby to Linux to Adobe…you get the picture, right? In fact, the TAG Societies offer a unique spin on users’ groups by categorizing them according to the people (such as entrepreneurs), functions (such as data governance), and industries (such as logistics).
How can I get involved?
An example of a company with employees active in user group participation is CTS.
CTS continues a long standing corporate tradition of supporting the user group community by providing sponsorship, speakers, and dedicated individuals who serve on a volunteer basis in various user group leadership positions. In the past year, CTS sponsored the Atlanta Quality Assurance Association, Microsoft Integration Architects, Gwinnett Georgia Microsoft User Group, Atlanta SharePoint User Group and the Atlanta BI Group. CTS consultants presented on a wide variety of topics around the city from Agile in the QA World to MVC 3 to SharePoint Mashup to .Net Basics and many, many more. Additionally, CTS team members further support these community efforts with individuals sitting on the Atlanta SharePoint User Group board and the Microsoft Integration Architect board. Leadership involvement does not end with user groups as CTS has a number of individuals sitting on society boards through TAG, including the Smart Grid Society and the Content Management Society, as well as the TechBridge Digital Ball Executive Committee.
What’s in it for me?
Involvement with users’ groups not only strengthens the community, but provides invaluable professional development through speaking engagements, highlights your commitment to bleeding edge technologies, and allows you to support many of the same organizations that are important to your company. Over the next several months, plan to see get out and about town, make appearances at user groups, charity events, and continue to support TAG.
