Best Thing Ever: Getting Involved
This week, our Best Thing Ever isn't about a product or service, but about an activity which has brought me an immense amount of value over the last week....getting involved in the tech stuff that is going on around Raleigh.
I'm usually not one to make New Year's resolutions, but this year I made an exception. Part of my New Year's resolution was to get more involved in the tech community around Raleigh. I've been a part of the larger PHP community, and the Zend Framework community, and of course the NCSU Web Developers community. But I wanted to get out there and see what else was going on. When I started poking around, I found that we have quite an active tech community here in the Triangle! I was pleasantly surprised, but I wasn't sure how to get involved, so when I stumbled upon the BarCampRDU website and found the organizer, I emailed him and the rest, as they say, is history.
BarCampRDU was this past weekend and I got to meet a lot of really great folks. Most of the people I met were in the commercial side of life, but we all shared lots of commonalities. I even participated in the BarCamp process and gave a pitch about how to handle feedback. There were about 15 people in my session, and we had a great discussion about how to effectively handle feedback. I heard from a few friends that it was the talk with the best discussion surrounding it, so that made me feel good. I also got about 20 new followers on twitter, which is great for networking in the future.
#IgniteRaleigh also went down this past week. I've already posted my thoughts on it, but I want to reiterate that it was AWESOME! Definitely less tech-oriented than BarCampRDU, but every entertaining. Both events have their own unique perspective, and both were really great.
While #IgniteRaleigh and BarCampRDU are finished for this year, there are still lots of opportunities to interact with your tech community. There are tweetups about every month, where people from twitter meetup in real life and talk tech, have some drinks, and just have a good time. John Martin also told me about "Startup Weekend" where you get together, come up with an idea for a startup, and try to implement it, all in one weekend. That sounds totally awesome, and I am on board with that when it comes around again.
The point I am trying to make is that we have a very active tech community in the RDU area, and they can be an invaluable resource. But you have to make the first step and get involved. I think we have seen the impact that our NCSU Web Developers community has had on campus, so why not try to take that to the next level? You meet great people, share a free beer or two, and talk about tech stuff. For a geek like me, you can't beat that.
I'm usually not one to make New Year's resolutions, but this year I made an exception. Part of my New Year's resolution was to get more involved in the tech community around Raleigh. I've been a part of the larger PHP community, and the Zend Framework community, and of course the NCSU Web Developers community. But I wanted to get out there and see what else was going on. When I started poking around, I found that we have quite an active tech community here in the Triangle! I was pleasantly surprised, but I wasn't sure how to get involved, so when I stumbled upon the BarCampRDU website and found the organizer, I emailed him and the rest, as they say, is history.
BarCampRDU was this past weekend and I got to meet a lot of really great folks. Most of the people I met were in the commercial side of life, but we all shared lots of commonalities. I even participated in the BarCamp process and gave a pitch about how to handle feedback. There were about 15 people in my session, and we had a great discussion about how to effectively handle feedback. I heard from a few friends that it was the talk with the best discussion surrounding it, so that made me feel good. I also got about 20 new followers on twitter, which is great for networking in the future.
#IgniteRaleigh also went down this past week. I've already posted my thoughts on it, but I want to reiterate that it was AWESOME! Definitely less tech-oriented than BarCampRDU, but every entertaining. Both events have their own unique perspective, and both were really great.
While #IgniteRaleigh and BarCampRDU are finished for this year, there are still lots of opportunities to interact with your tech community. There are tweetups about every month, where people from twitter meetup in real life and talk tech, have some drinks, and just have a good time. John Martin also told me about "Startup Weekend" where you get together, come up with an idea for a startup, and try to implement it, all in one weekend. That sounds totally awesome, and I am on board with that when it comes around again.
The point I am trying to make is that we have a very active tech community in the RDU area, and they can be an invaluable resource. But you have to make the first step and get involved. I think we have seen the impact that our NCSU Web Developers community has had on campus, so why not try to take that to the next level? You meet great people, share a free beer or two, and talk about tech stuff. For a geek like me, you can't beat that.
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© 2012 Created by Jason Austin.
