Community?
All kinds of communities.
Where you live, duh, bound by geography.
Kids’ schools, um, common theme, KIDS and their education.
Work, yup, professional.
What other communities do you belong to and why?
The professional community can be so many things. I really (really) enjoy watching the success of others. One of my jobs as an employer is to build and grow my employees, professionally and personally. To lead by example, work hard when hard work is needed, play hard when it’s time and above all, family comes first. I extend this into our professional user group community. The glue that holds these groups, these communities together, is that drive to get better. To grow your skills. To be around like minded people that have that positive look, that drive and desire to do better.
This is easy in a traditional user group. Monthly newsletter. Monthly meeting. Pizza. Soda. Code. Books. Pretty cookie cutter.
Virtual groups are growing in popularity. There are several reasons why a virtual would make sense over a traditional. Sometimes geography is really an obstacle. Do you know how hard it is to get speakers to take 4 flights just to GET to your remote location? Sometimes it is a special interest group, SIG, that has a decent following, but not enough in any single place to have an on-ground meeting. These virtual groups are really taking off. Some people are getting there conference content fix, since as a virtual, the bigger names are easier to get, with no travel involved. The travel budgets all around have been cut, so this helps a lot. Heck, sometimes even an hour drive to find a meeting close-ish to you can be too much if your job has been cut.
Where do you belong? What professional community do you call home? Why? Where do you want to go in your career? Find the community that can guide you there, there are a ton of them!
(sorry, must be philosophical Monday)
Comments