I may have mentioned before that I think user groups are awesome, and this is why I attend several of them each month. One of the best ways to learn more about a particular technology is to hang out with the people who use and build it, and user groups are generally very friendly about sharing their knowledge.
Given that, I'm trying to make a list of all of the local (in Portland) user groups and other tech meetups I can find. Here's what I have so far.
- Adobe Developer Group
- BarCamp
- Defcon
- DevGroup NW
- Dorkbot
- Final Cut Pro User Group
- Flickr: pdx
- Java User Group
- PDXLUG (Linux)
- PLUG (Linux)
- Mac Filmmakers
- Macintosh User Group
- .NET User Group (PADNUG)
- Perl Mongers
- Personal Telco
- PHP
- PostgreSQL Users Group
- Python (still active? no meetings since October)
- Ruby Brigade
- Social Media Club
Update: click to see the calendar so far.
2 comments:
PADNUG: Portland Area .NET User's Group - http://www.padnug.org
You forgot one low-tech user group, which meets on the first Thursday of every month between October and April. I'm talking about the Timbers Army, the supporters group for the Portland Timbers soccer team.
No, it's not a tech group, or even one with any large goals other than getting drunk and going to games. But if you scratch the surface, you see all kinds of smaller goals (generally of an artistic bent, like making flags and banners to display at games, or guerrilla marketing to get people to come to games). You also get the negative aspects of user groups that you talk about: cliques, rancid communication scenarios, and high-flying egos intent on squeezing the joy and love out of everything based solely on their need to be loudest and most visible donkey in the pen.
Er, this maybe should be a comment to one of your later posts...
ps, you stole my blog template!
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