Posted on May
12,
2015 by Abby. Tagged:
MeetUp groups are excellent places for learning, for networking, and for socializing with others in your industry.
Problem is, there’s so many of them. How do you decide which to attend?
Here are the Colorado MeetUp groups we like most. There are certainly other worthwhile groups, but these are our favorites.
Women Who Code is actually a nonprofit organization that is working to inspire more women to pursue careers in the technology sector.
The Women Who Code MeetUp group includes technical study groups, hacking events, and career development, and is intended for both professionals and neophytes in the coding world.
The general group meets every 2nd Tuesday of the month, but other events are held on other days.
DJUG is an older MeetUp group. Its members have been getting together since 1995, which is the same year that Java was released. It attracts great speakers, and has many devoted attendees.
More information, including notes from prior meetings and group discounts, can be found on their website, www.denverjug.org.
One issue with some MeetUp groups is the lack of attendance. The group may have ten thousand members, but if only a couple show up, it makes for a pretty lackluster experience.
Members of the HTML5 group don’t have to worry about that. These groups are well-attended, as attendees find a lot of benefits to membership.
Here’s a quote from a review: “I've attended the last eight meetups and I've been impressed with the high quality of presenters. Even though I am not involved in software development, I have learned something valuable in each presentation.”
Colorado’s marijuana industry is already huge and growing fast. The Cannabis Tech MeetUp group is for techies working in the field that want to network with others.
Though the group is relatively new (founded in Nov 2014), it already has several hundred members.
We’re big fans of Agile frameworks. In fact, BWBacon is Agile itself!
The Agile Denver MeetUp group is a great place to network and share experiences with other Scrum Masters. Their events are often very valuable – for example, the last one included a presentation by Brad Swanson, an Enterprise Agile Coach with agile42.
In addition to their standard MeetUp group, there are some special interest groups within Agile Denver, including Coaching SIG and ScrumMasters Guild.