User Groups – Why do YOU attend?

September 30, 2008 in Production with Comments Off

Within every profession there are many (sometime too many) communities that you can join, groups you can take part in, associations that you can become a member of. But what’s the point – REALLY?! I’ve embarked upon a journey to build community around one of my very favorite application (Adobe After Effects) as a response to the overwhelming discovery that there was no community, association, or UG (as Adobe refers to User Groups).

My journey began when I saw a post on twitter by Trent Armstrong (the founder of the Dallas AEUG) that he was headed out to talk at the DFW AEUG. To be quite honest I was rather jealous that I couldn’t be there (being 280 miles away in North West Houston.) My response to this was proactive googling and scouring all over the web to find something like that here in my neck of the woods. Toiling over old post of people looking for the same sort of group here in town I made two discoveries:

There is no Group of After Effects Users meeting in Houston
There is really NO Central Hub for AEUG’s to standardize and share information.

In getting back to my original headline – “Why do YOU Attend?” What do you look for in an AEUG or just looking for in any kind of User Group? If there was a group that you could attend what would cause you to sacrifice your time to come out?!

Do you attend cause there’s a door prize or give-away that night?
Do you attend to network with others in your field?
Are you there to learn something?
Do you show up to help others learn?

Please leave a comment here on the blog or direct message me on Twitter.com/big_b_rad

You have the opportunity to shape the formation of a brand new community (even if you’re not in the Houston Area and are reading this post – please join in, together we can make this an AWESOME ADVENTURE!

Also, if you would please let us know if you already attend a group include where and when you attend! This can become a list of existing AEUG’s around the World too…