115 Should I Join A Local User Group? What Are The Benefits?

Should I join a local user group? Is it really going to help me be a better developer? How much effort should I put into finding and joining a group? Is joining a group online enough?  These are the questions we are going to answer in today's episode of Dev Questions.

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey. Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology. If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered. Now here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

Should I join a local user group? Is it really that big a deal? Is it going to help me in any way become a better developer or is it just a waste of time? And can I just go online or do I have to show up in person? This is a question I want to answer on today's episode of DevQuons. Now, if you have a question that you want to answer about development or about C sharpen specifically, you can go to suggestions.iamtimcorey.com and ask your question there. Hopefully, you'll see your question answered on a future episode of DevQuestions. So let's talk about user groups. Are they important? Are they valuable? Or is it just kind of a waste of time? Well, I can keep this really short. And if you want the short version, they're absolutely valuable. They're absolutely something you should get involved in. You should definitely spend the time to do so. Okay? Now, if you want a more in-depth answer, let's talk about it. So let's talk through the benefits of attending a user group and specifically attending a user group in person. Number one, it's going to teach you new things. The concept of a user group is that usually once a month or so you show up and you sit down with, let's say, 5, 10, 15, 20 of your peers, and you hear from someone who presents a topic. And maybe it's a topic you already know, or maybe it's a topic you've never heard of. But either way, you sit for half hour, 45 minutes, and listen to this person tell you more about this topic. Maybe you learn a little nugget or two, maybe you learn a brand new thing. But either way, you're exposed to someone teaching you about something. So that right there can give you some value. Now, you could watch on YouTube. So why is it valuable that you go and listen to someone teach? Well, when you listen, first of all, when you listen in a group, when you're sitting in a chair and there's a person talking to you, you have a higher likelihood of paying attention. The Angry Birds in your phone, or whatever the latest phone game is, or that that movie that's been in your other tab of your browser, those things don't distract you as easily. You're more likely to pay attention. But also, you're sitting next to other people who are learning the same thing. At the end of that, you can have a conversation about what are your thoughts on this? Um, what about this? And at the end of it, you can even ask the presenter, hey, you know, you mentioned this, this, but I have a question. How does that apply to this situation? And you can get more specific information. You can figure out how to apply it to your specific case or your job. So it's a more depth and more of a rich experience than just watching a video. Now, next up, you can build relationships. And again, this comes back to you're sitting next to people and you can have a conversation and say, hey, you know, I've used it before in my job, but here's the problems I had. And the person next to you can say, Well, here's how I overcame those problems. Or the situation may be reversed. May they say, hey, I've had this problem. And you can say, Well, here's how I overcame it. And you start to build a relationship, an acquaintance. You start to learn about these other people and where they work and how they work and what they do in their jobs, and you start to build a relationship. That can be very, very valuable. Knowing other developers can be really helpful for you as well as for them. Being known can be helpful because you can share your wisdom. You can help somebody else. It's not all about take, it's about give as well. You can build somebody else up, you can encourage somebody else, you can lift somebody else up with those relationships. And usually in user groups, when you're done, there's time afterwards, and before usually, to talk. Take advantage of that time. Sometimes people go out afterwards, they go out to get drinks or to get appetizers or to hang out and talk and have kind of an after-party type thing. Take advantage of it if you can, because you will deepen those relationships. Maybe you'll find out more about where they work and how they work and what problems they encounter at work and what issues they have overcome at their job. It may help you and you may help them. Now, third up, again, this comes back to you can help somebody else out. The idea that the world revolves around us, it doesn't. There's more people in this world besides just us. So when when you walk in there, you can walk in not just thinking, I need someone to help me, but you can be thinking about, hey, I can help somebody else. I can be a benefit. I can be a help to the community. Because you've probably been helped a lot by the community. In fact, if you're listening to this right now, you're being helped by the community. So you can give back some as well and be able to say, hey, I'm here to encourage you, I'm here to help you, I'm here to maybe just put out snacks beforehand. Whatever it is, you can be a help to someone else. Now, number four, and this is really important. There's going to come a time in your career when you're going to have to switch a job, whether it's because you want to, or whether you feel like you're forced to, or whether you don't have a job. And the being in the community is very, very helpful. First of all, having those relationships will allow you to say, hey, you know what? I just lost my job. Does anyone know of any openings? And you can get one step closer to an interview by knowing people. But it's more than that. I worked with a guy once. We worked in a small area, and we weren't at the best of jobs. And so there was always this talk about well, maybe we'll start looking elsewhere. And this person had worked at multiple jobs in the area. And so I was able to get the insider knowledge on a number of different companies and know, oh, I need to avoid them because they don't have a great work experience. Or I need to ask these questions when I get apply over there because there's some pitfalls there to avoid. Or that's a great company to work for, I need to apply there. So having that insider information is really helpful. So being involved in the community can be really helpful. But on the other side, if you work at a company and there's a job opening, you know people. So when your boss comes to you and says, we need to hire somebody, we're just not sure who to hire, you can say, I probably have two or three candidates. Can I give you their information? And you can help somebody else maybe get a step closer to a new job. So you can again have that give and take, the ability to get help when you need it and give help when you can. And finally, and this again a big one, you can improve your presentation skills. And I know a lot of you just freaked out. A lot of you fell off your chair, a lot of you crawled back into the corner of your room and are trying to turn off this because you're like, no, I am not getting in front of people. That's terrifying. I get that. In fact, believe it or not, that used to be me. I didn't like to be in front of people. It's worn off. I'd like to be in front of people now. But there is an opportunity for you in a user group. Because usually user groups are quite small. When you actually show up in person, those user groups, they may be five people large. It may be 10 people or 20 people, but it may be small. And that's okay. That's actually a great place to volunteer to speak. And you may say, well, Tim, I don't want to be a public speaker. That's okay. Still volunteer to speak. And here's why when you go to speak on a topic, you will find that you learn it a whole lot deeper. The way to become an expert in a topic is to teach it. Especially if you teach it well. And that comes with practice. Everything comes back to practice. But when you teach something, you start to ask yourself the question. Well, what if they ask this question? So answer it. Find the answer. And you start to say, well, but what if they ask me this? Well, prepare for that. Figure out those answers. Prepare, get ready. And then when you go to speak, you'll have a wealth of information. You can't give it all, but give the topic, the speech, the presentation that is the most important information. And then you're prepared if they ask some other questions. Now, just a little tip here. If they ask you a question and you don't know the answer, the best answer you can give is I don't know. I have given that answer on stage at a large conference. When a person asks me a question, I said, I don't know. But I'll tell you what, talk to me later. I will look it up, I will do some research, and I will try to get you an answer. Because not everybody knows everything. So don't feel like you have to know everything. But if you can get in front of people and present to them on a topic, first of all, you will have learned it better. Second of all, you will gain confidence over time in your presentation skills. And I tell you what, this is going to come back to help you in the future. Because the more confident you are in presenting in front of people, the more confident you will be presenting in front of a potential employer. So when a potential employer interviews you and says, Hey, we'd like to go to the whiteboard now and present a topic, tell us how you do this. You will have done it. You will have stood in front of people already, hopefully, multiple times, where you've gotten into the groove of knowing how to present. You will know how to answer questions. You will have gotten past that fear, hopefully, or at least dulled down that fear of the unknown question, or of forgetting where you are in your place, knowing how to pick back up, knowing how to re-engage the audience. Those things come through practice. And I can do a whole video just on presentation tips. But having learned how to present in front of a safe audience, because a user group is a safe audience, they want you to succeed. They want you to be able to get through your presentation. They want you to give a great presentation. They want you to succeed. They want to see you succeed. So having gotten through a few of those, you will help out your user group, but you will also have grown in your presentation skills. You'll be better as a developer. You'll be better as a presenter of ideas in your development group. You'll be better at interviewing with people. So just learning how to present will improve you in a lot of ways. And the user group is the place to do it. It's not in front of a thousand people. It's not in front of a few hundred people. It's in front of a few people. And by doing that, you'll have a lot of benefits. So, yes, definitely. To come back to the question, should I join a user group? Absolutely. And do so in person if you can. Because in-person events add a lot more value than remote events do. You can still get benefits out of a remote event, but in-person events give you a lot more of that relational value that you're really looking for. All right. I hope that answers your question. I hope that you will join a user group if you aren't already in one. Thanks for listening. And as always, I am Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Def Questions. Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer. If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Dev Questions. You can also send your questions to questions at Iamtimcorey.com. Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did. When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcore.com and enroll in a course.