I have attended tech user groups for about seven years now. I strongly recommend user community groups if you want to expand your career and improve yourself. I have benefited from new product presentations from vendors, community sessions by other techies (quite often the most interesting in my opinion), and social events such as vBeers. I attended my first community user group back in 2013, which was hosted by North East England VMUG (VMware User Group). I had recently attended in person a VMware vSphere 5.1 Install, Configure & Manage course, and found about the UK VMUG community. I attended the VMUG on my own, and at first, was daunted by talking to other techs that had more experience, but was pleased to make conversations socially and professionally. I have tried to attend at least two sessions a year. More recently I have attended a wider variety of user groups to be aware of new products and emerging technologies.
Depending on your role or where you want to go with your role there are plenty of user groups available in all countries and regions. Most user groups will have instant message communication channels such as slack, which are great for sharing technical experience, solving problems and just general helpful advice.
RELATED LINKS
- VMware User Group Communities
https://community.vmug.com/home
- Veeam user Group
https://go.veeam.com/user-groups
- TechUG UK
- Search for other user groups in your region with Meetup