Communities

A rewarding day yesterday at the first of my team's UK Tech.Day events in West London. It gave me the opportunity to see many of my guys in presentation action, and get the background on some of our newer technologies (Lync, as an aside, looks market-changing).

Probably the most rewarding session, though, came in the evening and the chance to meet and talk with a number of people who coordinate Microsoft-aligned user communities: .Net, SQL and Sharepoint by example. They are communities that used to get a good deal more support from Microsoft, but shifts in the market, and the general economic gloom in the UK, mean that in recent years there has been a lot less resource.

I've dipped in and out of such communities over the years (the first I was involved in was the BBC Micro group in Watford in the mid-80s), and so was particularly interested to understand the relevance of such groups which these people obviously devote such time and energy to in this age of the social network. The answer was bleedin' obvious… they give people the opportunity to meet and engage with others who share common interest.

The importance of real, human contact should never be underestimated….