I love the networking community, and I attribute much of my success as a network engineer, network architect, and now a technical marketer, to the interactions I’ve had with other network pros over the years. That’s meant interaction on Twitter, Reddit, the big conferences, and the small events like Tech Field Day. From those sprang up private Slack and Discord groups, the occasional iMessage or Google Hangouts group, and so on.
That changed significantly during the pandemic. Both the large and small conferences, meetups, and even company events stopped altogether and didn’t come back for a few years. And when they did, they were different. I noticed the large events weren’t as large (although I’m always shocked by how many people are at re:Invent), and the hybrid conference idea didn’t work for me. I missed the days of attending sessions, chatting with people over coffee in between keynotes, grabbing drinks in the evening with old nerd-friends, and getting to interact in person, engineer-to-engineer.
We needed a new networking community.
In February of 2017, Jason Gintert, Mitch Vaughan, Jason Valore, Bob Fenner, and Chris Kane started a local tech meetup in Ohio called the (OH)NUG. After a few years that expanded to more cities, more regions, and more states within the US. Today, the (US)NUA is the parent organization of all of the regional tech meetups that have started since then.
Focused mainly on networking, the (US)NUA has small events in 18 states with more being added all the time. The events are around 20 to 50 people meeting at a popular brewery/restaurant to hear a guest speaker, and then the group has a chance to participate in an interactive panel discussion with experts from the community.
I appreciate how the events are regional, such as the events in my state, New York. We have the (NY)NUG that was held in New York City, and now we have the (NY)NUG in upstate New York with the first being held in the Capital Region. And this is the same around the country, with events being held in the major metro areas of Texas, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Ohio, and so on.
I also appreciate very much the effort that’s made to keep the events independent, meaning they are no-sales, no-marketing environments other than the event sponsor logos and swag you see on the tables. That way, it really feels reminiscent of the casual impromptu nerdy discussion I had at various conferences over the years, or in other words, engineer-to-engineer.
The events are casual, with free food and drinks (read: beer), for all of the attendees. It’s a great way to connect with other engineers in your own area, though I’ve been seeing people travel great distances to attend events as well. It’s very community-oriented, which you can read about more here.
I encourage you to check out their website to see if there’s an event happening near you, and if not, maybe even consider reaching out to the (US)NUA leadership about starting one in your area. There is also a (US)NUA Slack channel (of course) where folks can banter about networking, tech news, and post the occasional meme 🙂
I’m excited and grateful that we have a new community that’s focused on the tech and nerds being, well, nerds. If you’re in Upstate New York or don’t mind driving if you’re not, consider attending the very first Upstate (NY)NUG on November 9. We’ll be in Troy for this event at Brown’s Brewing, and you can register here.
And if you happen to be (or work for) a networking vendor, also consider sponsoring an event which you can read more about here.
Thanks,
Phil
{networkphil} 
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