Attend a user group!

Want to know a great way to get involved with DotNetNuke? Attend a user group meeting! One of the best things about DotNetNuke is the community of users who work with the product. You can likely find a local user group using the tools available on DotNetNuke.com.

What is a DotNetNuke User Group? User groups are pretty simple, they are a collection of people who get together to learn and discuss a topic, in our case the topic of choice is DotNetNuke. Most user groups will have a meeting once a month, though some have them less frequently.

Why? User group meetings are a great way to meet other people interesting in DotNetNuke, and often times at user group meetings you will find that you can get help from other people, face to face. You may even find yourself a new job! A lot of times at user groups people will be looking for people that can do DNN development, skinning, or even implementation. You’ll find interesting topics discussed at user group meetings, maybe even learning things about DNN that you didn’t know before. If you are interested you can probably give a presentation yourself, on a topic you are comfortable with of course, or even one that you want to learn. Prepping for a presentation is a great way to learn more about a topic.

You can also get free stuff at user group meetings, often times free DotNetNuke books, t-shirts, and even free software!

How do I join? Joining a DNN user group is free, you can register for one by visiting DotNetNuke.com’s User Groups page. Some user groups have their own websites that you can also register on to get notifications, here’s a sample listing of some of the groups, please feel free to add other links to the comments below.

• Denver DotNetNuke
• St. Louis DotNetNuke
• Orlando DotNetNuke
• Cleveland DotNetNuke
• Capital DotNetNuke
• Boston DotNetNuke
• Chicago DotNetNuke
• Connecticut DotNetNuke
• Tampa DotNetNuke<
• Seattle DotNetNuke

When are the meetings? Meeting locations, times, and topics will vary, so be sure to check out the events calendar on DotNetNuke.com for upcoming meetings.

Are you in Denver? If you are in the Denver area you should check out Denver DNNUG the local user group web site. We currently are having our meetings on the first Tuesday of the month at the local Microsoft offices, though we are working on finding a new location and meeting time. We’ll have more info on the website when it changes. On 12/1/2009 Wrox DotNetNuke author Darrell Hardy will be in Denver presenting on “Mission Critical DotNetNuke”.

Do you attend user group meetings, what do you think of the meetings, are there additional benefits not mentioned here?