Technically Philly Groups

Learning and Networking
Have you ever wanted to talk to other people using your favorite new development language--but just didn't know where to go? Have you ever wanted ideas on how to improve your teamwork or software development life cycle? Or do you just want to network--trying to find a job or trying to find good recruits?  Imagine a place you could go meet talented and passionate software team members--and you only had to wait for the right day of the week, since we've got events booked every week for the foreseeable future!  Welcome to Technically Philly Groups, a consortium of existing technical user groups in the greater Philadelphia region and an incubator for your favorite topic!


Values

Technically Philly Groups is founded on the following principles:

• Serve Others: we all do better when we share what we've got. Sometimes all we have to share is curiosity; other ways we can serve are to: teach; sponsor food for an event; bring a friend to an event.  We believe in, and live by the principles of, a gift economy.
• Create Relationships: we care about the long-term sustainability; we seek win-win opportunities by getting to know one another well enough that we can treat others the way they'd like to be treated.
• Increase Learning: the more we learn, apply what we learn, and validate that it's useful, the better we'll be at our jobs (whether we're in a start-up environment, academic institution, public service, or established business). The purpose of our meeting together is to learn from one another, and to accelerate our ability to deliver results in our software/technical environments. We also believe that learning is maximized when we're having fun--and joy at our events is closely tied to supporting autonomy, mastery, and purpose in the way we structure discussions.

We expect Technically Philly Groups events to be a hub of innovation, communication, and learning. We know that by uniting together we'll help build a more common language for talking about technology, ideas will spread faster, and we'll be able to show what topics we value.

History & How to Join
On June 15, 2011, organizers from 21 user groups founded Technically Philly Groups. Since then we've helped promote one another's events, attracted another 10 groups,  held co-located events, and have shared sponsor money to feed our attendees for free. If your group would like to join, contact us at http://groups.google.com/group/tech-philly-organizers.