Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is community and other technology fields. It seems like every programming language and at least a few operating systems have their own user group or meeting in the local area. Now maybe that’s due to the smaller community I’m currently in, but it seems like that was the case in Columbus, OH as well. In addition to this lack of community among people in the Networking, database, and storage communities; I wonder about the number of learn to code boot camps and kids programs geared toward programming. I realized a few things and I think the greater technology community needs to address them.

Number one on this list is community. If you work in a particular field of expertise, you should probably participate in that community. If there isn’t a local group that meets and you are in a town of any size, YOU should start that meeting to encourage others and pass along your knowledge. Even if it’s only two or three people that meet and talk about the specialization, there is something that could probably be shared. In view of that, I’m going to start a packet tracer meeting to chat with other network folks. Hopefully I can get at least a couple people to join me to chat about what’s new and cool in the network space.

Number two is finding a way to provide that experience and help people find out \ about those other branches of the Tech field. There is training out there for low cost or no cost, but it seems like programming is the cool thing and it makes everyone think that is what working in the technology sector is all about. There are other jobs and careers out there, in disciplines like networking, data analysis, storage, virtualization, servers, and desktop support. A major problem is gaining experience in those areas. Network gear, storage, and servers all cost real money and no one wants learners playing with their production systems. There has to be a good way to let people experiment and learn with hardware the same way we can break software and learn what works and what doesn’t without selling our left arm.

To try and help out with both these issues, I’ve got plans to start some sort of non-profit space to let people experiment, learn, and even gain some real world experience on production level equipment. I want a place that anyone can come and learn or experiment on something new without fearing that they might break things that “need five nines of uptime.” I’m not sure how I’m going to manage to keep it going for long, but I do have a few grandiose ideas. Getting it started should definitely help the technology community, local community, and businesses alike. Long Live Inner City Computing!

That’s today’s rant. Hopefully it got someone else besides me energized and didn’t upset anyone too badly. Maybe the next post won’t take so long to materialize.