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January 5, 2006
Switching communities
As I mentioned yesterday, I'm in process of moving to a new job.
On top of the normal year-end cleaning I was doing (something GTD highly recommends), I was also wrapping things up at UEN and getting ready for my new job. That ended up being a much more significant undertaking than I'd anticipated. This job change is a lot more than just a different employer (and what normally comes with that). I'm leaving a community I've been part of for more than a decade, and building new ties to a community much closer to home.
I've been part of the service provider industry since only the geekiest of geeks knew what an ISP was (1994 to be specific). Over the last 12 years, I've developed many relationships within that community, which is mostly located (in the US) on the east coast and some other larger cities, but very few in Utah (I've probably attended more service provider community conferences than everyone else in Utah combined).
During the last two weeks, I've slowly unraveled myself from the service provider community and started exploring the Utah IT community. The experience reminded me of my switch from Windows (after about 12 years as a Windows power-user) to Mac OS X. There was definitely something very real about unsubscribing from the NANOG (the core community of service providers in the US) mailing list after 10 years.
A few weeks ago I went to my first Utah Geek Dinner. This was before I had gotten an offer from Linux Networx, and I was mostly interested in seeing what was going on with the Utah technology community. While listening to Phil talk about the vibrant tech community he had left behind in San Francisco, and how he (and others) wanted to develop the same community in Utah, I developed an intense interest in getting involved with the Utah tech community and helping to develop the community Phil described.
I'm looking forward to the next Geek Dinner (tentatively planned for January 17 at Thanksgiving point, hopefully the details will be posted soon) and meeting more of the Utah tech community (I think I only got to talk to about 10 people at the last Geek Dinner, this time I'll have to be more efficient). Also decided to go to the next Ruby user's group meeting. It's been a long time since I've gone to a Utah user's group meeting, and I'm excited about it.
Update: I just found a blog entry where Phil Burns talks in detail about the vision he shared at the Geek Dinner (starts with the fifth paragraph, about half-way down).
Posted by pete at January 5, 2006 10:43 PM
Comments
Congrats on the new job Pete. I know you will be missed at UEN. Lucky I made the jump to the private sector before you abandoned UEN. ;)
Regards,
Spence
Posted by: Spence Flandro at February 1, 2006 1:43 PM