TechConnect Series: Madison Meetups

One of the best things about working in an office with a large-ish staff is the opportunity to connect with other technophiles to share knowledge and exchange ideas on our favorite subjects. But we also know that there’s a great big world out there full of excellent information and lots of good opportunities to make connections with other professionals in the field. Building on our tech podcast post, Amanda started this series on ways to connect with the tech community, both locally and beyond. In today’s post she introduces you to several Madison-area Meetup groups and shares a few staff favorites with you. Please feel free to let us know if there are any you think we should add to the list.   Meetups are organized groups of people with common interests. They usually have speakers come and talk about a topic of interest to the group. This is a great way to learn, network and make new friends. Here are a few active groups in the Madison area, but there are many, many more: Big Data Madison We’re big fans of this meetup – and not just because our very own resident VP of Data Engineering, Pitt Fagan is the organizer. We like that it is one of the most popular meetups in the area and the topics have such broad relevance in this era of data. Madison PHP Madison PHP is a place where anyone interested in PHP can get together to learn and share new things related to PHP. Everyone is welcome, whether you’ve never written a line of code before or if you’re an expert. Madison Area Software Developers Meet and drink beer with other local Software Developers. Discuss various programming languages and techniques, software architecture, cross-platform development, iPhone development, etc. We’re an informal, social group designed to get most of us out of the office/home. Madison JavaScript User Group Madison professionals, enthusiasts, and hobbyists who share a passion for great JavaScript, and making JavaScript work for them and their users through terrific, engaging, and intuitive apps. MADdotNET MADdotNET is Madison Wisconsin’s FREE and open to everyone Microsoft .NET Community user group. Come network with the premier .NET developers and enthusiasts! Madison Women in Tech Designers, developers and everything in between. Join other Madison women interested in learning, teaching, and building a community of women in technology. Madison Web Design & Development This meetup meets monthly to discuss various aspects of web design and development, including Adobe Creative Suite, CSS, LESS, SASS, HTML5, Content Management Systems (CMS), Workflow, UI, Javascript, Flash, Video, Server madness, Social media… and much more. gener8tor OpenBETA Spring Lunch Series Each week gener8tor’s meetup feature leaders from Madison’s startup community and cover a range of topics including startup metrics, fundraising, pitching, and hiring. Mad-Railers All things Ruby and Rails!