Professional ORGs and their importance
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In college, I was a member of NSBE. But after college There wasn’t a post-college NSBE organization in Mobile, Alabama or in Tarrant County, Texas (There’s one on Lockheed Martin’s campus but its geared towards LM’s employees). It’s easy to read a few go to work, read a few blogs, and subscribe to a magazine. But sometimes as a Professional, we need the social aspect of conversation with like-minded individuals about topics in our profession. Such conversations keeps you up-to-date and lively. It’s kind of ironic that an IT professional seeks social, professional organizations since most are perceived to be extreme introverts, but again I am different and I also see the need to participate in such events for career development. Luckily, Dallas-Fort Worth is a good location for such organizations. It’s not quite Silicon Valley nor Greater New York, or even Austin for that matter – but it has a great, warm IT community from my experiences. You can find some active groups with quality, productive meetings and programs on MeetUp.com. Just enter your area of interest or activity and attend the next meeting! I have participated in several of the Fort Worth ASP.Net’s User Group meetings. Received great lectures from some of the Microsoft ASP.NET MVPs, kept me up to date with some of the new technology and direction of Mirosoft from a developer’s perspective, and of course the Freebies. I also found out about NBITLO, an organization founded in 2009 by Andrew West. NBITLO is a national organization that holds an annual Tech Weekend, but also has several other functions that has expanded my network and attached me with individuals with similar backgrounds and a unified passion to expose more Black youth to technology and STEM. I have had job opportunities presented from both organizations – so there’s definitely that aspect as well.
“Too many wanna-be actors instead of achieving their masters
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