I just read Geoff’s post and it inspired me to write a bit on the same topic, and introduce a few other groups, or sources of “seeds” if you will.

Over the last two years I have noticed a tremendous upswing in the amount of individuals interested in attending local user group meetings, professional groups and other associations in the Philadelphia and surrounding areas. Everyone from students, to retirees, to designers, to developers and certified professionals and artists from a broad spectrum of backgrounds and skill sets. They have been coming from all over to attend events in and around the city and to get involved in community related groups, either to learn or give back to the community at large by contributing time, presentations or simply support by showing up at meetings. I’m very excited by the continued momentum that I have witnessed at recent local events. Specifically, I have watched the attendance in the user group I manage: The Philadelphia Flash Platform Adobe User Group, soar over the the last several meetings. We also had very good attendance for the first Philadelphia Area Flex User Group last week (it might have been even higher, but we had some competition by scheduling it right in the middle of Blogphiladelphia last week). Several other local groups including PANMA are also experiencing decent growth. Events like Junto are also growing at each meeting.

One of the most well attended meetings of another local group I am a member of, was the Art Buggy Derby event back in April that had a huge turnout and made the local news and articles in the Philly Inquirer. The Art Buggy Derby was an event that grew out of the local Make:Philly group meetings. This group was formed in early 2006 and was inspired by the approach and spirit of “makers”, specifically O’Reilly’s Make:Magazine. This group has steadily grown over the last year and half, and the first annual Summer BBQ with water powered rockets is the next event on August 5th. This event should have a great turnout as well and promises to be a really fun time. I for one can’t wait to see what kind of water-powered kinetic energy is unleashed upon us in Fairmount Park. The diversity of the attendees and members of the Make:Philly group is really interesting as all the members seem to have the greatest variety in the range of skillsets and backgrounds (electrical engineers to special effects makeup to animatronics to software development, you name it), which makes for some very interesting conversations, presentations and networking opportunities.

I have found over the past 7 years (I moved to Philadelphia from Fort Lauderdale, FL on January 1st, 2000) that I have made quite a number of real friendships and plenty of great business contacts simply by attending local events and user groups and sharing my passions with others. I actually wrote about this very topic in greater detail for another local group, The Philadelphia Creative Guide last year when I joined their advisory board. If you spend a few minutes looking through the listings at their site, you’ll see a huge array of varied talents and disciplines all right here in Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs and neighboring cities. The Philadelphia Creative Guide also put together one of the best events this past December by uniting many other local groups in a Creative Mega Social to benefit the Toys for Tots organization – the event was a smash hit, and nearly a dozen local groups were in full force. The venue was really great as well, it took place at the North Bowl Lounge n’ Lanes in Northern Liberties. I am looking forward to this years Mega Social, and hope even more local groups will participate this year.

I did not get a chance to spend as much time as I would have liked at Blogphiladelphia thanks to some inopportune timing on deadlines for a few projects I’m working on, but everything that I have heard/read was that it was a smash hit. So, in keeping with the theme of local groups, and geeks and driving momentum, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out another great event that will be taking place August 22nd in Philadelphia. The Adobe AIR Bus Tour will be making a special stop in Philadelphia at the Fels Planetarium in the Franklin Institute. I have more information about the event here as well as an entry about the Hot AIR Contest we are running in conjunction with the meeting. I encourage all you fellow geeks who are interested in HTML/JavaScript/Flash/Flex/AIR (not to mention the FREE FOOD, BEER and Video Games) to register for the event and attend, it should be a really cool event. Also, please consider putting together an entry for the contest, We have some really great prizes to award and your work will make it’s way in front of a lot of people including Adobe staffers from the bus, who will be assisting in judging. If you are a winner, you’ll even get to demo your application during the event – a great way to pick up work and quite a nice addition to your resume.

I am hoping that the greater the attendance we get at this event, the more it will help maintain the growth, excitement and momentum we have all been feeling lately. If we can sustain this frenzied level, I am certain it will continue to lead to an even greater concentration of talent and interest in the Philadelphia area not just for the established communities within, but for outsiders looking at Philadelphia as a hot place to hold events.