Events, News, Jobs And Lots of Beer – Updates for 9/21/2011

Caution: This update is 13 percent alcohol by volume.

No, not because I’ve been drinking before sitting down to write it, but simply because we have an awful lot of things going on that involve alcohol in some form or another.  We’re apparently starting to take that “…one beer at a time” thing more seriously these days.

There’s an Octoberfest event this weekend you might want to check out, we’ve got our Mini-Social and Party Bus Tour coming up on October 6th along with a casual networking social event taking place on October 20th, and then something actually not beer/drinking related (at least not initially…but you know us, we’ll find a way to warp it to our needs…) is the DevDay conference coming up that you can get a nifty discount code for just be stopping by here and reading…oh, problem solved.  It’s in the Compuware building, where Hard Rock Cafe is.  Now to figure out how to bend TedxDetroit to our collective will next week…

Phew.  Seems like a lot, huh?  Oh, we haven’t even finished yet either…but let’s go ahead and get through some details so that we can move on to other things…

For those of you that don’t know, Bob’s involved with the German American Marksmanship Club…which for some reason involving bizarre German acronyms lives at www.dasv.org.  Yes, Bob is involved in a club that involves drinking a lot of beer (you’re shocked, I know) and guns (this fact still frightens me), but let’s forget about the guns for a moment and talk about this weekend, that wonderful time of the year when those whacky Germans celebrate something called Octoberfest in the month of September.  There’s a lot of beer.  And the Jager girls.  And German food.  But, most importantly…beer and the Jager girls.  I’m planning on being there, and you should too, because it’s going to be a good time.  Plus, admission’s free if you check in via Facebook when you get there.  They’ve got an event out on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180399058698889 or you can check them out at their site as well.

Next stop, Thursday October 6th, and the Great ITintheD.com Mini-Social and Party Bus Tour of 2011.  $30.  A guided tour of cool, hidden, out of the way bars in downtown Detroit.  We’re really looking forward to it.  And since the party bus portion of the evning  isn’t technically an IT networking event, feel free to pick up a ticket for yourself, the spouse, get your friends to come…we just want a good crew of folks that want to have fun come along for the adventure.  The IT networking event for the night will continue at the BlackFinn, so you’ve got options.

After that, we’ll be at Dragonmead Brewery on Thursday, October 20th for a real, honest to goodness, we’re not going anywhere else that night Casual Networking Social.  Dragonmead supplies their awesome beer to many of the best establishments all over the place, so why not go right to the source, right?  Right.  So, that’s where we’ll be, and that’s where you should be, too.

After that…well, we’ve got events getting scheduled and updated all of the time, so make sure you keep an eye on our Events page out at http://www.ITinTheD.com/meet/ for details as things come together.

Now, that’s not to say that we’re the only game in town, nor is that all that one, two, or all three of us will be taking part in over the course of the next few weeks.

TedxDetroit is next week, and I believe tickets are still available.  I’ll be honest with you – some of the stuff can come off a little hippy-ish, and some of the folks are so far gone and out there in hypothetical and “perfect world” dreamstate that you’ll never pull them back from the edge…but that’s the minority.  The majority is a lot of very, very cool things going on that you can find out about by attending this event, not to mention a boatload of seriously cool people you should meet and add into your network, and so it’s absolutely something that I take the time to attend.

For you .Net folks out there, you’ll likely want to check out the MI-GANG meeting this evening.  They’re way more structured than we are (read: “they…gasp…have agendas and speakers and stuff”), but they balance that out by also having some cool giveaways that flood my Twitter timeline every time they get together.  Also on that front, congratulations to them for hitting the 10 year mark, which they’re celebrating on Saturday, October 1st with an all day conference.

Speaking of conferences, you’ll want to check out the discount setup for ITintheD.com members for the 1DevDay Detroit event taking place on Saturday, November 5th.

In other news about us (you know, just to round things out), got a great note from someone at last Thursday’s Pink Slip Party event:

“Thank You, last night was great I actually connected with recruiters with direct knowledge of some current jobs…”

…as well as quite a few others, and notes on our Facebook page out at http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD  As always, thank you for the notes, and we’re really glad that people find our events worthwhile.

Oh, and we did win the Most Valuable Blogger award.  Thank you all for that as well!  We’re actually currently talking with the folks at CBS about some fun things we might be able to get involved with that can help the local networking community, so keep an eye on future updates for details.

In our LinkedIn group, we’ve got some nice conversations rolling, everything from what’s needed to bring more jobs back state-side, how to add volunteer experience to your LinkedIn profile, network security in a world where people bring and supply their own devices at work, and so much more.  Check it out at http://www.linkedin.com/groups/ITintheDorg-Detroit-Networking-Events-IT-91763?gid=91763

And, of course, we’ve also got jobs sitting on our LinkedIn group.  If you’re in the market, you should absolutely make sure you pop in and see what’s out there.  If you’re wondering how to post jobs within our group, read the handy primer we did located here: http://www.ITinTheD.com/1153/how-to-post-jobs-with-ITintheD-org/

I think that’s about it.  Not that there’s not a lot there…but I think that’s all for this time, folks.

Regards,

Bob, Dave and Jeff

ITintheD.com
On the web: http://www.ITinTheD.org
On LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=91763
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD
On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD