Building Community with the (US)NUA

The USNUA is the national parent organization for dozens of local tech meetups all over the United States, many of which I've had the personal privilege of attending, and one of which I lead with my friend Zig Zsiga here in upstate New York in the Saratoga Springs area.

Now these tech meetups, these local, networking user groups, these NUGS really are fantastic. And I've made so many friends, made new contacts in our industry, and learned so much that there really wasn't much else I could do but get some of the founders of the USNUA on today's episode. So with us is Jason Gintert and Chris Kane to tell us what the USNUA is all about, how it got started, and where things are going this year. A ton of fun as always, so thanks so much for tuning in today. My name is Philip Gervasi, and this is Telemetry Now.

So Jason and Chris, welcome to the podcast. It is great to have you guys on. I have worked with you guys time and time again on various events. Obviously, the upstate New York NUG that I lead up in, in in my area in the capital region, specifically Saratoga Springs. But having been to so many events, I have worked with you guys so often. I feel like this is just like a powwow among friends.

But for the audience listening now, I I think it would be great to give give you guys give you guys an opportunity to introduce yourselves. So why don't we do that? Jason, let's start with you, if you don't mind.

Sure. Thanks, Phil. Yeah. And then I and I feel like, you're you're a member of the USNUA family. You know, we have worked a lot a lot together in these events.

So That warms my heart, Jason.

Thank you.

Real really good to have you as a part of the community. So I'm Jason Gintert . I am one of the cofounders and, community organizers with the USNUA.

So assist with, enablement for for new chapters and, just driving the USNUA mission, which, I'm sure we'll talk a lot about on on today's show.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Great. Thanks. And and, Chris, what about you?

Yeah. Similar to Jason, one of the original members of the USNUAs. It started out as the Ohio Network and User Group.

And, you know, day job is I'm a network engineer for, gosh, hate to admit, thirty years now. I think we're ballparked thirty years. Years. We are all getting very old.

And, yeah, help with inaugural events. You know, the our event coordinators handle most of the planning these days. So Jason and I just get to show up and and talk and mingle and shake hands and, just try to help contribute to the events and then the, the ongoing conversations between the events.

Are are you guys both based in Ohio? We are.

We are. We are. I mean, Jason's way up yonder. He's up north in in northeast Ohio. Okay. I'm I'm in the more the center of Ohio, I guess. I'm I'm just east of Columbus.

Oh, okay. Okay. So that so then you you both lead different events then, right, in Ohio?

Yeah. Oftentimes, I I feel like, we're we're running different directions for whether the events are in Ohio or really anywhere in the continental US.

Right. Yeah. No. Definitely. I've seen you both at events all over the country, coast to coast, almost coast to coast at this point.

So but but, I I think we need to level set. Sorry for you for using the management term, level set. I I hate those things, but it does work. I I wanna ask I already know the answer to this.

But for our audience's sake, what is the USNUA? First of all, what does that mean? But what is the USNUA? What is this organization all about?

What's your goal?

You know, where where how did you start? So let's start with that, and I'll leave it between the two of you guys to to explain to me.

Sure.

Well, I'm happy to get get started. So USNUA is the US Networking User Association, and it is an umbrella organization that that has a a bunch of subchapters inside that we call networking user groups.

We started off, making these, you know, state based. So, actually, the first one was the Ohio networking user group because Chris and I are both in Ohio. Okay. It being the the founding chapter and and the way we got started.

And really, the the genesis came from us looking around at the at the, you know, the technical community and seeing that, you know, v m, VMware users had the the VMUGs. Linux users had, you know, LUGs, Linux user groups. Mhmm. There was network operator groups like NANOG, CHINOG, BOSNOG.

There's all these different groups for, you know, folks who are like minded in in in similar industries to get together. But we wondered, you know, where was where was the place for, enterprise, network engineers to really sit and and talk shop, and service provider, engineers too. Just engineers, in region to maybe share a beer, share war stories, and, talk about the new cool things that they're working with. So that's really, you know, how it came to be.

So started in Ohio. And then when COVID happened, we kinda had to shut things down, peel things back a bit. And during that time, we said, hey. Maybe we could we could take this, replicate it elsewhere, like, really take what we built in Ohio, and then and then make it, you know, kinda make a template for it where where it's repeatable, easy to deploy in other regions. So Interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's it was during COVID when we were not doing any kind of events, meetups or large events or anything, really. That's when the sort of genesis happened where you decided to take the what was happening locally in Ohio on a on a broader scale.

Exactly.

Exactly.

I didn't know that.

Okay.

Yeah. And we had, you know, and we had states adjacent to Ohio, peep folks that ended up coming down from Michigan or over from Indiana to, Ohio based events, and they and they were they kept asking, how do we do this where where we are? And then that's yeah. During that time, we we put together that plan and and started to build out infrastructure to to manage that. And, you know, at this point, we're, you know, we're up to to thirty two chapters and growing.

So, in in you know, in fact, it encourage people to check out the the site USNUA dot com, to see if there's, you know, a group a group near them that they can be a part of. But, yeah, we keep adding more and more all the time.

Okay. So each individual NUG or network networking user group is a chapter of the parent organization, the USNUA. But I I gotta ask you, and you guys can both answer, which is the best NUG of the thirty two chapters? This is a trick question.

So Chris, do you have any thoughts there?

Well, I guess, you know, to be, to be an engineer is to ask for clarification. Best based off of what rating?

Based on all ratings, it's the upstate New York NUG in Saratoga Springs. Chris. Yeah. That was a gimme.

Suspect to do it.

Yeah. Exactly. I I felt a trap there. Yeah. Yeah. Always a trap.

Now now, Chris, you were one of the founding members. Can you tell us tell tell us a little bit about how the USNUA began? I mean, we already heard a little bit about, you know, during COVID, how there was a genesis of expanding outside of Ohio to a national scale. But but why do anything with meetups? What was your involvement with that from the very beginning?

Yeah. As Jason mentioned, kinda looking around and seeing that there were there were other events that people could join, you know, that had a, like, a common technology feel to it or maybe a common user end user grouping to it.

And for us, you know, we're because our first event was around, I think it was February of twenty seventeen.

So if you think back to that time frame, you know, for the enterprise network engineers, we were hearing a lot about SDN.

We were hearing a lot about programmability.

You know, we thought there would just be these incredibly smart controllers that that do all the work and and we wouldn't have to memorize things like BGP's TCP number anymore, right, that that, we would move less from configuring and designing and maybe more to programming.

And we a lot of there's a lot of pushback against that. I mean, obviously, you know, network, automation still isn't where, folks would like it to be on a on a maturity model scale. But, what what we noticed out of that, though, is is we are watching that kinda DevOps community.

You know, we were thinking, okay, maybe we have to go that direction.

One of the things that we noticed was just the collaboration, the openness, that those folks seem to have. You know? Somebody would somebody would solve a problem having written a script or a playbook as an example maybe, and then they would just post it up on Git, share a link, and, hey. Grab this.

Make it your own. Feel free to use it. And they also seem to be very open about collaborating on solving problems, sharing information. And and we just we weren't seeing that in the network engineering community at the time.

So we thought, you know, even if we're anti programmability at the moment, you know, it might take us a little time to to come around to that. What would could we do in the meantime? And it was, you know, why don't we get network engineers together? Yeah.

So the idea, you know, if we could approach it as maybe a a think global but act local Mhmm.

Where, hey, let's just have a small group of engineers to get together and just talk about some of the problems they're trying to solve, share technology information. You know, I tried this tech, and either it worked or, you know, it didn't work. This is what I liked about it. This is what I didn't like about it. So the idea was, you know, let's let's just have something in our own backyard to meet our peers. And I think a lot of that was also around, you know, I don't know how many times all three of us travel for work, and you guys have probably experienced this as well. You know, I may travel to the West Coast to attend some conference.

Somebody could walk up to a booth, introduce themselves, and lo and behold, it turns out they're a fellow network engineer and they live in the same city as I do. Holy cow. I didn't know you, and it took, you know, a conference halfway around the the country for us to to be introduced. So, yeah, I think for us, starting off, in Ohio, not yet having the vision of, you know, growing into the USNUA Right. The idea of just, hey.

Let me meet folks that are right here in my own backyard, and and grow that Rolodex, if you will, of connections here just geographically close to you.

Yeah. I I remember you know? And I've attended a lot of Cisco Live events, and I've been to NANOG a bunch of times. NANOG is a little a lot smaller than Cisco Live.

But really what I'm trying to say is that a lot of these events are very large. Right? And they're often, you you know, like, one way as far as the, you know, the main speaker to a large audience. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with that.

I enjoy those things.

But I always really enjoyed the hallway conversations, like, at a Cisco Live. Right?

Even those, like, technical workshops where there'd be, like, a hundred people, even those are a little bit on the large side. And so I always really valued like connecting with folks in the hallway and just talking shop.

And so I think that's one of the things that I personally really value about the USNU events, all the all the individual nugs. And, and I think that's probably and this is just my opinion. One of the things that, differentiates the USNUA events from all the other events out there. I know there are other technical or tech meetups, whatever. There's one in the capital region of New York where I live, but it's also very vendor driven. You know what I mean?

That's something that I like, I've never I've I've been to one in in the area. I I don't mean the USNUA. I mean, this other this other group. I've been to one, and it was just, you know, it was vendors giving their pitches and then everybody having drinks and cocktails and stuff, which is awesome, by the way. I mean, that's cool.

But I did notice that flavor of the event. It was very vendor driven. Now one thing I I believe is that well, I mean, like, I'm a network engineer. At least I was a network engineer, so I used the technology from those vendors.

Constant sales pitch. How how does the USNUA look at that and handle that and and how does that work with with your organization?

And then you bring up a good point, that we probably should should have mentioned sooner. Oh, these these events are, you know, vendor neutral in in the way that there is no sales pitch. We're not pushing anybody's product or service.

There are sponsors that that that do sponsor the events. And and thank you thank you to our sponsors like Kentik for, you know, putting down, their their dollars to help us run these these events and get these people together. But when you get to the event, there's no agenda as far as that goes.

The aim would be the, you know, the learning, the networking with others, and, you know, really that that community building.

So, you know, the the way the the events typically looks at the format that they take is, we'll typically have a a presentation, hopefully done by by someone local in the community.

That's what we try to encourage. Sometimes, you know, they're they're for whatever reason, that doesn't happen. So, you know, Chris or, you know, myself or even you, Philip. I know you've given some presentations at at, some of these NUG events as well.

Mhmm. We'll we'll pop in and and provide, you know, what knowledge you, we can share with, with the folks locally. But it it it's a vendor neutral presentation, so it's about, you know, either open open standards, open technologies, you know, trends you need to be aware of in, certain, segments, cool projects that have happened. Good example, we had a a a local, grocery retailer here in Ohio present on open source routers that they built for all their stores.

And it's just, you know, most most of the time, it'll get very fascinating conversation and and cool stuff to learn. And then, you know, we have a little mixer. We try to yeah. Like you mentioned, the social component of these events is really important.

So allowing space for that, we we, you know, we try to, at the beginning, have an open mingle session before the presentation. In between the presentation and a discussion panel that we we end the night with, we allow some time there as well. But, that discussion panel will try to get, people local to the community who work for enterprises or service providers, network practitioners, who are out there doing the work every day, to talk about, you know, the the problems they encounter, new technologies that they've worked with that they like, and, where they get their news from, all kinds of great stuff.

I mean, we like to rotate these, list of questions quarterly to keep things fresh, you know, but the local organizers are also welcome to add their own flavor to this. So if they wanna incorporate their own questions, things that they think would be relevant to their community, we we encourage that. And and we that's one really important aspect is is allowing the local, that that local group to really create an experience, that's all their own.

Oh, totally. Yeah. I remember being up in Burlington, Vermont, and we AJ Murray's group. Right?

And we were talking I was on the panel. I wasn't a a speaker. I was on a panel for this one, and we're talking about whatever. And, you know, as panelists, you're given the the questions.

You know what we're gonna be talking about. Maybe you do some research. Yeah. I'll be prepared.

And I had, like, five or eight questions. I think we maybe got through two.

And it was what the folks sitting there, you know, eating pretzel bites and chicken wings or whatever the food was and and drinking beers, were interested in talking about because it was very interactive. And so that's that's that's what it was. You know? AJ just camped on what folks were interested on, and it was great.

Yes. I admit it was, like, largely AI.

Now I think AI probably elicits more of an eye roll than anything else. But at the time, it was still new enough, but, that it was, that it was great fodder for conversation. But I do I do recognize that. It's very, interactive, and very fluid.

You know, I I I know that having led a few, Nuggs myself and then having also, been the, you know, a speaker or a panelist at Nuggs around the country, You know, it it's not that we're shooting, you know, by the hip or whatever the phrase is, but it's certainly interactive. There are certainly people with opinions and disagreements, and I think that's that's that's really, really important that there's no vendor pitch per se, and there's no, like, formality about it. It really is just a bunch of nerds, thirty, forty, fifty or more, technologists getting together. Now that's actually something I wanted to mention.

I have noticed, and you guys can disagree with me on this, that, though the the name is USNUA as in networking, right, networking user groups, I get all sorts of technologists that show up at the one in New York.

We get folks that are systems engineers, that are a lot more on the, you know, the DevOps side, but, you know, dabble with networking, that just wanna connect with other engineers. I mean, what are your thoughts about that? Is it really purely a a networking focused organization?

I'd say I mean, it it starts there. It starts and to be even more specific, you know, the practitioners. Right?

Yeah.

Right. So a little less you know, when you think about who you're gonna meet at these events, you know, they're they're primarily your buddies, your peers. Right?

Yep.

The the the folks that would be in a foxhole of a maintenance window with you, right, for for those late night maintenance windows.

So maybe a few managers or directors, but, for the most part, no c suite. So Yeah. And and it and it did start very centric to that. And I'd I'd it probably stays around sixty to seventy percent of the content and the conversations are probably you know, still come back to networking. Mhmm. But we have certainly seen a lot of the adjacent technology start to creep in. Security is a good example.

That becomes a big topic where even, you know, if you're a larger organization, you may have distinct groups and roles for security, versus, you know, networking. You know? You know? It could even be the the firewall are configured by the networking team, and security means something entirely different now inside those orgs.

But we need to collaborate. Right? And I and I think it's super helpful when networking folks are or or or, excuse me, when security folks are there to talk to us to get give us their viewpoint, because we we have our viewpoint. We always feel like we're the caboose of a project.

And and when you talk to them, you find out, no. Actually, it's probably securities, the last one thought of in a lot of, corporate projects and and new application rollouts.

So we enjoy them being there. We've had folks come and present on, you know, how to talk budgets within the business. So, you know, if if your intent is to build something great, you need money to do that, and and we've had folks that have presented folks that actually were in c suite roles present and explain, well, this is often how a budget works. You're gonna be fighting with the other teams. It's, you know, giving coaching on how to collaborate with your peers and those other technology silos in your organization to to come up with an agreement on how you'll share some of those dollars.

We've had, some career advice type conversations Yep. And presentations as well. Right? So it's not just that you know, we mentioned, the three of us have been in the industry for quite some time, but we also see a lot of youth, coming in now as well.

So for them to get guidance on, you know, how to how to develop yourself career wise, is an element of it as well. And I and I think a lot of the AI work that's going on, you know, if you're if you're more on the infrastructure side than the application side of that, we're all having to pay a little more attention to each other. You know, I'd all of a sudden, I find myself more aware of storage or more aware of compute or, you know, caring about memory, things that I had not focused on before. Right?

And I think that's all creeping in, to these. And it's welcome creep. Yeah. Right? Where where it's it's a good thing to have that kind of mash up.

So, Chris, let me direct this one to you. Let's say that I go to the USNUA dot com website. I go to groups and events or whatever the the menu is. Right? And I find an event near me. Right? Whether it's a brand new one or it's been, you know, going on for months and years.

What can I expect if I am new to an event and I just I'm attending for the first time?

Yeah. A big old welcome, and we'll put you in front of everybody and try to embarrass you.

Oh, boy. And and free beer.

I Not at all. No.

So generally speaking, I'd I'd say we we loosely have a a an agenda that most events follow. Usually, we'll we'll have a start time. Right? Recommend people, hey.

Show up around, let's just call that four o'clock or five o'clock. We usually, allow for a little mingle time. So the idea is, hey. Grab a beer.

Grab some of that food and, and then go meet with, you know, new folks in the area, or you may be reconnecting with coworkers you haven't seen in years. That's happened to me on more than one occasion.

Just bumping into somebody, there at the event. So you'll, you know, ideally, you'll you'll say hello and sit down, take a seat, and then the emcee, the person leading the event is usually the local event group leader or leaders.

And, they'll do an introduction.

Certainly, a thank you to our sponsors. None of this would be possible without help from our sponsors.

And then, oftentimes, we'll have, like, one presenter, where they'll talk about a topic, maybe forty five minutes or sixty minutes.

Those topics, like, recent examples could be, their them explaining their automation journey inside the organization. Or or, hey, they renewed a EVPN VXLAN. They rolled it out, and this would, you know, x y z experience that they had.

So they'll talk about an hour. Then usually, we like to take a break, refill those beers, and then, usually set up for a panel.

So mentioning the q and a panel and the idea of we'd like to put three or four of your peers in front of the room, with the MC person asking some questions.

Yeah. And if if we veer off of that question list, you know, that's fantastic. That means we have, you know, a lot of interaction and conversation happening, not not only with the panelist and the MC person, but with the attendees in the crowd. So Yeah.

Talking about a topic, share your opinion or your experiences, steer it in a completely different direction, whatever you wanna wanna do there. But, the idea is overall, whether you're a presenter, whether you're a panelist, or you're just an attendee, that, the idea is that this is a platform now, right, where you can share your opinions, with one another. For people that are honing their presentation skills, this is a platform for which they could present at. So, like, to to to go back to your example, Cisco Live, you know, bully for you if you get a speaking slot there, but you may not be used to working a room of five hundred people.

So with our the nature of our small groups, I think it's a safer place for some folks to to hone their presentation skills or or panelist time. So and then you usually wrap up a little bit of mingle afterwards. So you're probably talking about, like, a three or four hour type time frame, that you would come and hang out, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday during the week. Mhmm.

How how many people normally I mean, I'm sure it varies based on the time of year and the particular location. But if you were to give me a number or a range, how many people show up to these, NOG meetups?

I'd say, probably, on average, it's probably around thirty or thirty five are typically there. We have some groups that run regularly at fifty. You know, some of our mature groups, you know, earlier when you're asking about which which one's the best group, you know, has to be Yeah. I was thinking about not only the origin story of the Ohio node, but thinking, you know, Indiana's NUG has done very well, typically has over fifty people in attendance there, a great run rate. The one up in Connecticut, similarly, you know, fifty or sixty people regularly there.

And then Nebraska, I mean, my gosh, you know, Isaac and Tim running in Nebraska, and they were they're regularly, like, seventy five or eighty people at the point. Right? Where, like, we they're they're kinda busting out the walls there to accommodate everybody.

Occasionally, it could get over a hundred. It doesn't happen too often. I'd say up in Jason's neck of the woods when we do the Cleveland event, around Halloween every year. You know, it's our longest running event, and and that probably has a lot to do with the amount of people there. But more than once, we've we've had a wait list because we've exceeded over a hundred people.

Yeah. I know there is a dynamic, and there are a lot of different factors that play into that.

You know, I I I grew up in the New York City area. Was just down in the the New York NUG the New York City NUG rather.

And, you know, that's a different dynamic than Nebraska, for example. I know that folks at the end of the workday are like, I gotta catch a train. You know, I gotta catch the Long Island Railroad or the path or whatever. I'm not sticking so so there are different dynamics for Nuggs, and, what I found is that the folks that show up, they're really interested. Like, they have made an effort to be there.

Yes. The food and the drink is free, so there is an incentive for sure.

But I don't I don't I really don't think that's that. Yes. It's an incentive, but I don't think that's the most compelling reason people show up. I mean, I have led enough of these now and been to enough of these where the, the comments and the feedback that I get after the fact are largely about, I can't believe I met so and so. I haven't I haven't seen them in ten years, just like you said, Chris. Right?

I mean, I I think I don't know who it was. I think it was Jason who said, like, we'll share a beer. I'm not sharing my beer with anybody, first of all.

But I do know what you meant. Like, that is a compelling reason to go. It's it's an enjoyable time to hang out. But, man, the the connections that you make that, you know, in your area and the folks that are coming in from outside your area, it's just phenomenal.

So, Jason, let me let me direct this one to you. Let's say I show up to an event and I, you know, I connect with some people that I haven't connected with in a long time.

How how do I stay in communication with folks, that I meet at an event?

Great question. The best way, we have a Slack, Slack group that, our community communicates in. And, you know, you have that we have a a number of of channels in there, not just the the local chapters themselves. They have their own individual channels, but there's, you know, fun, fun other ones like like, there's a beer channel. There's a books channel.

Chris is pretty active sharing, the the newest thing he's read there. Mhmm. And a number of other, subchannels in there to to talk about, you know, more specific things. But, that's a great place to interact with with your peers, you know, after an event, and even, you know, communicate with other, other chapters.

So other, USNUA members, all across the country. Yeah. They're all kinda represented in there. There's a number of resources on our on our page too, to follow-up on on information.

So, you know, we we had do have a a member section of the USNUA site where you can find other resources like the some of the slide presentations that, have been, displayed at the events. You can also find recordings of the events. I know in, you know, one of the PA NUGS in in Philly, they they made a podcast recording of, the panel discussion at their event.

So Oh, yeah.

That would be awesome. I listened to that.

Yeah. So you can find that recording, in the member section.

There's some other videos and resources, and we're gonna be building, up the content in in that section. So, good place to to follow-up there.

And then I would also encourage, you know, one once you become a member, I really would encourage the membership even if you're not interested in in the resources in there.

Though they are cool, and I would hope most people would be interested. But if you sign up, you and you put your email address in, we're gonna send you updates about the, you know, the the upcoming events in your area Yeah. Which is right now our primary means to reach out to the community and let them know, hey. If you're interested in, you know, Pennsylvania, Naga or Ohio or or Indiana, etcetera, we can send those updates.

And you can sign up for as, as many as you want. So if you wanna bounce around and go to multiple, have at it. You know, the more the merrier. Yeah.

These events are all free, and we we welcome as many, people as who are willing to show up. Mhmm.

You know what's interesting to me is that, like, you know, as much as I love the big events and there are so many of these small events, and we'll get into this in a little bit. There are so so many of these local nugs now that I can, like, go to one after another after another if I wanted to. Right? And still meet the same number of people anyway.

Like, I live in the northeast, so, of course, I go to the one that I lead. And then I go to the ones in New England, like in Vermont, in Massachusetts, outside of Boston, down in Connecticut, you mentioned, down in PA, in Philadelphia. That's an awesome one. So I go to all those as well just because they're driving distance.

I don't think you guys know this, Chris and Jason. Maybe you do, actually. I don't know.

My daughter is eighteen years old. She's a senior in high school, and she's kinda thinking through what she's gonna do next year. She's going to community college and then off to, you know, four year after that or, you know, the last two of her four year. And she's thinking about seriously thinking about computer science.

She's already done an internship for somebody in the USNUA community, which is awesome. And she's been to a few events with me, like, where I'm like, it's the middle of the summer. Right? So I'm not talking about during the school year.

I'm not taking a ride of classes. But like, we went to the the Philadelphia event. We went to the Connecticut event. I was speaking at one of them.

The other one, I was just showing up to, you know, show my support, and she came with me. And my daughter, who's only eighteen years old, made connections that led to, like, paying internships and and a growing knowledge and interest in this field. It's phenomenal. And and she's not necessarily somebody who we'd think is, like, the primary target.

Like, we're trying to talk to other network engineers and other technologists and all that stuff.

But, Chris, you did mention students in the area, and I and I happen to know that that is, an initiative as well. I've seen I've been to events where somebody there is like a professor or a teacher in a local community college or a or four year college, whatever, And they they advertise it to their students and say, hey. This is an opportunity to network.

Come on down. And and you see a bunch of, you know, younger people. It's just phenomenal. I love it.

So, you know, I I kind of alluded to the opportunity because there are a lot of chapters. How how many chapters are there now? Jason, I think you mentioned it, but I don't remember now. Yeah.

We're up to thirty two. Up to thirty two and it and that's, nationwide, like coast to coast?

Correct. Correct. Yeah. We're we're, you know, most of our, chapters are regionally, you know, in the northeast just, you know, by the nature of how we got started and our connections and, but we are starting to to spread, you know, westward.

In fact, we're we're working on, scheduling a California, event here soon. So, you know, watch for more more about that. Yeah. Again, encourage folks to sign up to get updates about ones that are popping up in their region. We actually just added a section. Before, we only had up there the, you know, the the the chapters that existed, but, now we have, a capability to to basically select, you know, I I think we have this ready. If not, it's coming soon where you can select any one of the fifty states, and we'll update you when a new chapter launches in your region.

Okay. Nice. Yeah.

Yeah.

So And and part of that growth has been moving down to the state or excuse me, down to the city level. Right? So, like, we had started in Ohio, and our approach there was, we we thought we'd rotate cities every quarter. So, you know, we do Cleveland one quarter, Columbus another quarter, Cincinnati. Right?

And as it grew, and we start adding more states, we realized that, you know, people would like to get together more frequently than just once a quarter out of the year.

And so with the that demand there now for a lot of cities, we've we've taken them to have their own NUGS. So you have, like, the Ohio Cincinnati edition, right, or chapter, and you have the Ohio Columbus chapter. Mhmm. You know, we learn those lessons certainly with anybody listening that's in Texas, you know, would tell you, hey.

I'm I'm not traveling from one side of Dallas to the other. Yeah. Right. Right. Right?

There so, you know, Texas, we had started pretty quickly with having distinct groups. And we've had some, some various groups down there pop up, whether it's Dallas or San Antonio or Austin or Houston.

Yeah. So, yeah, some of that growth has been, an increase in frequency because we've taken it down to, like, a city level that does it maybe every other quarter.

Yeah. That's awesome. I I do remember in the days, like, two years ago when it was just state level.

Yeah.

And I and I approached you guys, and I'm like, oh, I could do something in New York. And you're like, yeah. New York City? I'm like, no.

No. No. No. No. No. New York City and, like, the capital region or upstate of Rochester.

That's a different country. We are not New York City, and we're not driving there for that matter. And and you guys are amenable to that, and you're like, that makes a lot of sense. Like, it's a different culture.

It's a different, it's a different microcosm of folks that are working in technology. So for example, in the capital region where I live, that's the Albany, Schenectady, Troy area, right, the Tri City area. Huge amount of government workers. We have, large, fabs like, GlobalFoundries and, IBM and and Tokyo Electron, all those kind of companies, it's very different.

Like, there's no financial here like it is in New York City. So it's just a different environment. And and you guys are, like, readily avail not readily available, like, amenable to, like, thinking through that and saying, you know what? That's right.

And so here in New York, we have one in Western New York. I don't leave that one, but I've been to them. So that's in, it's bouncing back and forth between Rochester and Buffalo. We have one here in the capital region, which we hold in Saratoga Springs.

And then, there's one now in New York City, which is phenomenal. I was just at that one. It was actually, right in, way down in the financial district, building four of the World Trade Center. Just phenomenal, location, and it was a great it was a great, event.

And and, you know, I I really think that's one of the power that that is a great superpower of the USNUA is being very local, yet at the same time it's like dichotomous. Right? At the same time, I'm connecting with people all over the country as well. Because there's people coming in.

I'm going to other ones. You know, we work in technology. I mean, I'm on Slack all day. I'm on Zoom.

I'm talking to you guys over over, you know, this technology right now. So let's say that I lived in an area. Like, I went on to the USNUA. I clicked on the thing, and I saw, oh, there's nothing in my area.

What what would it take for me to start a new chapter of the USNUA?

Well, we make it pretty easy.

Right on the website, we have, at the top of the page, you there's groups and events. And if you click on that, underneath that that heading, there's start a new group. And so what that would do is you you'd fill out a form, it sends it to our group, and then we we'd, review that request with you.

And, you know, we're we're growing and we're adding adding chapters. So, if if anybody's of interest, you know, obviously, reach out.

I think we we're onboarding a few chapters right now, so it might take us a little bit to get started. Okay. So we we can only take on so many new groups as far as the, you know, getting getting them enabled. So, when group organizers come to us, we have to figure out, the that they'll have to get a kind of their peer that help them. So we we like to have a minimum of two organizers and a region just in case someone decides it's not for them anymore, we don't we don't lose the momentum we've Philip, and can keep going.

So, you know, that takes a little bit of of time to get them onboarded, get them to understand how everything works. Now the great thing is we have awesome event coordinators that that handle that. So, they will work with those, those local folks to understand how the process works, get them in touch with the event venue, which, by the way, we do all the coordination and Mhmm. As a man.

That. Yeah.

Yep. Then collect so we collect all the sponsorship money and and, pull that together and then take care of coordination with the event. We can help them select the food, figure out the, you know, the the drink take ticket situation based up based on the venue, make recommendations to them about, you know, how the vendor the venue flow should be. So, you know, we've had some early events where it was a very noisy environment, like in a loft, for example, and you couldn't even hear the speakers because of, of just how that was laid out. So we have a good set of, yeah, you know, guidelines, for, selection of an event space, things like, you know, knowing how much parking they have and, things like I mentioned, AV considerations, that sort of thing.

So but our event coordinators handle that, and so there is a little bit of an enablement period to get ramped up. And then we may have to, you know, space things out depending on how many how many events we're we're working with at at one time. But, we manage that, that that back end process and make it as easy as we can for the for the local, coordinator for the local, event crew to put together their event.

Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, for me personally, I just send off a note to your various folks that work internally, and I'm like, can you take care of this? And they take care of it, because I do have a day job.

And so I wanna run a local event. I wanna connect with my peers and all that stuff. That's all great, but I don't want another job. And so it really is helpful to to have that support on the back end.

Now, I mean, I I remember, just recently no. It wasn't really that recently. It was four or five months ago. I was at, at AutoCon two by the network automation forum. Right? And I remember you guys did a really cool I remember because I was this thinking, you know, MC for the debate.

But that was a really fun event where it was the US, in partnership with the network automation forum. So I wanna know a little bit about the relationships that you have with other organizations. Now, you know, we talked about, like, there's Cisco Live, there's AWS re:Invent, there's all these, like, gigantic, you know, things that are going on. What relationships do you have with those smaller, more community driven organizations?

Yeah. A huge shout out to the work that, Scott Robon and Chris Grunderman do with the, the network automation forum and their AutoCon events.

Yeah. We've collaborated with them. You know, whether you call that, like, a media partner or maybe, you know, a a bit of a technology partner relationship that we have with each other, where we try to to help each other with the events, provide content, and we even share, you know, each of us having a platform.

We try to share information about, hey, I I just saw this great presentation by Mike in Kansas City. You know, he's wonderful. You guys really ought to reach out to him and engage him in in some of your projects. Similarly, beyond, the network automation form, we've also partnered with Ethan and Drew, and we've done a little bit of a mash up with, packet pushers. Okay. So, right, we've helped each other.

I think that's how AJ came about too, right, when he was involved with the ARDA network engineering podcast Oh, nice.

Okay.

In Vermont. So it's it's interesting as we work with these folks, you know, generally are very outgoing, right, gregarious.

And, you know, AJ running that podcast, and then ultimately, he had helped in to start the the Vermont NUG, working with Scott Robon and, the NAF, and then Scott became a group leader for the Virginia NUG.

And Ethan, similarly, you know, of packet pushers starting to work with him, and then ultimately, he is now the one of the group leaders for New Hampshire. Mhmm.

And so I you know, a lot of us, we have, similar I think we have similar cultures, between our organizations and, you know, are looking to build communities.

Even even across lines in networking, you know, when you think of the NOGs, right, the network operators groups, that a lot of times, that's really more Jason than it's me. Right? An operator, not fully, but a lot of times, that's more service provider focused content or it can be.

Oh, totally.

Not right? Not all those technologies are applicable to an enterprise engineer, but there is some overlap.

And so, with the NOGs, we've also had a lot of conversations.

Chynog, I think we talked to the folks up, up in Seattle as well as out in New York Yeah. Because there there's some community sharing, that we can do there. I don't know, Jason. Did I overlook any other groups that we that we hang out with?

You know, you mentioned the Art of Network Engineering, you know, the the the PA, event, Andy Laptev from Art of Network Engineering. Yeah. So that that podcast panel we talked about a little bit ago, you know, featured, Ned Bellivance from the Packet Pushers community, you know, had Andy Laptev from Art of Network Engineering, and Andrew Connery Murray from Packet Pushers. So, yeah, we've got a lot of collaboration and, and and cross pollination across these groups. NANOG's another group I can think of that we're we were in conversations with, and and wanna work really, really closely with. We really feel like, you know, we align.

And I think NANOG, kinda to Chris's point, they've traditionally been, you know, servicing the the the, service provider community, and I think they're looking to, expand that, you know, have more of of an enterprise Okay.

Presence for the for their shows. So, you know, have more tracks and and more, you know, learning and and other things. So we've been collaborating with them on ways we can help each other. Right now, you know, we do a little bit of cross marketing for one another, but we're we're also, looking at ways where where perhaps we we can collaborate on on on an event, you know, at an analog event. So, yep.

Well, and I forgot to mention, you know, we were talking about, technology adjacencies bleeding in, right, and security. And and then another example of a group we've collaborated with is the, the Western Michigan Cloud Security Alliance. Right?

So a group of people that, at their events, they're they usually have thirty or forty people there to talk strictly security, and we've done a couple of mash up events with them now, where we split the the event, the agenda, half of the time spent on the networking side and half of it on security topics and then, you know, whatever we could do to to get more beer in them and and have some real nerd nights.

To get more beer in them. Okay.

The the the the the well, it it leads to the, you know, my my routing protocol is better than your routing protocol type conversations, which we love to see.

Yeah. We really do. And it's and it you know, one of the things is that I appreciate that it's just practitioners. Now I you mentioned earlier that there's very few c level, and that and that's something that I've noticed.

But I will say I will say, and I'm sorry to disagree with you a little bit. I and maybe this is just at the, upstate New York, NUG, but I have noticed a little bit of a spectrum of folks attending, whether they're systems people, maybe more application focused, there's folks that are just completely like automation, traditional network engineers, both enterprise and service provider, folks that are like, you know, I just manage our Azure environment, but I heard about this group and I wanted to show up, and I heard you had free beer. So I do I do notice different technologists. And as far as areas, I have probably noticed any everywhere from definitely, like, help desk well, no.

Let's go below help desk. Let's talk about, like, students. But from, like, working professionals, help desk all the way up to, like, the VP level, that's who I've seen at the upstate New York Nugs and then, of course, at the some of the ones that I've been to. So there there actually is a little bit of a spectrum of of who shows up and who you can connect with.

And everybody is just drinking a beer or, you know, sometimes a nonalcoholic drink or whatever and having some food. And there's no pretense, which I love, by the way. You know, that's that's a that's an important thing to me. From a personal perspective, I can't stand that.

So I love when, like, the the management jargon is dropped. Nobody's saying things like leverage or, like, boil the ocean. It's just normal. Like, we're just talking about technology and how we can fix things.

And that's and that's what it is. So let's say, I wanna find out more. Where do I go? How do I become a member? How do I get updates?

I hope I'm not just gonna get spammed with emails. Right, Jason? I hope. And where can I follow you online if I'm a social media user?

Yeah. Sure. So, USNUA dot com is the best place to start for becoming a member, and finding out more information about what events are upcoming and, you know, how how to sign up for those. Like, for example, you know, in early March here, Florida's got a Tampa event coming up.

Indiana's, March thirteenth, they've got, an event. So you can you can go straight to the home page, scroll down midway, and see all the events that are upcoming. If you'd like to become a member, you go to the top. There's a section called membership.

You select become a member underneath that, and that'll get you underway as far as getting access to our content library and also, getting emails and updates from us. We do not spam you. There Thank you.

So there is an opt in if you would like to get more information from our our partners, but that is that's unchecked by default. If you wanna do that, that's cool. Like, we will be happy to share that information from our sponsors that, that they might have for you, but you don't have to.

And then, as far as getting engaged with the rest of the community, definitely join our Slack.

So I think it's just if you go to u s n n u a dot slack dot com, it should be able you should be able to get a sign up going there. If you can't, you can reach out to me. I'm I'm on on LinkedIn and Blue Sky and elsewhere. Feel free to find me.

That's where you can find, more as far as social networking. Please follow us on LinkedIn. Follow us on x on Blue Sky if you're there. So we're on on those three, social services.

We do post a lot of news about upcoming events. So when a new event's launched, we'll we'll let the the world know via social media in addition to the email we send to members.

But, yeah, as far as engagement after the event and keeping keeping things rolling, Slack's a good place for that.

Yeah. There's two things I'd like to add if it's okay. The first is there's almost a thousand people in that Slack. This is not a trivial thing, like, where there's, like, twelve people all, you know, putzing around about some technology no one cares about.

There's almost a thousand people in there talking about, like, cutting edge technology, problems that they're trying to solve. Hey. What do you think about this automation frame? What whatever.

You know, all sorts of things. Right? Join the Slack. That is so, impactful in my opinion, especially with the changing nature of social media.

Right? Folks kinda like not sure what they're doing with Twitter right now and, like, is blue sky real? Like, all that kind of stuff. So the Slack channel is phenomenal.

The other thing I wanted to mention, and this is just my personal opinion. Right? I struggle with keeping up with everything that's going on in technology.

I feel like that could be my full time job with all the blog posts and podcasts and news briefs and press releases and all the things that I get because I wanna stay, you know, current.

Right?

The USNUA events, your local NUG event, is an awesome way to do that.

It's it's part of an entire strategy. I'm I'm not gonna lie and say that that's, like, the only thing you need. Right? It is part of an entire strategy, but it is an important part of it because you're gonna connect with folks that are are that are deploying technologies that are on the cutting edge or at least thinking and talking about it.

So, again, it's something that I've struggled with, and I have found that the USNUA is a great addition to that solution.

Well, that's fantastic to hear. I mean, ultimately, that's that's the goal. Right? Get get connected and make those connections not only for, you know, employment, possibilities. Right?

But also, for keeping up on the industry. Because, I mean, we certainly recognize, you know, trying to keep up even if you just focus on, like, security vulnerabilities. If you're just trying to operate things, right, and keep up with you know, if you're in a multivendor environment, that can be the full time job. It's just it's just keeping up with those notifications and scheduling the change controls and maintenance windows to execute those patches and upgrades. So, I I like that, you know, ideally, we're curating information and bringing it to this group to share. And and you can do it based off of what you're most interested in, because undoubtedly somebody else will be and some that other person can't find the time to keep up with with what, you know, is nearest and dearest to you. So Yeah.

Super helpful to share.

Absolutely. Well, before I close out, do either of you gentlemen have any closing thoughts or any closing comments that you'd like to make?

I have one. I just wanna give a shout out to our event coordinators. I mean, Jason and I can oftentimes come across as the face, of the USNUA because we're physically at so many of the events.

But behind the scenes, there's a ton of work. As Jason mentioned, you know, working with the sponsors, working with the venues, you'd be surprised how many caterers just leave you wanting, and and it can be seventeen phone calls, to to make sure you're getting that food and beer. So a huge shout out to to the work that Kayla and Jess and Kate do, for all of us, to make sure these events come off at the you know, without a hitch.

Fantastic. Thank you.

So on that note, we are gonna end today's show, and I encourage you to check out the USNUA's website, USNUA dot com. You can click on groups and events and find, an event that's coming near you. And, of course, if there isn't one in your area, consider starting one for yourself. And, of course, join the USNUA Slack, a fantastic place to connect with your peers. So for now, thanks so much for listening. Bye bye.