When you think of the technology hot spots, what places do you think of?

“Raleigh–Durham–Chapel Hill, Northern Virginia, Seattle, Boston, Portland, Austin, San Diego, Silicon Valley. Notice anything missing? Despite an abundance of geeks (TI invented the semiconductor here), Dallas does not normally appear on lists of leading technology communities. It’s up to you to change that.”

Christopher St. John, of Dallas, TX based Event Mirror, on the BarCamp Wiki.

Now, we do have our entrenched social and user groups in various states of decline and resurgence, such as Dallas PHP, Dallas Macromedia, and DFW Blogs. However, recently DFW has been super–busy getting its geek on, and is even turning the tables and inspiring events in other cities. Here’s just some of the latest events that have happened and new groups that you can get involved with:

Refresh Dallas (Monthly)

Refresh Dallas was started by locals who specifically wanted to “refresh the creative, technical and professional aspects of new media endeavors in the Dallas area.” This group encompasses both designers and developers, and has hosted presentations on information architecture, branding, and Ruby on Rails. Now there are over 16 Refreshing Cities nation–wide.

Dallas Ruby Brigade (Monthly)

Interest in the Ruby programming language has exploded, thanks in large part to the Ruby on Rails framework for developing web applications. Local Adam Keys, who works in the same building as RD2, has started a Dallas Ruby Brigade, modeled after those started in other cities, for both people using Ruby in their day job and people just typing their first line of Ruby code. Meetings consist of either a presentation, a hack–fest, or both.

DFW Pragmatic Programmers (Monthly)

This group is about heavy–duty programming for people who prescribe to the ideas presented in the book, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. The monthly meetings are informal and include discussions about topics like open–source and commercial tools, development tricks and techniques, and agile methodologies including XP, Scrum, and Crystal.

BarCamp Dallas (Jan 28, 2006)

What’s a BarCamp? It’s an ad–hoc un–conference put together by anyone who can find some people and a venue to crash at. Presentations are given by attendants and the schedule is self–organized during the first hour of the event. BarCamp Dallas was pretty well documented online, including presentations, podcasts, photos, and a full log from the IRC back–channel. Rumors that BarCamp Dallas 2 is in the works have started to circle.

MashPit Dallas (Jan 29, 2006, Apr 4, 2006)

MashPits are where people come together and try to solve a problem using available APIs. While the idea was originated by Chris Messina of San Fransisco, the first MashPit was held here in Dallas, the day after BarCamp, with Chris in attendance. Inspired by BarCamp, attendees worked on streamlining remote participation in events like BarCamp. MashPit Dallas 2 was announced and happened in the span of a few days.

CocoaDevHouse (Mar 4, 2006)

It’s not just the web tech sector that’s getting in gear; Cocoa is the premiere coding environment for Mac OS X developers. CocoaDevHouse, put together by local Blake Burris who hosts the CocoaRadio Podcast, was inspired by San Fransico’s SuperHappyDevHouse and brings together local Cocoa developers to work on a group project. The first one was held in the same building as RD2 and they even borrowed a projector from us. CocoaDevHouses are now starting to being organized internationally.

Getting involved in your local design and tech community is very important. It gives you a space to share ideas, learn new skills, connect with like–minded individuals, and keep up with the latest developments in the industry. Doing so benefits you, personally and professionally, and it benefits your clients and the work you do for them.