Building Richer Interactions in the HashiCorp Community

Our HashiCorp User Group program is continuing to evolve as the community steadily grows; new chapters are spinning up weekly around the globe. Over 200 organizers continue to engage their local chapters by creating environments for learning, sharing, and discussing HashiCorp tooling.

Recently, organizers have asked for input and best practices on alternative HUG programming. Several have shared excellent ideas and we want to share them with the rest of the community. A number of organizers are steering away from the traditional lecture style format and increasing engagement with more interactive agendas.

We are pleased to support our organizers in brainstorming and implementing these ideas.

»Lightning Talks

Lightning talks often consist of 5 or 6 speakers giving 10 minute talks or demos with a 5 minute buffer for questions and answers. The Oslo, Philadelphia, Seattle, and New York City HUGs are hosting lightning talks.

The lightning talk format gives more practitioners access to the opportunity to speak at Meetups by lowering the barrier to entry. Additionally, organizers find that attendees are further engaged and are able to learn about a broader range of topics compared to a single lecture style talk that may be too advanced for beginners.

To source speakers, organizers pass along the opportunity to the community through a simple Meetup message and cross post on other local user groups. They are able to build their agenda based on the responses they receive.

»Hands-on Labs

The Hamburg and Oslo HUG Organizers have hosted two interactive Meetups, so far.

The first was a Hands-on Lab that covered the HashiCorp product suite. We sent HashiCorp Developer Advocate, Erik Veld, to be the floating expert on site. The Meetup attendees were split into four rooms and gave each a specific product to workshop and encouraged people to move amongst the rooms. The second was an interactive session on Terraform where the speakers encouraged people to bring their laptops to share code and tackle problems and questions together.

People have different learning styles, some learn most through reading text, watching videos, or by doing. Interactive meetups give practitioners hands on experience and enable a more active type of learning. Organizers find that attending users are excited by accomplishing something at Meetup.

»What’s next?

Out-of-the-box Meetups are well received and we love seeing the creative approaches organizers are taking to keep their communities engaged and informed like livestreams, game days, master classes, open mic nights, and more.

In the near future, we are going to offer certification training and exams through the HUG program. Keep a close eye on the schedule here to sign up for a certification Meetup with your local HUG chapter.

It is exciting to see organizers embracing their local communities and communicating an open call for involvement through ideas, speakers, venues, and partners.

»Wondering how to get involved?

Find your local chapter and get in touch with the organizers. Attend and participate at a Meetup. If a chapter does not exist in your city, reach out to us. We are always on the lookout for strong community leads!

Are you engaged in any conversations happening in our Community Forum? We have a category especially for HUGs and other community events.