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You’ve heard the word “community” thrown around so much that maybe you’ve stopped thinking about what it means. Perhaps it’s the neighborhood you live in, or a TV show, or a group of gamers you belong to, or a gaggle of your peers. Actually it could be any of those, because it can mean a group of people living in the same place or having something—like characteristics or interests—in common.
But when we talk about the “IT community”, we’re talking about the group of folks who work in some capacity in IT. That’s what brings us together, this commonality of similar tasks and struggles, keeping up with a changing landscape, certifications, security, networks, hardware, BYOD, lions, tigers, bears, oh my! It can be a bit…overwhelming at times.
In years past, you could use the old reliable “sneakernet” to get your questions answered, but only if you worked in an office with an IT group of more than one person. Or maybe you’d meet buddies after work at the local hangout for a beverage or two to talk shop and share stories before heading home, or even get together for a weekend barbecue to chat and relax.
Something changed as the internet grew, and we did a little less of that face-to-face connecting and a little more online searching. We also broadened our connections into a global peer group, reaching people outside of our immediate neighborhoods and cities or conferences we could travel to. Remote work was easier and you weren’t necessarily co-located anymore. And then — enter a worldwide event that forced a majority of people to work from home and now a lot more people need to access information from everywhere.
But we still need connection with others.
And to me, that’s where the deep meaning of community comes in. That word “connection” and all that it entails. Not just gathering online. Not just using a search engine to find answers to something. Connecting is getting to know your peers, learning from them, and becoming trusted friends and colleagues. It is understanding a bit about what they do, some of what got them to where they are, and what makes them them.
Over the past couple of years we’ve seen many JumpCloud users build connections in our Slack Lounge and it continues to provide a place for peers to help each other. But it has its limitations. We wanted to do a bit more and go just a little bigger, and so…
Meet the JumpCloud Community — an IT community for global IT admins to talk about all sorts of industry topics, not just JumpCloud products — where you can find IT admins from small and medium sized enterprises like yours. It’s a place to talk about the sweet tech solutions you’ve found, challenges you face as IT Admins, ask and answer career questions, and find helpful guides and templates to put to use in daily work. If you’ve been working for a while, we hope you’ll share your knowledge to help others along the way. If you’re new, ask us questions and we’ll help you find answers.
We’ve already seen what connections can do, and we want to provide a space to do even more. So on top of our community forums, we’re hosting meetups where you can talk live with other admins. And soon, many of those will meet in person where you can once again share a beverage and talk shop (or hobbies, family, whatever suits you).
Why are we doing this? One of our core values is Build Connections and we do our best to live this every day. We want to provide opportunities for everyone in IT to grow, learn, and build their own connections, too.
What are you waiting for? Join us! You can browse and search with no account required.
