We all have often heard about communities, how communities help us grow and so much more. In this blog, I will be talking about how communities can help an individual in terms of tech growth and also will be linking down some of the best communities I've found. Do share your thoughts in the comments too!

What is a community?

A community is a group of people who have the same interests and who interact with each other. For example, a community can be a group of people who live in the same city, or it can be a group of people who share a common hobby or interest. In general, communities are formed when people come together to support each other and work towards a common goal.

Why should I join one?

Joining a community can be beneficial for a variety of reasons. For one, being a part of a community can provide a sense of belonging and connection with others who share similar interests or experiences. Also, you get to have support and guidance from others who have been through similar situations. Additionally, communities often provide opportunities for personal growth and development through shared activities and experiences. For example, if you join a community of web developers you get to know more about the web because everyone's sharing interesting stuff and even you can share your knowledge.

The more you share your knowledge, the more it grows.

How do I find communities?

Finding communities in discord, slack, and twitter isn't as tough as it looks. When you explore and utilize these social media, and follow folks in your domain - a lot of different communities would pop up. Then it's your choice to decide which one to join, and which one to not. Remember, you are there to learn, add value and not just to "self promote" so choose wisely.

Join less, grow more

A lot of people, in the beginning, tend to join as many communities as possible. They feel like if they join a lot of communities they will be able to learn more and even interact with a lot of people. But the reality is just the opposite. If you cannot be active in all of them - why join? The goal of being in a community is to help others, help yourself and not just "stay" there. So it's better not to dive right into a lot of these communities but join a few, stay, grow, collaborate, and learn more!

Learn, grow, connect

You can learn a lot while being a part of a community no matter what domain you are in. A lot of communities would have coffee chats, community calls, or even other sessions where the whole community would interact with each other. I highly recommend taking part in these activities once in a while. Not only these are beneficial for connecting with the other members of the community but also just hearing about their experience, their projects, and other stuff you get to learn so much as a result you grow much more efficiently. And also try and share your work too. Don't promote it by spamming with different links instead right as small and short messages in your introduction / other (discord) channels related to content sharing - talking about your work, or anything relevant about you that you want to showcase. That way interested in that particular domain or tech will look for your stuff, which is a win-win situation.

Overwhelming content

Sometimes in technical communities, there are a lot of people talking about different technologies they have been using all the time. As someone who just started with tech - it might be fearsome and overwhelming to hear about so many things all at once. So take it easy, accept it. You cannot learn all the different tech that exists, nor you can keep yourself updated with every trend. So when into tech/technical communities - focus on what you know, and ignore the rest - you can always learn later, there's nothing to be afraid/ashamed of.

Some tips when joining communities

• Ask your questions freely - if you feel like asking anything go ahead and do it. Asking a question won't make you look foolish rather it will implement the fact that you are interested in learning and growing. Also, it's gonna help you find the solution to your problem.

• Being gender inclusive - this is a highly recommended thing that I tell everyone. Whenever you interact in a community call the people by their names there is no need to insert gender-specific words or random nicknames.

• Don't ask to ask, just ask - instead of asking is there any react developer here? ask Hi, I have this problem in my react application (attach the code/repo) can someone please help me with it. These are way more effective, and the best way to ask something.

• Connect, but don't DM - whenever I say to connect with folks in the community I don't mean to go ahead and keep DMing them. Instead, interact with them in the community itself, and add value to the community.

Tech communities I love

Honestly speaking I am the most active in the following of these three communities, and I would highly recommend joining them !

• EddieHub is an Open Source community that encourages & promotes communication best practices & technical expertise in an inclusive & welcoming environment.

• 4c is the cool community of content creators which is an online community to connect with other like-minded creators, collaborate on ideas, and motivate each other to create and publish!

• We make devs is a community that provides free hands-on training in various fields of computer science and has an inclusive community focusing on a learn-by-doing approach.

You grow, I grow

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