Research Triangle Park Area Technical User and Special Interest Groups
While user groups can be a great way to find like-minded people, some of us are interested in
more than one topic. This site is intended to act as an information resource to allow Triangle-area
computer professionals to easily find local user groups they might be interested
in. This list is heavily slanted to the computer industry, but is open to
other scientific, research, or technical-oriented groups as well.
If you know of a technical special interest group or user group in the RTP area
that's not on this list, or have a correction to the list (new URL or other
new contact information, let me know.
If the group does not have a website, send me a group name with a one-sentence description of the
group's focus, and a contact name with an email or telephone number.
The permanent URL for this site is
http://www.pobox.com/~burnett/triangle/groups.html
Please use this URL for any links or bookmarks.
This list is not guaranteed to be correct and current. Please check the
current existence and activity of any group listed before planning your
day or week around attending a meeting. If you find information on theis
page to be out of date or incorrect, any updates to the information
below are appreciated. Please read the update and disclaimer policy.
Thanks!
Notice: Any part of this site that isn't a trademark/copyright/logo belonging to someone
else copyright 1995-2008 Steve Burnett.
You must ask me directly in order to reproduce this list.
Last update 20 June 2008.
Skip down to the calendar
Inactive / Defunct groups
Operating Systems and Networks
Programming and Development
Social
- Internetworkers
- Triangle 501 Tech Club
- Cardinal Club IT Roundtable Discussion Group - "meets to
engage in technical and non technical conversations regarding the use of
information technology in the business environment."
Hardware and General Sciences
Engineering
Other
- Triangle Adherents of Portable Information Technology
- RTP DITA Users' Group
- EMC Content Management and Archiving User Group (EMC CMA) of the Carolinas and Virginia (Documentum)
- RTP Acrobat Users Group
- Open Source Lab - 4th Thursdays of the month, invitation only
- Usability Professionals Association - forming a chapter in the RTP area, I'm told
- Triangle User Experience - not live yet (September 2005), but shortly
- CopyNight - "CopyNight is a monthly gathering of people interested in ensuring freedom for artists and tinkerers, fostering innovation, and restoring the balance between the public interests and intellectual property rights holders for the benefit of all."
- Tech LinkUp - "helps connect volunteers, sponsors, and businesses with community organizations".
- Media Communications Association International
- Triangle Technical Recruiters Association
- InfraGard network security
- Eastern Carolina InfraGard network security
- Triangle Area Macromedia User Group
- Triangle Networking Group - "a place where downsized technology professionals come together"
- Society for Technical Communication
- The North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA)
- Communications Roundtable
- North Carolina PMI - NCPMI
- Triangle Help Desk Institute
- NCSU Student Chapter, Association for Computing Machinery
- Council for Entrepeneurial Development
- RTP SAS User Group
- Women in Technology, RTP Chapter
- Research Triangle Branch American Association for Laboratory Animal Science
- Genotoxicity and Environmental Mutagen Society
- Research Triangle Chapter, Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP)
Other Groups To Be Aware Of
Monthly Calendar
With all these groups, how do you plan your evenings? For most people, the
answer is "Some other way than spending an evening listening to tech stuff
I tried to leave at the office." For the rest of us, look below.
This is a "perpetual" calendar of all groups that have a "second Tuesday of every month" meeting time
listed. Many of the groups listed above do not have a specified and regular meeting day, and are not
listed in this summary. Also, some groups will occasionally or have special meetings, so check with them first.
To do: Cleaned out the inactive groups from the lists above and moved dead links to the Inactive groups list below, but have not gone through and updated the calendar below. Apologies.
If you see a group listed under "first Monday" for example, check to see if it's in the Inactive Groups list below the calendar. When I clean the calendar I will delete this paragraph.
First Week
Second Week
- Monday - North Carolina System Administrators, Triangle Macintosh Users Group, Orange County Radio Amateurs
- Tuesday - Durham FM Association (ham radio), Triangle Windows NT User Group, Tri-XML, PC Graphics, Triangle (IBM) Midrange User Group, Triangle Association of Secretarial Services, Paradox (even months)
- Wednesday - Triangle Dot Net (.NET) User
Group, ACM, Developers, Internet Users Group
- Thursday - AITP, STC, Triangle Linux Users Group
Third Week
- Monday - NCSU Linux, Triangle Java User Group, Triangle Consultants Network
- Tuesday - Help Desk Institute, Triangle Area Smalltalk Users' Group, EDIT, Netware
- Wednesday - Eastern Carolina InfraGard (even-numbered months only), Delphi, Veritas NetBackup User Group (quarterly, first month of the quarter)
- Thursday - Triangle PHP Users Group (TriPUG), DPMA Central Carolina, Triangle Information Systems Quality Association (alternate months), Raleigh Perl Mongers, TriPLUG West
- Friday -
Fourth Week
Last Week
Apparently Inactive Groups
Note: If a group listed below is not inactive, let me know please.
- Triangle BSD Users Group
- International Association of Software Architects - inactive since Feb 2005
- Triangle Extreme Programming User Group (mailing list) - inactive as of fall 2005
- Software Process Improvement Network - inactive since end 2005
- 3D Artists and Animators of NC - contact Dave Boddy - site missing Nov 2005
- FoxPro User Group - meets third Thursday of month. Contact Dave Kern - site missing Nov 2005
- SAS Consultants' Group - site missing Nov 2005
- Critical Mass - site missing Nov 2005
- Triangle Consultants Network - site missing Nov 2005
- Triangle Consultants List - site missing Nov 2005
- Triangle Council of Engineering & Science Societies - an umbrella organization for thirty or so groups. - site missing Nov 2005
- Eastern Carolina Infragard Chapter - site missing Nov 2005 (changed to ecinfragard.org early 2006)
- Media Communications Association - International - Raleigh, Durham, Chapel - site missing Nov 2005
Hill Chapter (formerly ITVA) - fourth Wednesday of every month - site missing Nov 2005 - site missing Nov 2005
- Triangle ACM SIGGRAPH - site missing Nov 2005
- Center for Information Society Studies - site missing Nov 2005
- Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (RTP chapter) - site missing Nov 2005
- National Society of Black Engineers - site missing Nov 2005
- IEEE Women in Engineering Affinity Group - meets 1st Wednesday 7pm monthly - site missing Nov 2005
- IEEE BioTech/Health/Pharma Job Hunt Collaboration - Meets 4th Monday of each month, at ISA hq in RTP. Contact Esther Lumsdon - site missing Nov 2005
- NetSuds - site missing Nov 2005
- Editorwars - if you have a strong preference for vi over emacs (or vice versa) as your UNIX text editor of choice, come out on Saturdays to the paintball field and practice to defend your preference. - site missing Nov 2005
- Carolina Cold Fusion User Group - fourth Tuesday - site missing Nov 2005
- Lotus Notes User Group - meets third Thursday of the month. - "<<< Currently on hiatus due to low attendance. >>> (2004)"
- Triangle PHP Programming Meetup - site missing Nov 2005
- Duke University Macromedia Users Group - site missing Nov 2005
- Triangle IA (Information Architecture) - site missing Nov 2005
- .NET and Web Services User Group - site missing Nov 2005
- Triangle Pattern Language Users Group - site missing Nov 2005
- Triangle Developers Group - meets second Wednesday of every month. Contact Charles S. Galloway. - site missing Nov 2005
- Triangle Wireless Users Group - site missing Nov 2005
- Raleigh / Durham Area VMWare User Group - site missing Nov 2005
- Carolina Apple Core Apple II, some Macintosh - site missing Nov 2005
- TMUG Palm OS Special Interest Group - site missing Nov 2005
- Network Professional Association - main organization is still active, but the RTP chapter appears long gone
- Research Triangle Chapter, Independent Computer Consultants Association (ICCA) - dissolved by July 2004
- C# / ASP+ User's Group
- Triangle Area Smalltalk Users' Group
- Visual Basic/Access Developers Group - rebranded as a .Net group, relisted above
- OAMP/FCAPS.sig - organizational meeting October 30.
- Triangle Web Technology
Women, was formerly Triangle Webgrrls
- Triangle Web Developers
- Triangle LinuxChix - as of 19 September 2000, website describes next meeting for 19 April 2000 (moved to inactive 19 Feb 2001 due bad link)
- North Carolina Triangle Area Professional Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery
- GOF Design Patterns Study Group - TriPLUG West
- Triangle Computer Society - met last Monday of the month. The contact person was a Doug Dewey, but the group is long inactive.
- Amiga Users Group
- RTBe (BeOS)
- Triangle OS/2 User Group
- Triangle Autodesk User Group
- TriCHI (ACM Triangle Special Interest Group for Human/Computer Interaction) - decommissioned October 1999
- Research Triangle Area Object Oriented Technology Special Interest Group
- Internet Association of the Carolinas
- 4th Dimension Special Interest Group
- Clipper User Group
- Lantastic Users Group
- NC SGML Users Group - contact Craig Sampson (dissolved September 1996)
- AutoCAD User Group
- Multimedia Developers Group
- TRIVR - The Triangle Virtual Reality Group
- RTP Marimba User Group - Contact Clint Dalton. The
first organizational meeting was planned for September 1997. Haven't heard anything from them, assuming nothing happened.
- Triangle Tcl/Tk User Group a call to determine interest level (July 1997).
Apparently too small a niche interest for the area.
- Triangle Sun User Group
- Triangle Webmasters no next meeting currently scheduled - consider the group moribund at best
- DPMA Central Carolina - meets third Thursday. Contact name Sam Kirby. (group renamed to AITP nationally around 1996)
- EDIT - meets third Tuesday. Contact was Linda Shearin.
- Information Highway User Group - meets second Thursday of the month at NCSU. Contact was Russell Lyday.
- Intergraph User Group - meets quarterly. Contact was Barry Womack.
- Local Area Networks Dealers Association - meets fourth Thursday of month. Contact was Ben Freeman.
- Triangle Association of Secretarial Services - meets second Tuesday of the month.
- Paradox User Group - meets second Tuesday of even months. Contact was Dan Coleman.
- PC Graphics User Group - meets second Tuesday of the month. Contact was Mike Ghiloni.
- Triangle Internet Users Group - second Wednesdays, 6-8pm at the Raleigh Chamber of Commerce. Started February 1997. Contact netusersgroup@ntwrks.com.