One thing that I’ve always stressed to people when going to conferences is that you should always meet new people and network. I have met some great business partners and good friends at conferences and I would have never met them if I didn’t take the initiative and go up to them and introduce myself. You should always try and meet new people whether you are at a conference or if you are at a local event. Over the past few years I have really been able to connect with a lot of people in the Pittsburgh Area. This has not only done good things for my business, but I’ve met a lot of friends in the process. Here are the some of the people / groups I’ve been able to connect with lately.

Pittsburgh Podcamp
Pittsburgh Podcamp is a community UnConference for people who create, enjoy or are interested in learning more about blogs, vlogs, audio podcasts, web video, content networks and new media monetization. Last year was actually the first year that I went and it was a great experience. I met a lot of people and really was able to get people in the Pittsburgh area to know about ThinkComputers and this blog. Podcamps are held all over so you should really see if there is one in your area.

MidnightGuru
MidnightGuru is a website that a few of my friends started that is all about nightlife in Pittsburgh. It lists events, hotspots, bartenders, etc. It is basically like a facebook for nightlife in Pittsburgh. I have been to many of the MidnightGuru events over the past few months and have met some great people.

Pittsburgh Tweetup
If you have a Twitter account and are not part of a Tweetup group you really should be. A Tweetup is a meeting of Twitter users who are interested in the same things. The Pittsburgh Tweetup group has a simple ning website that lists events and anyone can create an event. I’ve got to go to quite a few of them and they are a lot of fun! I think the best was the NHL Tweetup.

Faded Industry
Faded Industry Entertainment is a Pittsburgh based company that that capitalizes on all aspects of the growing Entertainment Industry. Faded Industry’s culture of social networking through positive interaction fuses people together to achieve their entertainment needs by developing successful relationships and connections in a primarily divided industry. Faded throws very large events around Pittsburgh and I’ve been to quite a few of them. I have met many of the people who are part of Faded and they are great people. My favorite Faded event so far was the white party over memorial day weekend!

Pittco
Pittco or Pittsburgh LAN Coalition is a group I actually helped start. They are an organization that hosts Local Area Network gaming parties (‘computer and console gaming convention’). They are comprised of several long-standing local LAN gaming organizations working cooperatively as one entity. They offer Pittsburgh’s premier LAN party experience and have had several large events over the past few years. If you like gaming and computers you should definitely check out one of their events. I’ve actually found some ThinkComputers staff members there!