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So I've been asked if I;d like to attend a networking event, with talks, free food and free beer.
Has anyone had experience of these, and if so, do you think they are worthwhile [other than the free food/beer].
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Put it like this: they have to provide free food and free beer to get you to think of going.
The food will be poor.
The beer will be worse, and you won't be able to drink much of it or you will come over as an alcoholic fool.
You may be guessing that I wouldn't be attending personally 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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For me, it depends on the talks and who I'm networking with.
I've been attending one of our local user's group meetings. There's free food (no beer), some time for networking, and a talk. The talks have been centered around a technology that I've been slowly learning about because I find it interesting, but not interesting enough to actually sit down and research. For me, that's probably the perfect mix. If the talks were too technical, I wouldn't be able to follow them. If they were on a topic I did have interest in, I'd be bored. And if they were on a topic I had no interest in whatsoever, I'd fall asleep. I come out of the meetings feeling enriched a little on three fronts, so I keep going back.
For a while around here, there were a lot of networking events, with talks on how to network better, and a random slice of people who wanted to network instead of being heavily slanted toward technical computer nerds. Events like that are not for me.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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User group meetings are very different from "networking" meetings. In the user groups it is all about the tech, networking is all about the people. Weird stuff!
I've only ever been to one and ended up talking to the CEO of a small start up, a very uncomfortable situation as she was one of those power women, very driven and focused, the conversation did not last long  .
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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The big problem with networking events is that everyone who's there is also networking. By that, I mean that everyone who is there is trying to convince you to buy their product or to recommend their product to others, to the point where no one appears interested in what you're trying to sell/market. I have been to breakfast marketing events where there was an understanding that you would stand up and tell the group about how many of their products you have recommended/how many of their business cards you have handed out. Needless to say, I soon packed this in.
Networking is not done at events. Networking is done in restaurants, bars and on the golf course.
This space for rent
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I've gone to various "User Groups" over the years. Usually there's a guest speaker who's an "expert" in this or that. The takeaways from the are marginal in my experience.
What it really does is give you the chance to meet other folks in your industry. Remember, it's not WHAT you know, it's WHO you know.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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One I went to (paid for by an agency) was in a bar, and the bar had a sign for $40 shots of tequila, I won't pay $40 for a bottle of tequila, so I had to try it. They didn't ask me back.
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Most important thing to consider: Which beer?
"You'd have to be a floating database guru clad in a white toga and ghandi level of sereneness to fix this goddamn clusterfuck.", BruceN[ ^]
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Did they also mention there will be other people?
That's quite enough reason for me not to go to these events
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I went to one a couple of months ago. I expected to go, have some pizza & a beer (which happened), listen to a talk (which happened), then leave pretty quickly, which didn't happen. I ended up talking to a few developers from other companies nearby about dev stuff in general & stayed till the end.
Having said that, I haven't bothered to go again.
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If you want some networking that involves beer then find your local hash house[^]. You wont regret it (much).
Elephant elephant elephant, sunshine sunshine sunshine
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What a small world. I encountered some Hash House Harriers just a few days ago. They seemed well stocked with beer
We're philosophical about power outages here. A.C. come, A.C. go.
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I've been running with my local kennel off and on for a couple years now. it's good times, and generally cheap entry for a bunch of beer and fun (my local is $7 usually).
Elephant elephant elephant, sunshine sunshine sunshine
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I've never found them terribly useful. Networking isn't my strength so this is not an arena where I will naturally shine, but I've typically not found many people that I would like to be in contact with.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx
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If you are a small business trying to start up your company then it certainly can work for you.
In particular is you are looking for work fixing peoples computer screw-ups, network screw-ups, etc., then it is particularly worthwhile.
If you have a small target market for your product/service then probably not.
If you are introverted and/or close-minded or just plain don't like other people (the Sheldon Syndrome as I call it) as some of the others responding negatively to your post seem to be (no moral judgments, just stating the facts) THEN you should definitely NOT.
Having said that, I joined a networking group in Charlotte, NC in 1996 and built my company.
I was given a "lead" to a company by an insurance salesman that had called on them the day before, and not only got the work, but a business partner (he invested in my company after several years), and life-long friend. He later bought me out of that company, when I moved back to New Orleans. To this day, 20 years later, both the business lead, and the insurance salesman are friends and the insurance salesman is my Insurance agent.
To sum up, it is like Schrodinger's Cat... you may like it and be successful, or you may hate it and find it a waste of time. But if you don't try it once you will never know.
ChickenLegWilley
A giraffe is a horse designed by a committee....
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Beer? ... They want to steal your trade secrets ...
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That is the question.
When you look at the requirements for submitting to one of the app stores, there is always something like "app must be universally applicable". Meaning that it may be potentially used by all audiences.
What if your business fills a specific niche market and your app really only applies to the specific android/apple/windows phone users within your niche market?
Where do you put your app? How do you make an app available to a diverse yet pretty specific market? Is there the ability to set up your own business marketplace somehow housed within these existing global app stores?
Anybody else had to deal with these issues?
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I guess you could either require users to have a user account if you don't want anyone using it, or, assume that anyone who wants to use it can, but chances are unless they are searching within that niche, they never will.
I'd assume that "app must be universally applicable" is there to stop people putting up 'adult' or 'illegal' content, seems a bit of a catch all clause really.
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The company I work for has several apps in the App Store and Google Play that are only useful to the several hundred customers that have bought its hardware devices - the company's actual product. We essentially use the app stores as an easy and familiar deployment mechanism for mobile apps.
No app is really "universally applicable", not even the phone, SMS and clock apps that come with your smartphone - you could just as well use Skype/Viber/Messenger for calls and messages and have a wrist watch for the time.
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That's not really the same thing as what the OP is referring to...universally applicable means the general population could make use of it. Not that they have to, but that they could.
For example, we have an app that touring musicians can use to connect to reputable venues. The general population has no interest in doing that. The general population does have an interest in seeing the time, or sending messages.
That said, we've had no problem getting our niche apps approved. I'm not sure how specific is too specific for them. Maybe something like an app that only works for people that walk into your single store location might be too specific? I really have no idea.
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I suspect they placed this rule to restrict the publishing of "hello world" test apps, a DDoS on the store if you will.
Our apps are as niche as it can get, and we've had no problems whatsoever.
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You're probably right, given that we've never had an issue either.
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There's a pretty cool application environment out there called NSBasic (www.nsbasic.com) that you can write apps for pretty much any of the phone / tablet platforms (iOS, Android, etc.). It emits apps in Javascript that can run on those devices and also, apparently, allows you deploy to the "stores" through something called "Phone Gap". Using this platform you can "sideload" apps by just giving the potential user a URL where they can download the app or, like I said, you can deal with the App Stores.
I've only written relatively simple applications with it, but I'm pretty impressed with what it seems to be capable of. Much lighter-weight than using all the other technologies, a really interesting approach. Check it out. It's also not very expensive. (Like $100 or something - it was $99 when I bought it a few years ago and they keep it updated). These guys at NSBasic really seem to have pulled off something here. You can get versions that will run in Windows and OSX.
Incidentally, I don't have anything to gain here - I don't work for them.
-CM
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It's just CYA verbiage that the lawyers put in there to give the store owners a legal wedge in case they need to pull a piece of software.
Any time that you see something that is not objectively verifiable in an SLA/Usage Agreement, that's usually the purpose in my experience.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Benjamin Disraeli
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Bite The Bullet[^]
Twelve chocolates.
One full of Dorset Naga... 
Now, I like chillies. And I like Chocolate. I Even like Chilli and Chocolate. But I have my limits...
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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