By: Erik Gillespie

What is Lansing Codes?

Psst, hey you, over here. Have you heard about Lansing Codes? What about the new things they’re doing to grow Lansing’s already booming tech community? Okay, time to clue you in.

Lansing Codes is the hub for Lansing’s tech community and all of the tech groups, events, and other tech activities in the area. This community is open to everyone in tech, not just coders. If you’re a software tester, you’re in. Project manager? In. Designer or maker? In. You get the idea.

This is a group with goals. Like making tech accessible and promoting lifelong learning. And helping each other by sharing experiences and knowledge, mentoring, and practicing working together.

It’s a tech community that loves to share and wow are there a lot of ways to share!

Getting involved

When you’re ready to get involved, the best place to start is the Lansing Codes website. That’s right, you don’t even have to look away from your screen.

Most people go there to see the calendar of upcoming tech events. With nearly two dozen tech groups in Lansing, there are usually several events going on each week and nearly all of them are free! Some beginner-friendly programs are called out separately if you’re not sure where to start.

The newsletter and Slack team are also great ways to find out what’s going on in Lansing tech. The newsletter delivers upcoming events to your inbox and highlights a few special things each month. The Slack team has hundreds of members and tons of topic channels, including a job board.

Many of the events are free thanks to the graciousness of sponsors and there’s always room for more. The Lansing Codes GitHub page also has plenty of ways to help organizers reach more people and offer the best experiences possible.

If you’re involved in tech, the community wants to know you!

A shared passion for tech

Tech is so much a part of our lives these days that it’s tough not to be involved with tech in some way or another. So why such a dedicated community when so many of us are doing something in tech anyway?

A community is a great place to find friends, to share our amazing experiences with each other, and to lift each other up when our experiences aren’t so amazing. Technology exists to serve people, and a tech community is an excellent way to make that human connection with tech.

Lansing’s tech community is also a fantastic way to learn new things and continue honing one’s craft. Our collective wisdom is so much more enriching when we are learning from our collective and diverse experiences.

This is a place where our non-technical skills can get some tender loving care as well. Speaking to a group of people doesn’t come naturally to everyone. We don’t always have opportunities to practice leadership and teamwork at our jobs. But in a free and open community, we can make those opportunities available to everyone.

Best of all, we can positively impact others each and every time we share our passion for tech.

When you’re ready, find us at lansing.codes.

About the author

Erik is a tech educator at MSU, Code Lab 517, and Lansing Codes where he tries to make the tech a little more human. He’s always looking for ways that tech can make you feel powerful. You can find him on social media, but mostly through Lansing Codes.