The best way to benefit from community knowledge and experience is by attending a CiviCRM event. There are several different events hosted by the core team or by community leaders:
Several CiviCon conferences and user summits are organized all over the world, and are held every year. These one-day or two-day events are packed with sessions geared toward different types of users —end users, implementers, developers, and so on —and cover a breadth of topics, from site security and code architecture to case studies and practical how to recipes.
The core team and quite a few of the CiviCRM partners host several training programs each year, held in various locations around the world. There are two types of training: developer training, providing new developers with a crash course in CiviCRM code structure and tools; and administrator and end user training, providing both a broad overview of CiviCRM functionality and basic use, along with important configuration and planning considerations for system administrators.
Throughout the globe, there are an increasing number of CiviCRM Meet-up groups. These regionally located, community-led groups will typically meet monthly or bi-monthly, and use the time to learn about new features in CiviCRM, have a round-table discussion about working with particular tools, or make it a working meeting, where attendees break open their laptops and work on some aspect of their own site implementation. Meet-ups frequently include case study presentations, which provide a valuable way to learn about how other organizations are using the software, which in turn may inspire you to use it in new and creative ways.
Once a year, CiviDay is announced, which sees CiviCRM meet-up groups meet all over the globe on the same day.
The CiviCRM community also offers a wide variety of online and in-person training sessions and quite a few webinars can be found on the Web.
Depending on where you are located, it's not always easy to allocate the time and resources to travel to a CiviCRM event. But if you are able to, it's well worth the effort. Aside from the presentations, which may help you understand and utilize the software more fully, you will benefit from building relationships with other users and tapping into their experience.
