Networking Opportunities Springing Up in Cedar Falls

At the beginning of the night, we were strangers, with only a love of cupcakes and the fact that we use Twitter in common. An hour later, names, contacts and stories had been traded, and many Peanut Butter Cup baked treats had been consumed.

Networking at it's delicious best.

The event was Cedar Valley TweetUp, a meeting of Twitter users in Cedar Falls and Waterloo, held this month at . There was no agenda beyond getting to know other Twitter users from around town. The event was, simply put, a way to meet strangers and trade stories from professions around the Cedar Valley.

TweetUp is just one of several networking events and groups springing up across the Cedar Valley. Others groups include Cedar Valley Young Professionals, founded in 2008, New Gen Rotary, which seeks to bring a younger crowd into the Rotary fold, and TechBrew Cedar Valley, which hit town in 2010 and is hosted by Cedar Valley Tech Works.

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"I'd do it again. There are a lot of people here. More people than I can even talk to in one evening," TweetUp participant Valerie Merchant, 24, of Cedar Falls, said. "I think any local networking things are really nice. Especially since I'm new to the area, it's nice to find little outlets."

All these groups have regular meetings and social events, and anyone interested can stay up-to-date with all of these and other opportunities by signing up for an umbrella email newsletter called Connect the Valley.

Cedar Valley TweetUp was started about a year and half ago, said Jenn Jarvis, one of it's current organizers. Jarvis, 27, of Waterloo, is the Internet director at KWWL. She helped keep the group going when some of the original founders moved away. The group hadn't met for the last six months, but Jarvis hopes to make it a regular feature again.

"For someone who is plugged into the community on Twitter, you see these names pop up," she said. "It's nice to meet the people behind them. As impersonal as social networking can make our lives, it's a way to reconnect face-to-face."

Different groups have different focuses. At the Cedar Valley TechBrew, the topic is, no surprise, technology. New Gen Rotary is focused on Rotary's traditional value of service. Cedar Valley Young Professional's name is self-explanatory of its core audience. But above all, these groups are about getting people together.

There are also bigger networking events planned, such as Feb. 4's BarCamp Cedar Valley, vaguely described as, "an un-conference," where attendees set the agenda, and Iowa Startup Fair, happening Jan. 31 at .

"It's a good opportunity to meet people in the area, and you know you have at least one thing in common with them," Jarvis said of why she likes the TweetUp.

The same is surely true of the other networking groups growing in town.