[em-bee]

absolutely, also linux user groups.

everywhere i travelled or lived i was easily welcomed to be an active member of the local user group and from several i have friends that still remember me a decade or two later.

i don't even remember any smalltalk phase (except for the smalltalk programmers group :-). there usually was some topic or someone with a question and we launched straight into technical discussions. all i had to do was show up and participate occasionally.