Online communities are great for today's business professionals. The web is no longer just a place for people to shop online or get the latest weather update, but a place for business professionals to exchange information and read about new technologies. Business owners and industry professionals who have undergone comprehensive training to excel in their careers can enhance their business strategies and stay up to date with current business trends simply by participating in online communities.

What is an online community? It can mean an online organization to bring together in the form of industry societies or formal groups, but it doesn't have to be. Places such as forums and blogs provide additional contributions to an organization's existing web site and places for professionals to connect with other professionals. A forum will allow a person to post a problem or question and get the opinions of other technicians in the field from all over the world. They may be able to offer new ideas that you or the people you work with every day have not considered. These tools are great for people in the HVAC industry.

What are the benefits of participating in an HVAC online community?

Gives HVAC Technicians a Place to Exchange News and New HVAC Technologies

After HVAC technicians have completed their education at a heating and air conditioning school, they need to find other ways to keep up on the news and technologies that continue to develop within the industry. Schools do a great job posting articles in blogs to keep their graduates abreast of new ideas. The web is a place for other professionals to share their views on current economic trends affecting their profession. It's a place for professionals to get the word out about new equipment models and tools that will be useful in HVAC maintenance and repair. These things can be very useful to technicians in their every day work. Did you know that there has been a shortage in HVAC technicians recently? Did you know that green building designs are affecting indoor air quality control and energy consumption by HVAC units? You would if you kept up with current blog postings.

Gives Technicians a Place to Share Experiences

There are some things that must be done in a logical order. For example, you always put your pants on before your shoes. Other tasks, we are able perform in different ways. Do you pour your coffee and then add sugar, or do you put the sugar in the cup and then pour the coffee? These variations in procedures can have varying results in the final products, although maybe not so much in coffee preparation. HVAC maintenance and repair techniques may have variations in it as well. Your method for completing tasks may be slightly different than another person's and therefore you have differing results. Online communities are great places to share your experiences and discuss successes and failures with other people. They may have better ways of doing things. They may need a little help and guidance. These exchanges of information based on experience with different HVAC technologies are incredibly useful in helping people do their jobs better.

Fosters a Sense of Belonging among HVAC Technicians

We all want to belong to a community. This is part of the reason we join gyms, go to church, play basketball, and create online profiles on so many different sites. We enjoy getting to know people and seeing things that are similar and different between us. Going to school is helpful for this as well, but often it's hard to keep up with those relationships once your education has been completed. It's fun to establish connections with people who have similar interests, such as a career in the HVAC industry. It not only gives us a sense of identity, but also creates an environment for networking. Networking usually ends up being an integral part of the job searching process. We meet a person through school, through school job fairs, or simply through "knowing someone who knows someone" and these relationships could potentially turn into job offers.

Gives HVAC Technicians a Place to Get Information Regardless of Time or Place

Whether you live in Phoenix, Arizona or Anchorage, Alaska, you can participate in these communities. Whether you are someone who gets up at 6 am to spend time on the computer or likes to stay up until 2 am, you can participate in these communities when it is convenient for you. Time and place are no longer a factor in your ability to exchange information within your profession. You don't have to go to a convention in another state in order to meet someone else in the HVAC industry to discuss a problem you've been encountering with a piece of equipment. You can post your problem on a forum and see who responds.

See what other people are doing in order to apply new ideas to your own life and work. These communities and online organizations have been helpful to so many industries. They can be useful to the HVAC industry as well.