DevRel Weekly - Issue 105 - Leveraging our Platforms for Good

Welcome! 👋

hey DevRel fam. Happy weekend!

It's been a busy week for me with some exciting work projects (stay tuned for a blogpost or two coming soon!). It's also been a full week of learning. During my morning break (I manage an international team, so I work a split schedule) I've been working on a puzzle and listening to Seeing White, a podcast series from Scene On. The puzzle keeps my hands busy and lets my brain focus on all of the history that is presented, much of which I'm hearing for the first time! I'd highly recommend you dig in, no matter your background or geographic location.

This morning I had the privilege of co-hosting our second Community Pulse LIVE! episode. When we started planning this live episode at the beginning of May, we weren't sure what our topic was going to be, but it quickly became clear in these past two weeks. As a result, this morning's topic focused on how we in DevRel can use our platforms to address systemic racism.

We talked at length about how we can address explicit as well as implicit racism when we see it, as well as how we can use our speaking and writing skills to help educate those around us (hat tip to Taylor Barnett who I believe first brought up that idea). For those of you who are looking for tangible things you can do, this is a good place to start: Educate ourselves (the podcast I mentioned above is a great resource and there are a lot of other great resources listed in the Community Pulse show notes), and then use your research, writing, and speaking skills to help educate and support others.

What else am I missing? Are there other items that DevRel professionals are uniquely positioned to help with right now? Let me know.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and don't forget to take care of yourself. Until next week!

Best,
Mary (@mary_grace)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

Tidbits 🕔

Contributing Value is a Strong Motivator

If people believe that they share value ✨ within a community then they will always stay engaged to it🤗

-Kartik Derasari

DX is a Catalyst for Awesome UX

🤔🔥

Developer Experience and User Experience are not opposites.

In fact, having a very good DX can be a catalyst for creating awesome UX

Happy Devs Better Code Happy Users

Everybody profits

-Atila Fassina

Popularity Metrics != Developer Relations

As a follow-up to last week's discussion about popularity...

if your company measures success via popularity metrics, then you aren't doing developer relations, you're doing social media marketing. focus on quantifying the value your devrel org provides to the business (API expertise, support, community building) as well as to your users

-Chris Broadfoot

Proactive Community Management Reduces the Need for Policing

What we have found in online community management is that investment in proactive community management (programs, events, relationship development) reduces the need for moderation (policing) on the back end.

This has significant implications in the debate over police reform

-Rachel Happe

Interested in more information about how this relates to the current #DefundThePolice protests? Rachel wrote a blogpost about what cities can learn about policing from online management.

Tangibles 🤓

The Whys and Hows of Community Guidelines

Community guidelines not only set your incoming community members up for success, they also indicate to the rest of the industry what your goals and priorities are. They're the perfect opportunity to "let new users know what kind of community they can expect," as Sarah Robinson-Yu states in this article. With DevEx on the rise in addition to an increased need to let community members know that your community is a safe place for them to find answers and connect with your company, perhaps now is a good time to take the time to revamp your community guidelines.

Looking for more info on how to get those first few members signed up to your online community? Richard Millington suggests reaching out with personal invitations rather than mass emails.

How Real Should You Be As a Community Manager?

I've had a number of conversations over the past few years about just how "real" DevRel professionals should be online. How personal should our content be? Should we be sharing about our family as well as our work? How about our hobbies? What about our political stance?

My answer is always that we should be empathetic but authentic; aware of what's happening in the world around us and responding appropriately, but being personable and building relationships online in addition to offline.

Adrian Speyer gives a few tips on how to balance the personal brand with the professional one.

DevRel KPIs

"But how exactly do we track our efforts?" is a question that I practically hear in my sleep these days. Interested in some of the ways that various teams and individuals are doing just that? Check out this collection of tweets, blogposts, and other resources that the team at Orbit pulled together. Have other ideas that should be included? Give back on GitHub!

Storytime 📚

DevRel-Related Videos

There were a handful of relevant videos released this past week that I thought I'd pass along. (Sidenote: how do you feel about watching post-event videos? Do you set time aside to do so? Or do you tend to say that you will but never actually the time? Asking for a friend... 🙃)

Moving my conference online: do’s and don’ts with Lerika Mallaeva - DevRel.Event
Impact & Income: How to Build a Business from a Community with Sienna J. Brown - CMX Connect Madrid
Changing Organizations, Leadership & Community in 2020 & Beyond with Rachel Happe - IWC Chats
A Talk About Racism, Privilege, and DevRel: Community Pulse Live - Summer Edition

Events 📆

DevRel Events

Meetups, webinars, and (online) conferences... they're all coming your way! Is there an event you're particularly excited to attend for professional development? I’d love to know what it is!

Jobs 👩‍💻

Senior Staff Developer Advocate

Serve as the public face of Seagate's open source initiatives. Help us develop, implement and maintain our corporate open-source strategy. Share our vision and open source initiatives via blog posts, hackathons, meet-ups, and code integrations with popular third-party software sites such as pytorch, Map-Reduce, Kubernetes, and Spark etc. Apply today!

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Relations Jobs

Summer is in the air in the Northern Hemisphere! Not only are we seeing the sun far more often these days, but job postings seem to be showing up more often as well. If you're looking for a job or know someone who is, check out the DevRel Weekly Jobs Collection as a place to get started. Wishing you the best in all of your endeavors!