DevRel Weekly - Issue 126 - Advancement, Resilience, and Being a Part of Your Community

Welcome! 👋

Happy Community Manager Advancement Day (CMAD), everyone! If you've been following me for a while, you know that I view Developer Relations in its simplest form as community management for a technical audience, which means CMAD is for all of us who are engaging with and providing resources for our technical communities!

As we've mentioned before, this year's theme is resilience, which is particularly fitting given the current circumstances impacting all of us. I'd encourage you to attend some of the events that are happening all over the world today and throughout this week, celebrating the importance of the work that we do. Looking for something equally relevant from a slightly different angle? Google is hosting a diversity, equity and inclusion day on Feb 4. Be sure to check it out!

Speaking of celebrating the work that we do and also advancing our careers, the State of Community Management 2021 Survey is now open! This survey returns valuable information every year, helping us drive the community & DevRel industries forward. Be sure to set aside a few minutes to take the survey today.

Best,
Mary (@mary_grace)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

p.s. A special shoutout to our two new sponsors, Iterative and Axosoft (GitKraken). There are a number of new job postings in the DevRel Weekly Jobs Collection below as well -- be sure to check it out if you're on the hunt!

Tidbits 🕔

You're a Community Member

A tip for anyone that starts work on community building this year: you're not a community manager or strategist or whatever. You're a community member. Spend time with your people. Learn about the things you're talking about. Have conversations with them.

-Glynk

Transitioning from Dev to DevRel

Sam Julien recently posted a thread about the transition from Developer to DevRel professional. Whether you're new to DevRel or have a few years of experience under your belt, this thread is worth checking out!

Build a Community, Not an Audience

The term "Community" is thrown around a lot today, especially in creator circles.

Let's be clear about one thing -- if you're not fostering connections between your readers, you don't have a community, you have an audience.

-Ethan Brooks

Use Your Super Powers

Because it is rapidly expanding, you as a cmgr have some unique power go bring the voice of the customer or member to the table. You provide insights into their needs to drive value.

You can help influence marketing campaigns and thought leadership development.

All because you're the super lucky person who gets to work with your members day in and day out.

You know their issues, their voices, their wins or defeats.

You're the human human at any org.

Take that secret super power each cmgr has and make your member's experience vibrant across all channels with your insight.

Double down on the humanness part - when we listen & drive value, that's the differentiator going forward.

-Shannon Emery

This is Strategic Work

Developer communities are the new moat.

DevRel and community building is now strategic, not just operational.

-Avinash Harsh

Help our Members Become Successful

To create something that others want to join and support, we have to remember a core tenant:

Communities function best and are most durable when they're helping members to become more successful in some way in a connected and dynamic world.

If you forget this, then your efforts will be misplaced.

-Glynk

Tangibles 🤓

Is My Writing Any Good? Four Hidden Tricks to Focus Your Copy and Silence Your Doubts.

If you're struggling with writing content that you're happy with, these tips from technical writer and content strategist Charley Mann are sure to calm your nerves and increase your confidence. I have the pleasure of working with Charley at Camunda and have benefitted from her editing skills a number of times! This piece is definitely one to keep in your back pocket if you're not lucky enough to have her as your coworker.

Banning People

This is such an incredibly important piece to read if you're responsible for an online community. Banning people is one of the most difficult things you'll have to do, but it's likely you'll need to do so at some point during your time as a moderator. Take a deep breath, read this list of tips, and bookmark it for a later date.

Forming Weird Communities

This article got me thinking about online communities and social media platforms. 2020 led to a lot of us unfriending, unfollowing, or in general stopping all communication with those who disagree with us on particular policies, and there are many cases in which this was absolutely the healthiest possible decision for all involved.

But Rohan Gupta challenges us to recognize that there are cases to be made for "weird communities" -- those that aren't completely like-minded. As he says,

In a weird community, people are always challenging each other’s ideas, there is diplomacy involved, and acceptance by all is rare and hence you thrive to produce ideas that attract maximum appreciation which is a stress-inducing process.

I'm not sure exactly where I land on the spectrum of "like-minded" vs. "weird" communities, but it's definitely something to think about as we create and foster our online communities! Thoughts? I'd love to hear!

Tangents 🐰

Creating Engagement and Content Through a Webinar Program

Looking for ways to repurpose the content you're creating? Chris Detzel explains how he created engagement in addition to content as a one-person DevRel team through a webinar program.

Storytime 📚

DevRel Podcasts and Videos

Marshmallows and Tutus–Building Communities That Thrive with Katy Farmer - Observy McObservface
Why Has Clubhouse Been Plagued by Trust and Safety Issues? with Danielle Maveal - Community Signal
Internal vs. External DevRel with Kevin McIntosh, Aja Hammerly, and Davey Shafik - Community Pulse
Platform Success with Ceci Stallsmith and Paige Paquette - Developer Love
Building the Dream Community Team with Holly Firestone - Masters of Community
Doing DevRel the Right Way with PJ Hagerty - Technically True
An introduction to developer experience, and the role of a documentarian by Chris Ward - Write the Docs (video)
How To Build Thriving Online Communities with Richard Millington - Indie Media Club (video)
Developer Advocacy for Data Science with Elle O'Brien - DataTalksClub (video)
Developer Advocate Stories - Liaz Kamper (video)

Events 📆

Google Open Source Live

Join us for Diversity, equity and inclusion day on Google Open Source Live! We have invited DEI experts and Googlers that are dedicated to creating more inclusive and diverse environments online. Join us to understand and discuss different approaches to bringing more diversity, equity and inclusion to open source. Throughout the event, our speakers will answer your questions via the Live Q&A Forum. We’ll wrap up the event with an After Party on Google Meet for an opportunity to connect with the speakers and other attendees.

Event: Diversity, equity and inclusion day on Google Open Source Live

Date & Time: Feb 4 (Thu) 9 am - 11 am Pacific Time

Register: Register here to reserve your spot!

Events 📆

Developer Relations Events

As we continue to add events to the DevRel Weekly Events Collection, we hope that you'll consider continuing to take a look to see if there are any professional growth events that you might be interested in attending. There are some terrific events being put on by people in DevRel!

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Advocate

Developer Advocate wanted to help us help data scientists! Here at Iterative, we make open source tools for machine learning, like DVC and CML. We’re seeking an expert technical creator and communicator to help us sustain and grow our active, worldwide community!

Developer Evangelist

Apply to be the sole Developer Evangelist for GitKraken, the most popular graphical user interface for Git. Be at the forefront of growing our community of millions of software developers and building product/brand advocacy through events, content creation, and community engagement.

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Relations Jobs

One of the biggest job search tips on the internet is to be clear about what you want. One of the best ways to do that is to look at job descriptions and the companies that are hiring for DevRel. Take a look at the DevRel Weekly Jobs Collection and see if it brings any clarity or even a job you'd be interested in applying to.