DevRel Weekly - Issue 131 - Pillars of Community, Content is Queen, and 2 Things That Will Make You Smile

Welcome! 👋

If you need a bit of a pick-me-up this week, this thread started by Mano Marks is one to read (or bookmark for later when you need a smile). Josh Ragland said this to summarize (I took some liberty with substituting Developer Advocate for Developer Relations):

If you're [in Developer Relations] - thank you. Your work is often unclear to those outside of your role, but to see the positive impact [Developer Relations professionals] have on those around them is always awesome. So, thank you.

I hope that brings a smile to your faces today, DevRel fam! If you need another reason to smile, the ability to preorder this book should do it! I've been trading ideas back and forth with David Spinks, Cofounder of CMX, for years now, and I can't wait to see what he's put together! It's sure to be a fantastic resource.

Have a great rest of your week.

Best,
Mary (@mary_grace)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

Tidbits 🕔

Mission Statements are Fundamental

You need a mission statement for your online community!

It defines why your community was created and what it aims to achieve. It is a fundamental pillar of your community, you should turn to it for guidance on all actions.

-hivebrite

Say it Again: Content is Queen

The #community giants have said it - content is queen.

Consistent, quality content centered around your community's purpose builds trust that your org is invested.

Stay focused & consistent first. The big ideas will work better when you build & honor that connection.

-Shannon Emery

Community Pointers

A few community pointers I shared earlier:

Be authentic and accessible

Content is king. Quality content drives scale not quantity

If you advocate for others, they'll advocate for you

Social: follow hashtags diligently. By diligently I mean obsessively

-Jesse Ott

Tenets of Community Management

The pillars, or tenets, of community management, was a big topic this week!

Allie Wassum got a conversation started off with this great question:

What are the 3 most important tenets of community management?

I'll start:
1. Know your community
2. Don't oversaturate with product
3. Reinforce positivity

Carter Gibson had this to say in a separate conversation:

At Google, we have three pillars of what #CommunityManagement is. A #CMGR needs to...

MODERATE their communities by setting standards and evenly enforcing them

ADVOCATE user needs to decision makers

And, of course...

AMPLIFY and reward prosocial behaviors

What are your top principles for community management?

What's Your Community's Shared Purpose?

Strong communities have well-defined boundaries. Getting the consent and commitment from new members right away helps ensure ongoing alignment with the community’s shared purpose.

A bigger community is not the goal; the goal is to create value that satisfies the shared purpose.

-Rachel Happe

Tangibles 🤓

The Rise of the Community Department

If you've been involved in community and Developer Relations for more than a year or three, you likely won't be surprised by anything in this article from Lisa Xu, but I'd still recommend reading it. Lisa takes an in-depth look at how Community Management has matured as an industry over the last few years and explores the possibilities of what is to come.

Technical Communities Are Made of People, Too

While it sounds like a simple assertion to make, sometimes we need the reminder that behind every pull request, every feature request, every GitHub issue, is a human being. Ben Greenberg recently wrote about about the two categories we need to keep in mind as we interact with our technical communities: power and self-interest.

Community KPI's That Matter

Carmen Taubman took a unique angle on Community KPIs with this article. Rather than focusing only on the metrics that a community or DevRel team should be tracking to make sure their work is effective, she also lists Community KPIs for Sales, Product, Marketing, and more. I'll definitely be bookmarking this blogpost to come back to as I work on a Community Health Metric in the days to come!

Increasing Community Diversity

What's the best way to increase the diversity of the community you're building? Increase the diversity of the team building the community. Rich Millington gives a few examples from teams he's worked with in this article.

Tangents 🐰

Calling the Writers on the Team

If you're responsible for writing content about a product (aka Developer Advocate, Product Marketing Manager, Product Manager, Technical Writer...), take a few minutes to fill out this survey. The author is teaching a UX writing course and could use some real examples about how product content gets written to share with their students..

Storytime 📚

DevRel Podcasts and Videos

Hiring and Recruiting in the Modern Era with Jill (Jubinski) Wohlner & Will Staney - Community Pulse
The Concierge of DevRel with Jonan Scheffler - Screaming in the Cloud
Building Deeper Friendships with Kat Vellos - Masters of Community
I Am Done With Doing Developer Relations - This Developing Story
Career Advice from a Developer Advocate with Kevin Lewis - Lauren Learns Things (video)
Knowledge Management and Communities of Practice with Stan Garfield - Melbourne KM Leadership Forum (video)
Career Advice from a Senior Community Programs Manager with Myrsini Koukiasa - Lauren Learns Things (video)
What it's like to be a Developer Advocate? with Matt Raible - OktaDev (video)

Events 📆

DevRel Weekly Events

If you're anything like me, your next few months are filling up quickly with online events. Before all of your time is completely booked, see if you want to squeeze in one of these great events to level up your career.

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Advocate

StackHawk makes it simple to run automated application security tests in CI/CD. We are hiring our first Developer Advocate to engage with the developer community on application security testing. Drop us a line at [email protected]!

Director of Community

At Fishtown Analytics, our mission is to empower analysts to create and disseminate organizational knowledge. The open-core product we build, dbt, is used and loved by thousands of companies with more joining every day. As the Director of Community, you can expect to develop and deploy a strategy to help empower this community and guide our efforts as we work towards realizing our mission. Learn more about the role here!

Jobs 👩‍💻

Advice for Anyone Applying for a Community Position

If you're job hunting right now, take a few minutes to read this thread from Erik Martin. His tips are applicable for anyone searching for a job, but particularly if you're looking for your first Developer Relations or Community-facing role.

DevRel Weekly Jobs

We have a record-breaking 400+ jobs available in the DevRel Weekly Jobs Collection this week! From junior roles to management, there's something for everyone!