Issue 13

Welcome! 👋

Alright... time to get real. Conference crud is here and it's not kidding around. Apologies for the delayed and short newsletter this week, but it is what it is. 😕 I've made the executive decision this morning that rather than trying to work through a haze of Sudafed I need to follow my own advice and take care of myself so that I can continue to take care of my community in the future!

I hope you all are successfully avoiding whatever crud you're fighting off and that we all survive to see another conference (one where I hopefully get to meet you in person!). Hit reply with any questions or comments as always and I'll get back to you when I'm feeling more like myself (hopefully sooner rather than later!).

-Mary 🤧🤒

Tidbits 🕔

DevRel is a Human API

I absolutely love this description of DevRel from Alex Walling, Developer Advocate at RapidAPI:

I was recently talking to my dad about some of the work I've been doing and the work he's been doing, and he referred to what we do as kind of being human APIs. Thinking of DevRel as being a human API is a fascinating concept to me.

An API is a software-to-software interface, but DevRel is a human-to-human interface. We are able to take in information of one style(technical, business, writing, presentation, etc.) and communicate it to/through another style of information.

Whether it's taking in feedback from your community and conveying it to your company, learning about a new technology and creating a presentation/blog around it or being able to "speak" and understand information from both the business perspective and the developer perspective.

#CollabTalk focuses on Community

I discovered another tweet chat this week (turns out, they're everywhere!). This one is called #CollabTalk and it focused on community management this week. There are a lot of great gems that came out of it. Here are a few of my favorites:

The best way to build engagement is to ENGAGE with people. Answer their questions. Reach out to them. @ mention them to help another user, try to help them find what they need.

-Amy Dolzine

Great to see folks calling out the need for diversity w/in communities in order to keep up. Silo'd thinking limits what communities can learn.

-Steve Nguyen

Community is tricky to nail. Elements for success include a passionate visionary, a compelling cause within a domain, earnest, trust-filled relationships, meaningful conversation...and an ample amount of curiosity.

-Noah Sparks

Community Mgrs are the personal trainer for communities. They help build accountability, cheer people on, and inspire activity.

-Steve Nguyen

The difference between a presentation & a blog post

A timely tip from Jessica West, quoting Melinda Seckington's talk at DevRelCon China:

Your presentation is for the people in the room; your slides are not to be used as a way to communicate after. That's a blog post.

Community Trends, or Trends Away from Community?

An interesting observation from David DeWald this week:

Just an interesting trend. @Yahoo is selling off its community-based holdings. @Flickr & @Polyvore both "acquired" by other companies this month.

Thoughts? Opinions? Hit reply and let me know what you think, or reply to this thread on Twitter.

Tangibles 🤓

In Conversation: Seth Godin + Simon Sinek

ICYMI like I did, Seth Godin and Simon Sinek (two people I admire greatly) teamed up for a conversation this past week. I'll be watching this video at my next opportunity. It's long (about 75m total) but seems like it will be completely worth it! Simon Sinek posted about it beforehand, saying

I believe the future of work will focus largely around community, and what better way to explore the future of work than to create an environment for collaboration and community to thrive.

I couldn't agree more!

Small warning: video will start playing immediately upon clicking this link.

The Ninth Edition of the State of Community Management... Coming Soon!

I don't know about you, but I'm stoked to see the results from the annual State of Community Management survey from The Community Roundtable. This year, they're presenting the data a little bit differently:

Unlike years past, the SOCM 2018 focuses more on strategy and how communities are impacting organizations today and less on tactics and operational benchmarks, making the 2018 report an excellent resource to share with your stakeholders, executives, and wider organizational decision-makers.

There's never been a more appropriate time or way to present information about DevRel and community management! Here's hoping it can help us continue to push the industry forward.

p.s. If you've been following along with The Community Roundtable's "Community Skills" series, their latest write-up focuses on Technical Skills.

Events 📆

Developer Relations & Evangelists Women's Group

If you're a woman working in DevRel based in the SF Bay Area, Ali Spivak, Head of Developer Ecosystem at Mozilla started a twitter thread last week asking if folks might be interested in a regular meetup. Ask and you shall receive... one now exists! Learn more information about it and join here.

Developer Relations Events

Webinars, conferences, and events galore, many of which have CFPs and Early Bird tickets deadlines soon... check them out.

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Relations Jobs

DevRel, Community Management, DevEx, Technical Writing jobs... they're all here. Come and get 'em!

Developer Avocados 🥑

Thanks to Jonas Mosesson for this "Bad Day, Good Day" avocado gif. It accurately represents how I've been feeling the last few days -- some moments are better than others, but you pick up the pieces and keep going! More fun avocado facts coming your way next week. In the meantime, got any avocado gifs that might make me smile? Hit reply and send them my way! 😁🥑