Issue 19

Welcome! 👋

With so much relevant industry news hitting this week, it's hard to avoid the barrage. The question is, how do we view this through a community lens and where do we go from here? In my opinion, we use the opportunity to pull closer together, learn from each other, and continue pushing to make the industry a better, more welcoming, and inclusive place for everyone.

A number of people are doing that this week, from creating Twitter lists to curating threads of awesome projects and empowering each other to be the leaders we know we can be (tell that imposter syndrome to get out of here!).

So keep your head up and approach the rest of the week with confidence. Do what you love and keep making a difference in and through your community.

All the best,
- Mary, @mary_grace

Tidbits 🕔

Will the Women Please Stand Up?

There are a lot of women in DevRel. 🎉If you had any doubt, this conversation from last Thursday will disabuse you of that notion.

As a result of the thread, Taylor Barnett, Lead Community Engineer at Stoplight, created a Twitter list for all women & non-binary folks in DevRel, and I couldn't be more grateful!

Metrics... Coming Soon

Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, reported this week that they've been narrowing down the list of proposals they received for conversational health metrics. I think David Spinks, CEO of CMX, spoke for all of us when he said,

So happy to see the digital health tools being created by tech leaders. Big steps in the right direction.

Shoutouts to People Making a Difference

Have you noticed any companies (or individuals) doing exceptionally awesome things lately? Jessica Rose started a Twitter thread with some notable items and asked for contributions:

Tech Twitter: What companies, projects or people are doing amazing things right now and shout be getting more attention?

In order for a Community to Succeed...

David Spinks laid out these requirements for a successful community this week:

For a community to scale it has to:
- be financially sustainable
- maintain consistent core experiences, rules, and values
- distribute control to local contributors/leaders
If any of those three things don’t happen, the whole system fails.

Are there other things you think a community needs in order to scale and succeed? Hit reply and let me know!

Don't Use "Tribe"

We all want a unique name for our group of community members, but some names are better than others, and some, I would argue, shouldn't ever be used in this context...

Just leaving this here for anyone who has used the word “tribe” in their marketing language. Please don’t do it.

-Carrie Melissa Jones

The Recognition Your Community Program Deserves

Nominations are open for the 3rd annual TheCR Awards. Think your community has what it takes to win, or know of a community that does? Check out the categories and submit your nominations today.

Tangibles 🤓

Notes from DevXcon SF 2018

If you missed DevXcon this past week, chances are you didn't miss seeing the happenings on Twitter! If you've been frantically trying to catch up on the Twitter stream, I'll warn you -- there's a lot! But if you're looking for a distilled version, check out Dave Nugent's awesome summary.

I take notes by live-tweeting, which others have told me benefits them as well! For the first time, I created a Twitter moment based on these tweets. If a particular talk sounds interesting to you, click through on the tweet to find the rest of the talk in the thread. (Pro tip: If you don't like reading Twitter threads, there are a few workarounds.)

Here are a few of my favorite tweets from the conference:

Strategies for finding your position in DevRel:
- Help your company understand why it makes the product
- Be honest with users about why the product exists
- Help the company understand why meeting user needs advances their needs
- Keep your integrity 🙌
@ManoMarks #DevXcon

-Taylor Barnett

Things that don't work [in emails to developers]:
*Subject lines don't move the needle.
* Designs don't matter
* Sending dates and times don't matter.
* Don't worry about the hecklers. Only worry about your friends and people trusted in the community.
@peterc #DevXcon

-Corey Quinn

As someone who recently moved into "leadership" a motivation was an experience of being poorly lead elsewhere & the negative impact that had on me and the people I worked with. I wanted to prove that a collaborative and individual-empowering approach to #DevRel can work. Another big motivation was seeing DevRel teams come and go at far too many companies. I wanted to clearly demonstrate the value of DevRel within a company and the industry. I also prefer DevRel outside of the marketing function and wanted to demonstrate success in that. #DevXCon

-Phil Leggetter

Validation through Research

More analysis came from The Community Roundtable survey this week, including this gem:;

While communities generate a multitude of value, this power to support and challenge individuals so they can learn and grow in emotionally safe spaces is the key reason to invest in strong communities.

Reconstructing the absent user -- the essential requirement for writing good documentation

We all know this principle to be true: "To write good documentation, you have to follow the most fundamental rule of writing: know your reader." However... what happens when your reader isn't making themselves known? We're all grateful for the lurkers (truth be told, we've all probably been lurkers at some point in time!) but when they're silent, how do you know whether you're creating documentation that's useful for them?

I'd Rather be Writing digs into this problem this week and gives us a few useful tips along the way.

Facebook Gave Device Makers Deep Access to Data on Users and Friends

Yet another development in the Facebook saga has some of us moving further and further away from the platform (or at least from supporting it financially). As Rachel Happe said earlier this week,

More reasons not to put your organization's community on Facebook... they get the data, ISPs get the data... but you don't get the data. They know just how valuable the data is... does your org?!?

Where do you fall on the Facebook spectrum? Hit reply and let me know.

Microsoft Acquires Github

This headline shouldn't be a surprise for anyone, but in case it is... surprise! Microsoft blogged about it, as did Github, both of which were incredibly upbeat articles (no surprise there either), but the response from the community was mixed to say the least.

There are too many blogposts, tweet threads, and news podcasts to list here, but this one from Anil Dash caught my eye. (Disclaimer: it is framed as a pitch for Glitch, but keep reading until the end...)

The bullet points toward the bottom of the article (search for "What about other tools?" if you want to skip straight there) raise good points about where Github (and other platforms) have missed the bar over the years. This point at the end of the article particularly hits home for me:

GitHub has radically changed coding in the last 10 years, and we should all celebrate this milestone for Microsoft and for the community. It’s a validation of an important idea: We don’t code alone.

We can all agree on that, regardless of where we fall of the Microsoft/Github spectrum. Thoughts & feelings? Hit reply and let me know.

Tangents 🐰

This article from Shubham Rai had an impact on me this week. He makes the case that in a world where content is forever at our fingertips, we have devalued wisdom:

Knowledge has, even more so, been replaced by the now ever so pervasive nomenclature, “content”. We are all consuming, selling and breathing content that is not only insular and but also homogeneous in nature. And as we scroll through our phones and lives for content, the potent question that emerges is — have we forgotten to share wisdom?

Let's make sure to not forget that in creating and curating content, we need to be encouraging deeper thinking and exploration as well instead of just aiming for more organic traffic.

Storytime 📚

Imposter Syndrome - What do we do about it?

If you struggle with imposter syndrome (and let's face it -- most of us do at one time or another!), this month's episode of Community Pulse is for you. PJ Hagerty, Jason Hand, and I sat down with Kelsey Hightower to chat about imposter syndrome.

We talk about how to spot it in yourself as well as others, how to handle it, and some of the things that cause it. Find the episode on your favorite podcasting software (and if you like it... leave us a review!).

How this Slack Community for Remote Workers Unites from All Over the Globe

Curious how companies are using Slack to bring their community together? Read about how Buffer does this and why it works so well for them.

One from the Archives 📰

Industry Changes Should Bring Change

This article from the end of 2017 called for an emphasis on change in the tech industry. Not change like we've seen this week... but a change in the types of technology we're creating -- a movement toward responsible innovation. As more big companies join forces, it's my hope that they'll join together to use their powers for good and strive to make a difference in our world, both in- and outside of tech.

Events 📆

Developer Relations Events

This past week cleared a lot of events from our normal curated view but new ones are starting to trickle in. Know of ones that aren't listed? Shoot me a note and I'll add them to the list!

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Relations Jobs

There are currently a nice round 111 jobs listed in the collection. I don't want to ruin it for anyone, but I'll be going through to clean up the list and add others that have been sent my way this week. Find some dead links before I get a chance to pull them? Please don't hesitate to reach out and let me know. Conversely... if you're hiring and don't see your job listed, I'm more than happy to add it in! Happy job hunting.

Developer Avocados 🥑

Avocado Industry News

The mid-season Avocado Grower Crop Estimate Survey responses have been released! (Turns out even avocados have industry news -- who knew?) If you're interested in checking it out, you can read the press release or go direct to the results instead.