DevRel Weekly - Issue 210 - Twitter Exodus, Gaps in Community, and Metrics Methods

Welcome! 👋

hi everyone! Apologies for the gap in the newsletter... this past 10 days have been significantly more challenging than I anticipated. 😅 We got 4+ feet of snow in 3 days up in the Sierra Mountains and I was solo-mountain woman'ing and dog momming (and dog sitting!) while the power went in and out (and in and out), so it's been a bit intense! But I learned a lot of good lessons and had an amazing community of neighbors to lean on, which I'm incredibly grateful for.

Let's jump into the awesome content y'all have been creating this last week and a half! A few themes became clear over the past few days:

With people leaving (or contemplating leaving) Twitter, there's a loss of community and people are struggling to find the next place to connect.
ChatGPT seems to be taking the internet by storm. I've seen a number of people talking about how valuable the insights can be from a DevRel and community standpoint. Learn more from Yoav Ganbar, Rohit Ghumare, and David Spinks.
I wasn't able to make DevRelCon this year, but I saw a lot of great highlights online! Catch the discussions on Twitter and check out these slides from Matty Stratton and Ben Greenberg.

Enjoy the rest of the great content linked below!

Best,
Mary (@mary_grace)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

p.s. The exodus from Twitter is changing the landscape of where people are sharing content and having discussions. While I know many of us are still engaging there, I'm curious to find out where else I should be looking for content and links... and how? Let me know where you've been finding your information lately!

Tidbits 🕔

Storytelling is a Superpower

If you're a Developer Advocate, then you should have this quote as a wallpaper.

"The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story. "

-- Richard Powers

-Vlad Mihalcea

Benefits Abound

Building a community is a better way to build better products but it also translates to bottom line because community lead closes faster than marketing-led initiatives

-Jarek Jarzebowski

Help Developers Solve Problems

I don't agree that goal of devrel is to help developers write code, it's to help them solve problems so they can be more effective at their jobs. Most developers want to write less code, which is just the means to an end.

-Brandon West

Study Hard

I’m telling you right now, if #devrel is your thing then community needs to be something you study!

“I contribute” isn’t enough. What do you contribute? What relationships have you fostered? What impact are you sharing?

Community is the foundation of all things!

-Lewis Meyers

Tangibles 🤓

How to Measure Developer Relations

If you only have time to read one article this week, I recommend this one from Kim Maida. It's an in-depth look at how to define the best metrics strategy for your particular DevRel team. Be sure to set aside some time to truly dig into the exercises -- I'm excited to hear about what you discover!

5 Reasons Using Internal Talent is Good for Community

If you're a team of one and looking to scale your efforts, the help you're looking for might be closer than you think! Shannon Abram has some great tips on where to look and how to encourage people to contribute.

So you’re starting a new DevRel Job…

I know a number of people who have recently started a new role or have announced that they'll be joining a new company in the near future. If you find yourself in this boat, Jeremy Meiss has some tips for you. His to-do list starts before you join the company and details questions to ask during your first few weeks or months at the company.

Storytime 📚

DevRel Podcasts and Videos

Managing Community Conflicts and Controversies with Venia and Jillian Benbow - Community Manager Live (video)
Developer Relations with Raza Rython - HTML all the Things
Tips for becoming a Developer Advocate by Chanel Greco (video)
Burnout with Jono Bacon - Talking Drupal
Getting Started in Community with Jephtah Abu - The NEW Community Manager Handbook
Two Hours by Carrie Melissa Jones (video)
Developer events strategy with Kimmy Leslie (video)
Member Onboarding with Catherine Hackney - The NEW Community Manager Handbook
Supporting 10 Million Developers with Phil Nash - APIs over IPAs

One from the Archives 📰

Community OKRs: Why You Need Them (and How to Design Them)

As we look to 2023 and start to solidify our goals for the year, this article from Pam Magwaza is a great refresher course on how to create solid OKRs and KPIs.

Events 📆

DevRel Events

Things are calming down for the end of the year. Hopefully you are able take some time off and rest as well. However, if you're already looking ahead to 2023, there are a few events on the books for the coming year -- you can check them out here.

Jobs 👩‍💻

DevRel Jobs

Not happy with your job but not sure what else is out there? Take a look at our list of jobs and see if anything jumps out at you.