DevRel Weekly - Issue 227 - Surveys, Bridges, and Open Source

Welcome! 👋

It's officially feeling like summer here in the mountains, and I couldn't be happier! It's been lovely to have the windows open at night, drink coffee from the front porch in the morning, and generally enjoy not being surrounded by snow. 🤪

We also welcomed a new puppy into our home three weeks ago, so things have been a little more chaotic than usual around here. 😅 Turns out... having adopted two young dogs previously does not set you up with the proper expectations for an actual 5-month-old puppy. 😂 We love her dearly, but she's a lot of work! Thanks for bearing with me as we settle into our new normal. You can meet Lillie on Twitter, Instagram, or Bluesky.

Best,
Mary (Twitter, Bluesky)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

p.s. With Twitter's restrictions increasing by the day, engagement decreasing on Mastadon, and Bluesky still being limited to invite codes (let me know if you need one!), I'm trying to decide where to pull content from in the future. Help me help you by answering a few questions. Sidenote: as I'm finishing this up... let me go add Threads to the list of platforms. 😅

Top News of the Week 🗞️

Tis the Week for Surveys

Apparently, it's the time of year for industry surveys! While I know it may seem tedious to go through the process of filling out three separate surveys, please do if you have the time. These surveys help us further define the DevRel industry and the results are invaluable when it comes to asking for budget, helping stakeholders understand the value we bring to the table, and furthering the industry as a whole.

2023 Survey: Developer Relations Compensation & Culture from Common Room
Developer Relations Survey for an upcoming book by Tracy Lee
10th Annual Developer Relations Survey from DevRel Agency

Tidbits 🕔

Choose the platform that works for your community

Too many people choose their platform before they’ve designed their community.

They end up designing their community for Slack or Discord or Circle or [insert platform here].

Dream up your community first, THEN decide on which platform will get you closest to that dream.

-David Spinks

Bridge the Gap

The role of a developer advocate is to bridge the gap between developers and technology. It's about championing innovation, sharing knowledge, and empowering others to thrive in the digital world.

-Andrew Papoutsis

Event Recaps

Doing an event recap is probably the most important thing I do as a DA.

In this recap we cover:
- Tech trends covered at the conference
- Feedback from those using and not using OpenSearch
- How our demos went
- Action items we need to follow up on

-David Tippett

DevRel Advice Column

if you are in devrel or you have a non software engineer role, how do you keep your dev skills sharp?

-Ceora Ford

Tangibles 🤓

How to respond to a growing community

A community of 10 people responds very differently to a personal message than a community of 1000 people does. But how do you know how to address these different audiences? Jono Bacon suggests thinking about it like a city:

10 active members = a group of friends
100 active members = a neighborhood block party
1000 active members = a full city

Read more about how he suggests approaching these different groups.

Open Source & Developer Relations

Open source software has always been an interesting segment of the DevRel and community industries, and in fact, much of open source community work pre-dates what is considered "developer relations" today. Two articles caught my eye this week about the Venn diagram of open source and developer relations:

Will ChatGPT Take Over Content Creation?

Curious whether ChatGPT will actually take over content creation? My prediction, based on some recent discoveries of just how incorrect the information on ChatGPT can be, is no, but I can't deny that it can be a helpful tool to get past that "blank page syndrome" we all sometimes face!

This article from Chris Maunder walks through some of the other issues developers are facing when trying to write technical content using ChatGPT.

Interested in what type of content you should actually be focusing on? This infographic is a helpful resource that breaks down what many technical people are looking for.

Storytime 📚

Need Better Technical Content?

Draft.dev has helped over 100 Developer Relations teams scale up their technical content production. Book a call to learn more about how we can help you grow and improve your content production efforts.

Storytime 📚

DevRel Podcasts and Videos

Who are the Ops Behind the DevRel Curtain? with Danielle Andrist and David Blank-Edelman - Community Pulse
Dotan Horovits on DevRel and OpenTelemetry - Software Defined Talk
How to Get a Job in DevRel - Learn with Jason (video)
Community without compromise: Strategies for keeping digital relationships personal at enterprise scale with Dani Weinstein, Michael Cooksey, and Reinaldo Parreiras (video)
Open Source Framework Maintenance with Nick Taylor - JavaScript Jam
Mental Health and Developer Relations with David G Simmons, Rain Leander, Wesley Faulkner, and Ed Finkler - DevRel Roundtable (video)
How should you manage swag effectively (and not drive up costs?) by Jono Bacon (video)
Setting Goals For Your Online Community | Top Metrics to Track by Carrie Melissa Jones (video)
Digital Communities: Scaling User Groups with Nicole Saunders - Peers over Beers
Forums vs Slack with Dan Moore - Scaling DevTools

Events 📆

DevRel Events

We've put together an awesome list of upcoming DevRel events that you won't want to miss. Get ready for inspiring talks, networking opportunities, and a chance to connect with the thriving developer community!

Jobs 👩‍💻

DevRel Jobs

If you are new to the newsletter, we have our very own job board where you can find a wide range of opportunities. Check it out and discover your next career move with us!

p.s. If you're new to DevRel (as in, you haven't held a DevRel job title previously) but have experience with DevRel-related tasks (creating technical content, running community programs, speaking at conferences, etc.), I highly recommend writing a short cover letter or including a link to some of this experience in your resume. If you're a hiring manager curious about how other careers can be applicable to DevRel, take a look at this blogpost from Janelle Phalon.