Issue 39

Welcome! 👋

I've been on the road at various conferences this week, which has resulted in a lot of fascinating conversations about what DevRel is (and isn't). Per usual, there's the standard argument of "DevRel isn't marketing" but I've also been talking to folks about whether or not all DevRel professionals have to have a technical background (I believe strongly that you don't). There have also been conversations around copying a certain "model of DevRel" of one company or another, and whether or not the principles from one company can be applied directly to yours (not always!).

It's clear that people still have a lot of questions about what exactly the purpose of DevRel is at their company, which is understandable given that its primary metrics will change depending on the company goals and initiatives. But at the end of the day, the overarching purpose of DevRel is to build relationships with the developer community, putting their needs, interests, and concerns front-of-mind. This can overlap with projects from Marketing, as well as Product, and Engineering, which is why it's so hard to find a home for DevRel. The community touches almost every part of the organization.

And what exactly is our community? A community is a group of people who not only share common principles, but also develop and share practices that help individuals in the group thrive.

If we can keep those two things front-of-mind, it makes the rest of the decisions easier. We want to build relationships with developers, resulting in a group of people who can help each other. With that as our north star and our company goals to guide our own metrics, it's hard to go wrong!

Have fun following your north star and continuing to build amazing communities.

Best,
-Mary (@mary_grace)

Tidbits 🕔

DevRel is About Helping Developers...

Developer Relations is NOT:
- Sales
- Marketing
- Tech support
- Recruiting

Developer Relations is about helping developers to be creative, innovative and successful on your platform/product!

Sales, marketing etc might be other outcomes of Developer Relations work - since as a Developer Advocate you are a representative of your company - but they should never be the main goals.

-Robert Nyman

Marketing = DevRel = Marketing?

If you do #devrel for a company, rather than something purely community, and you say that developer relations is not marketing then either you misunderstand what marketing is or you're not being honest about the purpose of developer relations.

-Matthew Revell

Done by Us, For Us

To= everything done, is to us & without us. (Medical Model)
For= everything done, is done for us; without us. (Charity Model)
With= nothing for us without us. (Social Model/Coproduction/Co-design, Asset-based approaches)
By= done by us for us. (Asset-based Community Development)

-Cormac Russell

Tangibles 🤓

The first rule of building communities: Forget about the technology

Before you even start defining technology requirements, you must define your human requirements.

This quote is music to my (admittedly tool-loving) ears. If we choose tooling and technology first instead of figuring out what our community members actually need, we run the risk of creating a community that works for the company rather than one that actually serves the people we’re attempting to help.

Bridging vs. Bonding

In this article from Richard Millington, he explains the concept that bridges shuttle and filter information from one place to another, whereas a bond removes the entire chasm that the bridge spans. Are you a bridge or a bond in your company?

The problem with being the bridge, is your colleagues don’t get direct experience of the community. They don’t see the enthusiasm, the remarkable contributions, and the same opportunities you do.

The problem with building bonds is it takes time, persuasion, and subtle nudging to gradually get more colleagues to see the community as an objective which directly supports their work.

Tangents 🐰

Less Content

This article resonated with me on many levels. If the purpose of content is to create quality content for your community, then don't force it... wait until you have quality content and then publish it rather than forcing yourself to stick to a schedule.

Storytime 📚

Building a Community: Case Studies

There are a flurry of case studies and stories about how various companies have been building communities that were released this week. While not all of these principles will apply to your scenarios, it's always helpful to see how other companies are going about fostering a thriving community! Without further ado...

Gini Dietrich, founder and CEO of the Chicago-based integrated marketing communication firm, Arment Dietrich.
Quickbase formed their community around high NPS scores.
Allison Leahy, Former Community Director at Fitbit.

Events 📆

Developer Relations Events

Looking for a way to use the rest of your professional development budget by the end of the year? Check out these upcoming conferences and online events, all of which are relevant to Developer Relations professionals such as yourselves.

If you plan to attend Empower or DevRelCon London, let me know! I'd love to meet you in person.

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Relations Lead - Kauri

Kauri is hiring a Developer Relations Lead to help grow the Open Source Ethereum ecosystem. Kauri is the Ethereum community's knowledge network and works with pioneering blockchain projects to crowdsource technical content on how to build blockchain based applications. You’ll learn how to build applications on Ethereum using the emerging web3 technical stack, and help the community do the same through conference appearances, participating in social media, and writing technology guides on kauri!

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Relations Jobs

Looking for the next step in your career? The number of DevRel leadership roles, including this one from HyperTrack, that I've been seeing lately is so encouraging! If you're interested in the role at HyperTrack specifically (whether or not you've got a developer background!) let me know -- I'd love to talk to you more about it.

Whether you're looking for an IC role or looking to expand your leadership skills, there's likely something for you in this week's Toby collection.

Developer Avocados 🥑

The Holidays are Coming... Add this to your Wish List.

Amanda Folson found what I believe might be the ultimate Developer Avocado item on the market today: an avocado travel pillow. I could have used one of these this week!