DevRel Weekly - Interviews, Industry News, Insights, and More!

Welcome! 👋

This week has brought the release of the 6th Annual State of DevRel report as well as teams trying to "humanize" their Developer Relations strategy, along with tips about writing good docs, the right (and wrong) metrics to track for an online community, and a flurry of podcasts. Whether you’re a Developer Advocate, Technical Community Manager, or somewhere in between, there’s something for everyone!

As for me, I’m off to Florida to spend the week with my nieces and nephew and will be trying to soak up some sun as well. With all of the rain we’ve been getting in San Francisco (yay!) I’m in need of some Vitamin D.

I hope wherever you’re off to this week, it’s proving to be a good one for you. If you find yourself planning a trip to San Francisco in the next few weeks, be sure to reach out! I’m always game to meet up for coffee and a good chat about DevRel.

Best,
Mary (@mary_grace)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

Tidbits 🕔

The Best Communities Focus on Values

The best communities aren't about products, they’re about values. The product is a manifestation of the culture.

Instead of “Our community is for our customers.”

Try “Our community is for people who believe in/that ____________.”

Fill in the blank.

-David Spinks

Write Docs with Empathy

"You can easily..."
"It's just..."
"Clearly..."
"And then simply..."

We mean: "I want to encourage you!"
A reader might think: "It's not simple or clear or easy for me! Why don't I 'just' understand it like the writer? Everything is hard. I suck."

Let's write docs with empathy!

-Bridget Kromhout

Trim Down Your Docs

Be careful with documentation: most people won't read it. Docs need to be minimal, clear and map directly to what the reader wants to do. Take a scalpel: trim it down, avoid walls of text. Focus on bullets, clear outcomes and examples + break longer docs into smaller chunks.

-Jono Bacon

Data Makes DevRel Better

Data makes DevRel so much better. Fellow #devrel folks, if you don't have access to your organisation's data analytics systems, get it. All your decisions can be so much informed! Data science teams are your friends! 😬

-Kaustav Das Modak

It's Not About the Solution, It's About the Community.

One can't blame a community for preferring one solution over another. It's not some kind of conspiracy, nor it's only about technical value - it's more about working with community, building positive communication, and developer advocacy.

-Krzysztof Cieślak

Dev Advocates are Factotums

Random thought: dev advocates are like factotums. We can situationally take on the role of product, eng, sales, marketing, bizdev, UXR, etc. depending upon what's needed at any moment...

-Liz Fong-Jones

DevRel Advice Column

Friends who do the conference speaking thing...what criteria do you use when deciding whether to submit/accept speaking at a conference?

-Matty Stratton

Every time I see a well-written code walkthrough + a GitHub repo with amazingly organized sample code I have to control the urge to immediately go rewrite all of my docs. What are some of y'alls favorite developer docs?

-Yulan Lin

In what ways is devrel different at a developer-centric vs consumer-centric company?

-Steve Kaliski

Tangibles 🤓

Let's Talk about Community Metrics

Richard Millington digs into the wrong (and right) metrics for community work in a recent Twitter thread that you'll definitely want to look at if you manage an online community.

Get Closer

All too often, we try to engage with the biggest number of people possible when starting a community. The thought is logical... if you cast a wide net, you'll wind up grabbing at least some people's attention, right? But what if instead of setting wide parameters, we set small ones? Hone in on the audience that is most likely to benefit from your product and then get to know the most passionate people there.

As this recent Feverbee article reminds us,

You grow by identifying the most passionate members and engaging with each of them directly so they feel they can make useful contributions to creating something incredible.

10 Ideas for Sparking Peer-to-Peer Engagement in your Community

One of the most difficult things to do in a new online community is to inspire your community members to engage with each other. All too often, the forum turns into a support channel rather than a place for them to share solutions, ideas, and projects.

Rosemary O'Neill shares 10 quick tips to encourage this peer-to-peer engagement, including hosting an AMA and celebrating wins for peers.

State of Developer Relations 2019

Hoopy released the 2019 State of Developer Relations report this week based on the 6th annual DevRel survey. There are some fascinating observations that you can bet I'll be digging into over the next few days!

Want the TL;DR? Read the summary or download the full report.

How to Integrate Communication and Community Strategy

Tirza Austin opened a recent blogpost with this statement:

If you are developing a community strategy it needs to be at the core of the communication strategy in the organization.

and I'm inclined to agree with her! Developer Relations should be included in the decision-making process for (or at least aware of!) what's being communicated to the community members. This is most easily done if they're in constant dialogue with those doing the communicating.

Tangents 🐰

Why is Lush moving away from social media?

In a day and age where everyone seems to be turning to social media to talk with (or at) their audience, it seems odd that a company who has so completely embraced social media in the past would choose to turn away from it. But that’s exactly what Lush is doing.

As David Spinks said,

Brands may begin to get tired of their reliance on social networks. They want to have more control over how they communicate with their communities.

In this example, Lush is pulling out of social media and focusing on chat.

Storytime 📚

Meet K Rain Leander

In their latest installment of DevRel interviews, DevRel.net sits down with K Rain Leander, Technical Program Manager for the RDO Community at Red Hat. Read all about the roller coaster magic trick that led her to Developer Relations as well as her DevRel philosophy.

Missed last week's interview? Get to know Cristiano Betta, Senior Developer Advocate at Box.

DevRel Podcasts

This week's list of podcasts includes conversations on developer engagement, metrics, and important keys to building community.

The Five Keys to Building Community with David Spinks from CMX - B2B Growth
'Must Have' Metrics for Community Engagement with Jess Burnham from Unbounce - C2C Podcast
Open Innovation & Developer Engagement with Caroline Lewko - Scaling, Failing, Prevailing

Events 📆

Developer Relations Events

Planning on attending a professional development conference sometime this year? Take a peek at our list of upcoming events and see if anything jumps out at you. Don’t worry if you don’t see one that sparks your interest right now, we’re constantly adding to the list so check back frequently!

Jobs 👩‍💻

Head of Developer Relations

Camunda is reinventing workflow automation for customers around the world, including Bloomberg, NASA, Allianz, Universal, and Goldman Sachs. We're an open source company passionate about connecting with developers, empowering them to automate critical business processes and innovate at the heart of their company’s business. We are looking to hire a passionate and experienced Developer Relations leader who can assemble a team of equally passionate individuals to inspire developers to build great things.

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Relations Jobs

Are you on the hunt for your next amazing career opportunity? Be sure to check out our collection of DevRel and Community Manager jobs!