DevRel Weekly - Issue 74 - Progress in the Industry, Career Goals, and So Much More.

Welcome! 👋

Happy DevRel Weekly Day! Apologies that the exact day of the week has been fluctuating so much lately. It's been a hectic few weeks as I onboard new staff, transition to new processes, travel, and attempt to maintain a normal workflow! I'm hopeful that things will be back on track soon. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

There are a number of interesting things to note this week, including two (2!) research papers released on topics related to Developer Relations. Additionally, Mary Meeker's Internet Trends Report (released a few weeks ago), emphasized that customer experience is the key to standing out from the competition. Things are certainly changing and I for one am excited to be along for the ride!

As more companies become interested in Developer Relations and community building, it's important to have the data to back up our answers. CMX is conducting a study to better understand the impact of community and could use your help in gathering the data. Take 10 minutes to complete their survey and then retweet to get the word out there.

As always, your support is greatly appreciated. DevRel Weekly is a success because of your encouragement and continued patronage! Don't forget to spread the word to your friends and sign up to support me in more direct way if you're so inclined.

Best,
Mary (@mary_grace)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

P.S. Need a good laugh? Take a look at these GIFs that Sarah Robinson-Yu pulled together -- you're sure to relate.

Tidbits 🕔

Internal Community Management

I've been hearing more folks ruminate on this idea of "internal community management" lately. While some iterations definitely lend themselves to HR or employee happiness work rather than community management, this discussion gave me hope for things to come. What Internal Community Manager practices have you seen throughout the industry?

Include Yourself in the Discussion

If you are truly advocating for developers don't use the word "I" or "You" when talking to your audience. Say "We" and include yourself into the discussion. We are all on the same boat (if that is something you care about).

-Wassim Chegham

Use Spices Sparingly

Surprise and delight is such a powerful way to show appreciation to your community. You have to use it sparingly and well, like a good quality spice.

-Serena

Add More Paragraphs

If I had only one bit of advice for people who write for developer audiences it would be this: add more paragraphs...

A lot of developer-targeted writing is information and concept dense.

I like to see writing that breaks that into multiple "aha!" moments. Short paragraphs make it easy to scan those learning points and take a natural pause before moving on.

-Matthew Revell

On Selecting a Community Platform

If you saw Brian Oblinger's thread last week about setting a community strategy, you'll want to check out his new thread as well. This week, he goes into how their team recently selected (and negotiated a deal with) a community platform vendor.

We recently completed our selection and contractual negotiation process for a community platform vendor. This is a topic that I get asked about quite a bit given my professional history. So let’s talk about it... [a thread]

Looking for another perspective? Community Stash just tweeted a thread about the topic as well.

We're the API.

DevRel is the API between the Developers and the Product team of a brand.

-Arkodyuti Saha

DevRel Advice Column

So many of these questions have turned into great discussions -- be sure to click through even if you don't have opinions to share!

How can DevRel and marketing teams make each other better?

Putting together a resource around this and would love input from devrels and marketers who work together.

-Josh Dzielak

Should community builders have the title "Community Manager", or specialized titles? Does "Community Manager" become more challenging as the team grows?

-Evan Hamilton

If you're curious about the career progression for Community Managers specifically, check out this thread from John Dimatos.

What was your professional life like before you got into #DevRel? What job did you hold? What industry were you in? And how do you feel it's impacted your work as a DevRel or #CMgr Professional?

-Mary Thengvall

What are the best ways to drive content for better #engagement (eg. Blogs, Ebooks, Videos, Use Cases, Case Studies, etc.)?

-Rohit Kumar Guha

Read Max Katz's take on where to publish content.

Tangibles 🤓

Five Myths of Community Design

I saw this article from Andrew Losowsky pop up in a number of different places this week, all from folks that I highly respect in the industry!

David Spink's summary stuck with me the longest:

“likes” are bad for ranking content, [Andrew's company, Coral] uses “respect”

dopamine increases aggression and reduces sleep, affecting member interaction

issues with communities can't be fixed with tech

Take a minute to let me know what you think after you've read the article. Do you agree or disagree with these myths, and why?

Learning to Say No Without Losing Relationships, Respect or Resolve

When I asked for the biggest challenges that DevRel & CMgr professionals face, knowing how (and when) to say no was one of the most common answers. I recently addressed this issue, including 4 major tips on how to say no without impacting your role.

100 Days of DX

If you're interested in Developer Experience, you'll want to follow along as Jarkko Moilanen walks through various DX topics over the next few months. He's taking topic suggestions on Github. Be sure to check out the first article: What the Hell is DX....

Preserving Laptop Stickers on MacBooks

Stickers are the currency of Developer Relations professionals. I've lost track of the number of laments I've seen on Twitter when someone has to get rid of their carefully curated stickers for the sake of a new laptop. Luckily, Graham Stevens has come up with a brilliant plan for how to preserve your precious stickers.

Storytime 📚

Soft Skills, Communication, and Programming as a Thinking Activity

As many developers transition into Developer Relations, figuring out how to uplevel your communication and empathy skills is a very relevant issue. Developer Advocate Trisha Gee digs into this topic of "soft skills" with Frontier Podcast host Ledge. This is a fascinating conversation about how whether you're a Developer Advocate or not, these skills are vital to your success in the industry: being able to persuade your team to try a new tactic, writing a well-named variable, and good quality code that's easily consumed by your customers, all require communications skills.

Be sure to listen to this episode of The Frontier Podcast and subscribe to get great content every week!

DevRel Podcasts

After Pulse: What's in a Name? - Community Pulse
Blogging 101 - Ladybug Podcast
How Wordpress Grew to 700+ Groups Hosting Events - C2C Podcast
Developer Relations and Education with Jasmine Greenway and Cecil Phillip - .NET Core Podcast
Tim Falls on Developer Relations, Open Source, Free Education and Ethics - Engineering Culture by InfoQ

Events 📆

DevRel-related OSCON 2019 talks

In case you weren't able to make it to the Community Managers Gathering or OSCON 2019, I've collected a handful of tweets about DevRel and community-related talks. Take the time to peruse them this weekend -- there are some gems!

Here are two highlights in particular:

Ana Jimenez Santamaria's talk about collecting (the right) data and formulating stories around the data in order to accurately communicate value. (Slides)
Ben Balter's talk about how they manage a community of communities at Github and some of the steps they've taken to mitigate disruptive behavior.

CFPs & Sponsorship Opportunities

Two CFPs caught my eye this week:

AdieCon 2020: This is a great mentorship opportunity for DevRel Professionals! CFP closes August 30, 2019.
DevRel / Japan Conference 2019: For Japanese speakers only. CFP closes July 31, 2019. They're also looking for sponsors.

Know of other relevant CFPs or sponsorship opportunities? Let me know.

Developer Relations Events

So many events, so little time! At least that's how I feel when I look at the collection of awesome upcoming events we have. How do you choose which events to attend when they all sound so great?

Jobs 👩‍💻

Senior Developer Advocate

Heroku is looking for a Developer Advocate with past experience in a developer-facing role, creating demos, writing blog posts, and building communities. This role can be remote or you can work from a Salesforce office, but we would like you to be in a North American timezone. Also, this role will require 10-30% travel.

Sr. Developer Advocate

The mission of the Bose Developer Relations group is to enable a growing community of innovative and creative developers to deliver amazing experiences to our customers. We do this by engaging our community around the world, at key events, in key regions, and online through our portal, workshops, tutorials, sample code, demos and via forums, social media, and other channels. Representing the needs of our developer community and partners back to platform teams at Bose, we will make building 3rd party applications easier and scalable. Working with outstanding members of our developer community and with supporting groups at Bose, we will find the best ways to embrace these innovations, showcasing them to our customers and inspiring continued integration and increased value of our platforms.

Jobs 👩‍💻

Standing Out From the Community Manager Applicant Crowd

This article is geared toward Community Managers, but it applies to Developer Relations professionals across the board. As Suzie McCarthy says, by being data-driven, emphasizing your skills, and being crystal clear about your strengths, you'll have a better chance of finding (and landing!) the job that's right for you.

Developer Relations Jobs

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance has been on my mind a lot lately. Are you at a company that respects your time as well as your career and life goals? If not, perhaps it's time to look for greener pastures in this collection of Developer Relations and Community Manager jobs.