Issue 79 - Best Of: Travel August 29th 2019

Welcome! 👋

Travel season for DevRel folks is starting to ramp up, just in time for the spike in travel tips that last year's analysis showed! My theory is that as people hit the road, they run into their travel pet peeves, finesse their habits, and perfect their packing lists. So this year, I’m collecting the best of the best posts to help you get ahead of the game. No need to realize all of the things you wish you had known after the fact. You’ll be all prepped and ready to go, giving you the headspace to focus on far more important tasks required of you.

Whether you’re like Alex Walling, who loves travel and thrives in new environments or you find travel solidly on the exhausting side of the range that he mentions in his blogpost, you’ll find packing lists and recommendations for the best travel websites as well as how to create a travel policy for your team, and a form to hand your airplane seatmate to inform them of your desired outcome for the flight.

No matter if you’re currently on a plane, trying to make sense of your upcoming travel, or enjoying a relaxing week at home, I hope this issue gives you a different lens to view travel from in the future. And as always, if you’re interested in keeping up with these “best of” issues over time, hop on over to DevRel Weekly's Patreon page, where I make sure these issues stay up-to-date with the latest and greatest info about each topic.

Best,
Mary (@mary_grace)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

Tangibles 🤓

Travel Survival Guide

If you’re looking for a one-stop-shop for everything from recommendations for a good backpack to essential travel apps, check out The Bacon Travel Survival Guide. Its evergreen tips will be applicable to even the most seasoned of travelers.

Want a few quick tips that you may have overlooked over the years? Heidi Waterhouse has collected her top 14 tips. My favorite?

Be reasonable about your expenses, but not chintzy. This is not human travel, it is business travel. The value of business travel is that you arrive in a place capable of interacting with humans.

Crowd-sourced Travel Tips

One of my favorite things about Twitter is the fact that people are so willing to share their lessons learned! While it also means wading through the haters and occasional trolls, there are a lot of gems that can be found. This discussion started by Anne Helen Peterson on how to prepare for a trip started is one such gem.

A few of my favorite recommendations that you can be sure I'll be implementing:

An envelope labeled with the name and date of the trip to store receipts in.
Order your favorite snacks to be delivered to your hotel before you arrive.
Pack a cozy hoodie to ward against the hotel air conditioning and make you feel more at home.

Looking for more tips and tricks around how to pack or how to keep yourself going on a long flight? Alyss Noland comes to the rescue with three things you might not have considered.

How do I stay healthy while traveling?

One of the most difficult parts of traveling is sticking with routines and new habits, especially when they're health-related. There are always excuses that make it easy to ignore our good intentions!

David McKay and Brian Vermeer crowd-sourced suggestions via Twitter. From compiling a short but effective workout routine to do in the hotel room (no need to pack workout clothes!) to finding healthy snacks that you can slip into your bag to eliminate hunger-induced snacking, there's sure to be something helpful for everyone in these threads.

What's in my Bag?

Whether you're traveling or simply schlepping your gear from home to office, Matt Mullenweg has a complete list of what he carries in his backpack and what he recommends for others in a similar situation. There are many such blogposts to choose from, but I consistently go back to Matt's for his clear descriptions and honest assessments.

Developer Advocates: Go Alone But Not Without a Plan

Building a travel policy for a Developer Relations team goes beyond per diems and booking systems, as Developer Advocate Maureen McElaney will tell you. In this awesome blogpost, she covers how to plan for travel emergencies, how to handle cancellations, and staying safe while on the road.

Looking for more info about how to stay safe while on the road? Susan Ibach has a great series on how to protect your DevRel team:

How do we make DevRel more sustainable?

One topic that has come up multiple times in 2019 is the need to make the DevRel industry more sustainable. This of course applies to metrics and the value we provide to the business, but more importantly, it addresses the impact of our hectic schedules. It's clear we can't continue charging ahead, relying on a quiet week here or there to regain our energy.

Matthew Revell addresses a number of reasons why travel seems to be at the top of everyone's list these days, suggesting we should reconsider our DevRel strategy if we find ourselves on the road too often.

As I mentioned in a previous "Best Of" issue on Burnout, Jim Bennett reminds us that if we're traveling for work, it should be considered work time which we should, in turn, be compensated for. And we all need to be aware of the signs that perhaps we've been on the road for too long.

How do we make DevRel more sustainable (for the earth)?

When booking upcoming travel and debating adding "just one more trip" to the schedule, it's not only our own sustainability we need to be aware of. As we continue to rack up flight miles, more people are stopping to consider the impact our travel has on the environment.

Mickey Boxell wrote up a practical piece on how to cut back on your carbon footprint when flights are necessary, and how to take other forms of transit when you're able to. This line resonated with me:

Control what you can control and make a difference where you can.

I also appreciated the stance that Don Goodman-Wilson took at the beginning of this year, reminding us that there are opportunities to connect with your community without traveling very far at all:

This year I aim to be more thoughtful with my #DevRel travel:

• take the train whenever possible
• avoid travel that requires flying
• do more with remote-friendly events
• focus more on what’s already close to me

I challenge you to do the same.

As you plan your travel for 2020, be sure to keep these tips in mind.

Resources for Travelers

Whether you're traveling for business or pleasure, knowing the right sites to visit for booking tickets, finding the best food, and where you should stay is key to making the most of your trip. Lucky for us, our own DevRel Weekly Curator Kate Pond wrote up a great resource for us to refer back to.

Reading all of the articles and tweets mentioned above had me thinking about my own travels and some of the resources that maybe weren't mentioned. So, I put together a "catch-all" list of my knowledge around travel resources for your browsing pleasure. Enjoy!

Events 📆

Future Developer Summit 2019

How do you build a developer program from scratch? How do you hire your first 5 people in DevRel? Join 80 Director/VP/GM-level thought leaders at Future Developer Summit 2019 as they get together to debate best practices, learn and design better developer strategies and share their experiences.

CMX Summit 2019

Over 2 days, CMX Summit will expand discussions, techniques, and tactics applied to community building for businesses and support communities and their CEOs, CMOs, and builders at scale. (That’s you!) You’ll gain insights from the best in the industry and make lifelong friends.

Get amazing insights from speakers like Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor and Nick Mehta, CEO at Gainsight. And don’t forget to network with other community builders!

Events 📆

Developer Relations Events

Kate here: As Mary mentioned, conference season is about to be in full swing and we're expecting to hear about more events coming up in the coming weeks and months! If you're still looking for DevRel and Community Management events to attend take a look at the Toby Collection we've curated for you, including Future Developer Summit, happening September 24th and 25th in Menlo Park, CA.

And as Mary has said before - Let her know if you're going to be at any of these great events. Even if she won't be in attendance, she'd be happy to connect you with others who will be.

Jobs 👩‍💻

Product Manager - Developer Experience

Making developers successful is key to creating platforms that have long-lasting impact. As the Product Manager for Developer Experience, you'll help build InterSystems into the first choice for developers building massively scalable, interoperable, analytic applications. This is an exciting opportunity to act as the key connection between developers and the rest of the team, responsible for creating and executing the vision InterSystems’ developer experience. You'll work closely with multiple groups in the company to define the vision, identify opportunities, and drive impact for both developers and InterSystems. The ideal candidate has a solid understanding of software developer needs, strong cross-functional and communication skills, and good instincts for balancing process vs value.

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Relations Jobs

How do we know that this field is growing?! Just take a look at how many job openings there are. The Toby Collection now has over 180 listings!