DevRel Weekly - Issue 91 - Open Sourcing Company Policies, Golden Hammers, and Internal vs. External Presentations

Welcome! 👋

Whew! It's been a hectic week as I finish wrapping up client work, prep for DevRelCon London, and get ready to start my new role at Camunda. I hope things have been slightly less stressful and chaotic for all of you 😅

I'm looking forward to seeing many of you at DevRelCon this week! Safe travels to those of you who are on your way, and see you online if you'll be watching the Twitter feed instead. Keep an eye out for a handful of live streams -- a few friends and I are hoping to broadcast our "Choose Your Own Adventure" panel on Wednesday afternoon.

In the meantime, enjoy this week's content and I'll see you on the interwebs!

Best,
Mary (@mary_grace)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

Tidbits 🕔

Do What Works for You

A "top public speaking coach" talk: His main advice was to be funny, so just put more memes and funny videos in your technical talks.

Me+teammates advice:

Don't!

Being funny is ok if you're. Do what works for you. But it might backfire.

Above all, be interesting.

-Felipe Hoffa

Actively Seek Insight Into Unconscious Bias

New rule for writing presentations: ALWAYS get at least one review by a PoC or URM for perspective and insight into unconscious biases, messaging and the like. So valuable! #DevRel

-David Simmons

Curious about how to make your slides and conference talk more inclusive and accessible for everyone in your audience? Check out this awesome piece from Lindsey Kopacz.

Vote on DevRelCon Panel Topics

If you're attending #DevRelCon next week and still haven't voted on what topics you want to cover at my "Choose Your Own Adventure" DevRel panel session on Wednesday afternoon, don't miss out! Want to learn more about something that hasn't been covered in the Twitter thread? Add your own!

Launching a New Community

Launching a new community is like launching a new product.

You need to find product-market fit with your community, which requires the right offering, for the right people, at the right time.

Success requires hard work, experimentation, and a lot of luck.

-David Spinks

Internal Presentations and Education

Spicy take — if dev rel was really integrated into the core business model, advocates would spend at least as much time presenting to internal audiences as they do to external audiences.

-@_jstrand

I completely agree with this take! A huge piece of DevRel is internal education -- not "schooling" coworkers, but respectfully sharing the most current information about the relevant audiences and working with other depts to make sure the community is empowered by every dept.

Without internal presentations, it's no wonder others throughout the company don't comprehend what DevRel does or why the department is important. These educational opportunities (whether formal presentation or informal conversations) are one way we exhibit the value we bring the company.

There is no Golden Hammer

There are a ton of hot takes on DevRel lately and we wanted to weigh in.

While we believe in the importance of cultivating community and building spaces where technology and the ideas around it meet, we know there is no “golden hammer” for DevRel.

Like building an application or a set of tools for your team or consumers, there is no right answer for how to do it.

DevRel is the same. It’s not disappearing or going away. It’s not a bursting bubble.

But it is evolving. Organizations that know how to find the right people will evolve with it, just as they evolve with trends and new philosophies in technology.

As these adaptations occur, we imagine we’ll see less of the “building a team of rock star” DevRel teams and a focus on what makes DevRel work: communicating and sharing technology and ideas.

-DevRelate

DevRel Advice Column

Twitter was full of great questions and fascinating discussions this week. Interested in some of the conversations? Speak up with your ideas or suggestions!

Dear #DevRel people,
What metrics do you use to measure success?

-Francesc Campoy

Gamification Leaderboard swag... what works? Any guidance and help here would be helpful. Blogs, books on how to put a good strategy in this area together?

-Chris Detzel

New #cmgrqotd What's your biggest secret to preventing member churn?

-Mary Green

This tweet from Wahib Ul Haq pointed to a fascinating article about how to give and receive design feedback. In response, he asked:

In #DevRel community, are there defined principles or topics to consider when giving feedback on "documents/guides"?

What are some good books on community building & community management?

-Lieke Boon

Tangibles 🤓

The Do’s and Don’ts of Booth Duty (and Travel)

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time standardizing booth duty strategies and implementing travel policies for DevRel teams, I was so grateful to see these two blogposts pop up this week! In my opinion, the more companies willing to share their policies and strategies, the easier it will be for the entire industry!

2020 Community Predictions eBook

As 2019 draws to a close, the predictions for 2020 and the next decade continue to build up. This week, Vanilla released their 2020 Community Predictions eBook. With interviews from over 30 industry experts covering topics like privacy, ROI, branding, executive buy-in, and more, you can be sure I'll be digging into this incredible resource in the days and weeks to come!

Jacob Borgeson approached his predictions from a slightly different angle. He attended 4 different community-driven conferences this year and wrote up his observations as well as the trends he noticed throughout 2019 in a comprehensive blogpost

What Makes a Community Engagement Program Successful?

While Govind Vaghashia is a real estate professional by day, the insights he brought to this short blogpost prove once again that community principles transcend industries!

The areas of focus that he addresses: Goal Setting, Transparency, Mobilization, Mutual Agreements, apply to all communities, regardless of your target audience. I particularly appreciated what he had to say about transparency:

Transparency in the process can be enhanced by bringing on board representatives of the community in any closed-door meetings where decisions are made.

Declining Engagement Isn’t Always A Problem

A decline in engagement isn’t always a bad thing, believe it or not! This blogpost from Rich Millington is a great reminder about why we need to pay attention to what’s causing the change in metrics rather than just looking at the numbers themselves.

Choose Your Own Adventure Twitter Thread

This simple question turned into one of the best Twitter discussions about Developer Relations I've seen in a long time. It's far more like a tree than a thread, with conversations spinning off in all directions, so if you're going to dig in, be prepared to click through on almost every tweet and then follow your breadcrumbs back up to where you left off. Think "Choose Your Own Adventure" but for Twitter.

We're talking career paths at work & all of the great Dev Rels/Advocates I've met this year really have me thinking that path could be great for me. The tech things I enjoy doing on my free time seem to point this way as well. I'd love to hear any thoughts/tips/advice :D

-Jacquie Grindrod

Storytime 📚

DevRel Podcasts

Fostering Remote Developer Communities with Eddie Zaneski - Outside the Valley
The One Who Created His Own Path with Chris Heilmann - Welcome to the Jungle
"It Takes a Village" - The Importance of Learning From Your Peers with Chris Detzel and Michael Sandoval - Peers over Beers

Events 📆

DevRelCon London Dec 9th-11th

Join dev rel professionals from across the world for a day of training and two days of conference and unconference. Tickets available now: london-2019.devrel.net

Events 📆

DevRel Japan Meetup Recap

For those of us not lucky enough to attend the DevRelJP meetup that happens once a month in Tokyo, we may be experiencing a bit of FOMO when the tweets come around every month. I know at least I do! This month however, @beajourneyman took the time to put together a Tweet summary for us! If your browser doesn't translate it for you automatically, check out Bing's Translator Tool -- we've heard rumors that it works well for Japanese!

DevRel Events

While next week is DevRel London, there are still a number of events happening elsewhere this month, and there are a number of events being announced for 2020. Be in the know, and check-out our DevRel Weekly Events Toby Collection!

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Advocate

Pulumi is looking for a passionate Developer Advocate to lead our community outreach, spreading the word about how Pulumi can help developers and operators build innovative cloud software together. The Pulumi community is warm, welcoming, and already growing fast organically. You will be a part of realizing a vision where every team can program the cloud.

Jobs 👩‍💻

DevRel Jobs

Kate here: I've heard that finding a job in December can be challenging, so hopefully the DevRel Weekly Job Collection can help with those job search pains. Wishing you the best of luck in your job hunt!