DevRel Weekly - Issue 97 - Relevant links regarding COVID-19 (and a LOT of other things too)

Welcome! 👋

I don't know about you, but the last two weeks have felt extraordinarily long. There's been a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion, and a lot of content! I could blame COVID-19 for the fact that we didn't get an issue out last week and that this week's issue is late, but in reality, I was busy onboarding a new employee last week in addition to onboarding a new DevRel Weekly teammate (👋 Kristen!). As any manager will tell you, the first few weeks on onboarding are awesome and rewarding and also overwhelming as you're trying to download all of the relevant information in a short period of time so that your employee can get up and running as quickly as possible!

All that to say, between the 200+ new pieces of content we were receiving per day (😳) and the long days at work, combined with the chaos that the entire world has been experiencing, the newsletter unfortunately fell to the latter half of my to-do list. However, I'm hopeful for the weeks to come as we get up and running again! In the meantime, there's lots of great content below to keep you busy for at least a few days.

One quick note before you dive in: If you are involved in running an online community and have yet to take the State of Community Management 2020 survey, please do so now, before you read one more sentence. Go ahead. I'll wait!

Great - you're back! 😊 Let's dive in.

Best,
Mary (@mary_grace)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

Tidbits 🕔

The Journey of a Good Developer Experience

Keeping a good developer experience is not only a balance of priorities, but a never ending quest to constantly remove sharp edges.

-Matt Bernier

Translation Goes Beyond Words

In order to deploy English presentation materials in Japan, it is necessary to not only translate but also localize (edit to contents that match Japanese culture and needs), which makes it difficult to streamline and automate.

-Aya Tokura (ironically, translated from Japanese)

Think About Your Peers

My programming abilities bumped to a whole new level when I stopped thinking just about myself and thought about the developer experience as a whole for others. It's totally absorbed me. Think about your peers, whether you know them or not.

-Anthony Casson

How to Ask for Feedback

When I sent people drafts of my posts for feedback, I never knew what to say if they asked "what kind of feedback would be helpful?"

Now I use the "ABCD" framework:

what's Awesome?

what's Boring?

what's Confusing?

what Didn't you believe?

-Nathan Baschez

DevRel Advice Column

I sometimes feel paralysed when writing a blog post and trying to share and devote to help someone who might be reading the post when it's live. How do you tackle this?

-Aman Mittal

Ok #devrel people it's time to be creative ! What are your creative ideas beyond the online webinars / screencasts ? I would like to see stuff that engage more the community, like contests, online mentoring .... Please share your ideas !

-Sébastien Blanc

Tangibles 🤓

COVID-19: The Relevant Links

I'm sure you're up to your ears in information about COVID-19, so I'll keep this short and sweet: I've come across a lot of fantastic articles, Twitter threads, and videos about remote work, online events, and how DevRel in general can adjust more swiftly to the changes that have come our way these past weeks. I've collected a few resources around each of these topics and included them below. If you know of other resources I should add, please don't hesitate to let me know.

A Clear and Concise Way to Define DevRel

I stumbled across this article from Yoshi this week and have been thinking about it ever since. While the latter part of the article focuses specifically on Google's DevRel team (what roles exist, what Yoshi's day-to-day work looks like, etc.), he opens with one of the best descriptions of Developer Relations that I think I've ever seen.

He defines other departments that have a similar x Relations title (e.g. Public Relations, Investor Relations, and Government Relations), and then draws this conclusion (translated from Japanese using Google Translate):

Thus, an organization called "XXX Relations", as the name suggests, makes a relationship with the target person or organization, and conveys the information required there, and at the same time, it is an organization that accepts opinions and information.

You can be sure this is an analogy I'll be using in the future!

Running an Off-Site for Remote Teams

Looking to plan a team offsite for your globally distributed team? Myrsini Koukiasa wrote up a fantastic blueprint for the types of activities, exercises, and goals you should keep in mind.

How to Write Effective Documentation for your Open Source Project

If you've been inspired by all of the recent articles around Developer Experience and are looking for tips on how to improve your documentation, you've come to the right place. Kevin Xu has a great article on opensource.com that gives actionable tips and information that will help you decide where to start.

Tangents 🐰

Even if we Stumble, We will Never Stop Building a Community

Rich Millington recently visited the Sephora headquarters and saw this quote in the lobby:

Even if we stumble, we will never stop building a community where diversity is expected, self-expression is honored, all are welcomed, and you are included.

We all make mistakes, but if we acknowledge them, apologize for the problems we've caused, and dedicate ourselves to continuing to serve our community, we'll be able to move forward and continue to make a difference in the lives of our community members.

Storytime 📚

User Testing for Developer Platforms

Test and measure your developer experience (DX) with on-demand feedback from real developers. Learn where developers struggle as they build with your API and SDKs. Haxor is the first Developer Experience agency, we apply trusted methods from UX research to DX. Visit our website to learn more or book 30 minutes with us.

Storytime 📚

DevRel Podcasts

How technical should a tech writer be? with Breno Barretto - The Manuscript Podcast
Distributed Teams Best Practices with Dina Vekaria and Maren Beckman - Conversations with Community Managers
When Your First Day as an Online Community Manager is Your First Day at a Computer with John Coate - Community Signal
Building a Super User Program and Creating a 360 Customer View with Community with Blake Ethridge - Peers over Beers
How Reddit Brought Their Community Together IRL with Greg Goomishian - C2C Podcast
A Glimpse of the Future with Todd Ross Nienkerk - The Future of Content
Choosing a New Community Platform with Chris Detzel - Conversations with Community Managers
Understanding Developer Advocacy with Moheeb Zara - Hello Blink Show
DevRel Metrics: Funnel and Orbit with Josh Dzielak - Under the Hood of Developer Marketing
How Blake Etheridge Started TI's Super User Program - Peers over Beers
Jono Bacon – Community Manager, Speaker, and Author - Develomentor

Events 📆

DevRel Events

Feeling cooped up and isolated with all of your in-person events being canceled? Check out these webinars that are coming up in the next few weeks and reconnect with your communities online.

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Relations Jobs

Can you believe we're already halfway through March 2020?! If you've been putting off looking for a job, then it's time to check out our Developer Relations Jobs Toby Collection. If you or someone you know is looking for a new job in DevRel, this might be a good place to start.