Community Pulse

Over the last year, we've talked about virtual events quite a bit - from how to get started to bringing things together in a short period of time. That said, being a sponsor at these virtual events has been somewhat of a challenge. With no real “booth” or physical location for interaction, where can value be found in these events and how do we show the benefits to our sponsoring organizations. To discuss this, we brought together a few folks who have experienced virtual events from different points of view.

Jason, PJ, Wesley, and SJ sit down to discuss what they learned from our guest on moderation and some of the pitfalls they've experienced in being a part of moderated communities.

One of the most difficult parts of managing a community is ensuring everyone adheres to a universally acceptable system of behavior. With events, there is generally a Code of Conduct that makes it clear what behaviors are acceptable, what behaviors aren't, and the consequences of operating outside of the rules. Sometimes it falls on an individual or a team to handle this in the online world. Today, we'll be talking about moderation with a guest who knows exactly how it works.

It's easy to say that Developer Relations and Community Management is not universal, but sometimes, we focus so much on what is being done in our part of the world that we can forget how things might be different in different places.  In this episode, we decided to try something a little different. We reached out to folks around the world to tell their stories, to let us know what makes their experiences unique. We wanted to get a sense of what unites us in DevRel and what small or large tweaks need to made to adjust for geography and culture.

Creating a place for your specific community to gather online is a challenge every Developer Relations or Community team is likely going to address at some point, whether it's because your executive team is asking you to create this space or you see a need for it. In this episode of Community Pulse, we talk to two specialists in the community industry about what to keep in mind when evaluating how to create a place for your community to gather online. 

The hosts sit down to discuss what we've learned from our guests on pushing limits, finding new ways to deliver content, and how the community can benefit from the larger amount of information flowing through the DevRel ecosystem now, and moving forward.

Developer Relations professionals are known for creating a lot of content and the platforms that are available to us seem to grow by the day. For this episode of Community Pulse, we’re diving into what platforms exist today and what types of content works best for each channel. We’re joined by two guests: Cassidy Williams and Joe Karlsson, who are known throughout the tech industry for their humorous tech-centric content. We’ll talk about how to know which channels and types of content are most effective in reaching our specific audience, and how to measure our success.

SJ, Jason, Wesley, and PJ sit down to discuss the most recent episode.

As the number of engineering and developer jobs continues to grow and the skillsets diversify, DevRel has seen a wave of people being let go, followed by a sudden growth in hiring across the tech industry. Taking a look at these trends over the last year or so, we decided we would go to the experts to explain how hiring looks from the recruitment side, what people can do to improve their hiring experience, and what’s different in today’s DevRel hiring landscape.   Our hosts sit down with Jill Wohlner of Underpin and Will Staney of Proactive Talent to see where things stand, and what to expect moving forward.

Hosts Wesley and PJ sit down to talk about Episode 55 and add some thoughts to what was discussed.

While DevRel holds some universal truths, there is at times a difference between how we handle our external communities as opposed to our internal communities. While we are still bringing people together, some of the approaches and interested parties may change. How do we foster communities and communicate feedback within an organization? Is it so different from “traditional” DevRel?   To find out more, Wesley and PJ sit down with Aja Hammerly, Davey Shafik,  and Kevin McIntosh to talk about the ins and outs of both sides.

It's been a long year in the world of DevRel! In this episode, our hosts take a look back at 2020, discuss the trends they noticed along a wave of change driven by outside forces, and give their predictions for 2021. Have a chat with Mary, Jason, SJ, Wesley, and PJ about everything community in 2020!

Host SJ, Wesley, and Mary discuss the big budget episode and share some anecdotes on things that have been successful and others that were a bit of a trip up.

As we’ve mentioned in previous episodes, budget concerns are an ever changing part of working in DevRel. Now more than ever, DevRel teams are expanding their functions and responsibilities while stretching the idea of how we do the things we do. In this episode, we sit down with Bear Douglas of Slack to talk budgets, what budget allocations mean to a DevRel and how do you calculate what you need vs what you want?

All five hosts jump in to add some notes and references from our awesome live episode. See what Mary, Jason, PJ, SJ, and Wesley have to say!

We’re almost 8 months into a global pandemic. The last time we gathered to discuss COVID-19, we were mere weeks in and scrambling to figure out how to adjust. Given how much has changed since then, it was time for another Community Pulse LIVE! Our questions include “What have we learned?” “How the pandemic has changed our perception of attending in-person conferences?” and “How does this uncertainty impact our budgets for the years to come?”. Guests Rahmona Henry (HubSpot Developer Advocate) and Floor Drees (Microsoft DevRel Program Manager) join us to discuss how they’re approaching their 2021 event strategy.

After chatting with our guests, Wesley, SJ, and Mary are joined by PJ to talk about early stage DevRel and their views on experiences in the startup world.

As companies are starting to realize that Developer Relations can be a competitive advantage, we’ve been noticing more and more job descriptions for Developer Advocates or DevRel Professionals who are the first non-engineering hire at early-stage startups. But when you’re an early hire working alongside the founder and a few engineers, what does your role look like? How is it different from joining a company as employee #30, 120, or even 1432?   Mary, SJ, and Wesley chat with David G Simmons, Taylor Barnett, and Aydrian Howard to talk about being DevRel number one.

Your hosts gather together to discuss tactics, goals, and to break down everything discussed in episode 50!

In this episode we want to discuss the topic of OKRs (or Objectives and Key Results). What are OKRs, and why are they beneficial to an organization? How do they differ from Key Performance Metrics (KPIs)? What even is a North Star? To help us better understand we have invited our guests Donovan Brown and Patrick Collins

Developer Relations needs to be put into perspective for people outside the team or community. When your Developer Relations department comes under fire, how do we switch from advocating for our community to advocating for ourselves? When DevRel is new, how do you build on activities to show the importance of having a dedicated team working with the communities your organization is involved with?   SJ and PJ sit down with Elizabeth Ruscitto and Jaime Lopez to discuss the ins and outs of explaining DevRel to folks on the outside.

These past few weeks have brought us to what we hope will be an inflection point with regard to systemic racism in the United States. We’re now asking the question: How can we work as a community in DevRel to ensure we not only address this critical moment, but actively work toward eradicating systemic racism in our industry?

SJ, Jason, and PJ sit down to discuss their recent conversation with Marjorie and Wesley, when what started as a simple conversation about online communities turned into an opportunity to learn from experts at a time when our entire industry seems to have been turned on its head. They then pivot into what makes something ephemeral versus what "sticks" with you and has a lasting impact on your career as well as those around you.

Connecting with our communities online is more important than ever right now. However, this isn’t something ALL DevRel teams are accustomed to.  In some cases, much of the online efforts have been relegated to “community management” or support.  Marjorie Anderson and Wesley Faulkner join us to talk about online communities, sharing tips, tricks, and best practices from their combined 20 years of experience.

Join Mary, Jason, and PJ as they reflect on their conversation with Karen and Elizabeth. They share some of their personal experiences that have shaped their opinions of marketing departments in the past and talk through the new concepts that were introduced in this episode.

It’s not hard to say there is a difference between Developer Relations and Developer Marketing...but where does that line sit? There is definitely overlap, but how do we identify efforts or activities that fall more into one category or the other? To help us define these roles and where those lines might be, we are joined by guests Elizabeth Kinsey and Karen White.

This has been a surreal and historic few weeks across the globe. We recently gathered a group of DevRel professionals to talk about how COVID-19 has impacted them and their DevRel role, from what their current focuses are, how their Q2 goals have changed, whether they're transitioning to online events (and what that will look like in the future), and more. Join us for a special live episode as we dig into the potential long term changes to our industry post COVID-19.  

Events have a code of conduct. Projects often have rules of behavior for those who participate. There are expected rules we follow when creating content, from adhering to MLA style to ensuring ideas are delivered in a succinct way with value to the consumer. But when it comes to DevRel, there is no specific rule set or guidelines for practitioners. Beyond the external rules we need to follow as generally good humans, there is nothing to show how to be an ethical DevRel practitioner. So where does that leave us?  Coraline Ada Ehmke and Don Goodman-Wilson join us to discuss this difficult topic.

PJ and SJ expand on some of the topics addressed in Episode 44, including how our differences are part of what makes us uniquely capable to fulfill our Developer Relations responsibilities. They also touch on the pros and cons of creating a clear career path for the DevRel and Community industries and why it might not be necessary for you to move to San Francisco to succeed as a new DevRel professional (gasp!) as well as how our career paths are drastically different from those of our parents and grandparents.

There are generally common threads in what makes a person pick a career path. Are there common characteristics for DevRel practitioners? What are they and what does one look for to see if they are ready for the DevRel life? Amanda Folson and Geertjan Wielanga join our hosts for a great conversation exploring these topics.

Mary, Jason, and PJ officially welcome new host SJ Morris to the show! We all take the opportunity to review what we've done this year, talk about some trends we've noticed within DevRel, and generally put our final thoughts on all things 2019!

Your hosts sit down to discuss the finer points of the episode - what does happen after DevRel? We take a look at some of the antecedents leading to leaving DevRel and the options we've heard folks consider in our travels and conversations.

We can’t all spend the next 10-20 years on the road. So what’s next after DevRel? What does our career path look like? In this episode, we’ll talk to Matt Broberg, Shannon Burns, and Lauren Cooney, who have all segued out of Developer Relations and taken their experience into a new, exciting role. We’ll discuss how and why they did it and how their transitions have gone. 

Mary and PJ recap their conversation with SJ and Jesse, diving further into where personas fit into a DevRel strategy as well as how to acknowledge when the data you're finding doesn't reflect the ideas represented in your strategy.

Figuring out what segment of the technical industry your product is focused on can be a difficult endeavor, but it’s necessary in order to set your DevRel team up for success. “Developers, Developers, Developers” has a nice ring to it, but in reality, it is far too large of a group to focus on. In this episode of Community Pulse, our hosts are joined by Sarah-Jane Morris, Founder of Listen Community Consulting, and Jesse Davis, Executive VP of Product and Technology at Devada, to talk about audience segmentation and how it plays into building a sustainable DevRel strategy.

Jason, PJ, and Mary grab a post episode chat on titles, Open Source Community Management, and hills people seek out to raise their flags.

In this episode of Community Pulse, Jason, PJ, and Mary talk to Rain Leander and Sherrie Rohde about their role as Community Managers for open source projects and how this differs from what’s now considered Developer Relations.

Jason and PJ get together after the show to talk moving in and out of communities, meetups, when things change, and reflect on the episode and guests' input in general.

Working with a specific community is great, but what happens when it’s time to change companies? Do you bring your community with you? Do you need to start over in a new community? What does it mean for your “personal brand”? Jason and PJ talk about all of these topics and more with this month’s guests, Alyss Noland and Joel Lord.

Mary, PJ, and Jason talk about how things have changed in the realm of tech conferences over the last decade. They discuss at what point a company should start sponsoring conferences as well as how to mitigate team-wide burnout and the fact that speaking at or sponsoring conferences takes a lot of time and energy outside of the conference dates.

"Conference Season" used to be a definitive time of year -- the time when things were chaotic and everything revolved around travel, talks, sponsorships, and schedules. But these days it seems like the whole year is chock-full of conferences, big and small. So how can we help build an event strategy that's sustainable, not only for our team, but for our budgets? Amanda Gonser, Manager of Community Events and Content at PagerDuty, and Matt Auerbach, Event Director at Twitch and Co-founder of Confir, join Mary, PJ, and Jason to talk about all of these topics and more.

PJ, Jason, and Mary recap the conversation with Bear Douglas and Jeremy Meiss. They touch on how the growth of the industry has impacted Developer Relations job titles as well as salaries before meandering into personal brand. At the end of the day, is it really our job title that matters or is it more about how we interact with others?

Developer Advocate. Community Engineer. Developer Evangelist. Community Manager. Technical Writer. All these are job titles in DevRel, but what do they mean, and what do people think we do based on our titles? Jason, Mary, and PJ are joined by Bear Douglas, Director of Developer Relations at Slack, and Jeremy Meiss, Director of Community at Solace, to chat about the various roles within DevRel and what makes them all unique. Is it really all in the name?

Jason and Mary talk about content that we produce for our personal brands as well as our corporations. What lines do we draw to maintain the boundary of our personal versus professional lives? And if that line gets blurred, how do we push pause to be able to recoup our energy and prevent burnout? We also touch on the importance of producing content that's specific to your learning style even if that topic has already been covered, because other folks likely learn the same way you do.

We live in a world where you need to do something different in order to stick out from your competition. Written content abounds and podcasts are now a dime a dozen, but video content seems to be something of a frontier still (tho growing quickly!). Dan Thomas joins us this month to talk about how to create stellar video content and build a following through vlogging.

Mary and PJ recap the conversation they had with Marshall Kirkpatrick and Rachel Happe in Episode 35 and continue to chat about the difference between popularity and influence. As DevRel professionals continue to gain influence in various fields, it's important that we have conversations around the expectations for those influencers: Should they be held to a higher standard? Is it fair to do so? We also talk about how to elevate other folks who may be new to the industry or have a smaller platform but have good insights to share.

Part of building and participating in a community is the influence we have on others. With the advent of social media and more personal interactions, people have risen to levels heretofore unexpected. Influencers help to sway the activities of a community and stars arise that influence at the highest level. Rachel Happe (Co-founder of The Community Roundtable) and Marshall Kirkpatrick (Vice President, Influencer Relations, Analyst Relations, and Competitive Intelligence at Sprinklr) join Mary & PJ to talk about the difference between influence and popularity, and what it means to be an influencer.

Mary, Jason, and PJ chat about what "technical" means in the DevRel industry and how job titles shape our roles after recording Episode 34. As the Developer Relations industry grows up, this is a question we'll be facing more and more often as we struggle to define who is qualified to build relationships with a technical audience.

As Developer Relations becomes more mainstream, the understanding of what makes someone qualified to be a Developer Relations professional is getting cloudy. Do you have to have a technical background? And if so, does that mean that you’ve held a “Software Engineer” title? Or simply that you’ve taken the time to understand the technical pieces of your product? Jason, Mary, and PJ are joined by Karissa Peth, Sr. Developer Relations Program Manager at Microsoft, and Matty Stratton, DevOps Advocate at PagerDuty, as they dig into the nuances of the various Developer Relations career paths.

Jason, Mary, and PJ sync up after Episode 33 to discuss event management, creating new events, and where event organization fits into community management as a whole.