A presentation at Empower B2B in in San Francisco, CA, USA by Mary Thengvall
• Hi everyone! My name is Mary Thengvall and I’m here today to talk to you about Developer Relations. How many of you are familiar with the term? Great! • Today… we’re going to approach it from a slightly different manner. I’m going to be explaining the business value of Developer Relations using the fruit famous throughout San Francisco: the avocado. •
• Why avocados, you might ask? Besides the fact that they’re amazingly delicious (I can say that… I liked them before #avocadotoast took over our world), • Developer Relations has become known as “the good kind of fat” within tech circles. • This was an analogy that picked up steam 3 years ago while I was working with the Developer Relations team at SparkPost, an email API service based here in SF. One of our Project Managers had a hard time saying “Developer Advocate” when she got to talking quickly. Instead, it often came out as “Developer Avocado.” •
• • Given how much my co-worker Aydrian Howard loves avocados, he took on the mantle of “Developer Avocado” without much prompting
• …and as the team grew, we became known as the “Developer Avocado team.” • We decided to own this title — not only internally, but externally as well, and pretty soon, an analogy was born. •
• But who am I… pre-avocado? I have a journalism background, but I entered the journalism world right as most newspapers were laying off their writing staff, which wasn’t ideal. So, like most tech companies, I pivoted! • I’m now using my feature-writing and storytelling abilities to show the business value of building developer communities. • I’ve worked with various developer communities for more than 10 years now at companies like O’Reilly, Chef Software, and SparkPost, • and I love figuring out what makes each of them “tick” as well as how to find the best solutions for the problems they’re facing. •
• These days, I’m running my own business, Persea Consulting. And yes, those are avocados in my company logo — Persea is the scientific genus for Avocado. The goal of Persea Consulting is to provide resources and education about Developer Relations and Community Management both for those who are practicing in those areas as well as the business decision makers like yourselves who are trying to figure out what in the world those terms mean. • These are a bunch of the resources I help to provide as a part of this goal. The most relevant one for today is the book on the far left up there: The Business Value of Developer Relations. A lot of what I’ll be speaking about today is also covered in the book in far more depth. • I’ve got a few copies of the book with me if you’d like to come talk to me after this talk, and I’ll have a discount code up on my last slide. • All this to say… I do a lot and have a lot of side projects and am very involved in a lot of things. but most importantly, I’m incredibly passionate about driving the Developer Relations industry forward and working with companies just like yours to make sure that both the communities that you’re building and the community managers that you’re employing are set up for success.
• So that’s where all of this “Developer Avocado” thing started… and it’s only grown from there. But what does it mean for you, today?
• In short, it means that I understand the confusion around Developer Relations: most companies acknowledge that it’s a good thing to have, but when confronted with the “why”… they can’t give a good answer beyond, “everyone else is doing it” and “our main audience is developers.” • I’ll be the first to tell you — DevRel isn’t an easy, one size fits all, silver bullet to fixing your business and getting all developers everywhere to suddenly join the ranks of your customers. It also doesn’t fit within most of your typical “business value metrics.” But I do know that with patience and by asking the right questions, Developer Relations can be an incredibly valuable asset to your business, and can sometimes even be the difference between success and failure. • The 4 principles that I’m going to be presenting today will not only illustrate why Developer Relations is like avocados, but will also show you that by applying these principles, Developer Relations can be a valuable and healthy part of your business.
• Before we jump into the principles… let’s start with two important definitions so that we know we’re all on the same page. First off: Community. • Community is a group of people who not only share common principles, but also develop and share practices that help individuals in the group thrive. • How you define who falls into the realm of community at your particular company will depend on what your intentions are (we’ll get to that in a moment), but in general, “community” includes your current customers, as well as prospects, and anyone who could in the future be interested in using your product.
• So how does this fit into Developer Relations? First of all, Developer Relations isn’t just another name for Developer Advocates. Developer Relations is the umbrella term for community building both online and offline, Developer Advocacy, developer event management, etc. It can even go so far as to include roles like documentation and training at some bigger companies like Twilio. • At its foundation, the purpose of Developer Relations (or DevRel) is to build relationships with the developer community. DevRel professionals act as a liaison between their company and the developer audience—typically the end users of the product. While most professionals have the best interests of the business at their front of their minds, driving their day-to-day decisions, DevRel professionals have the best interests of the community as their driving factor. They of course care about the success of the business as well—it is, after all, what pays their bills—but they understand that if the community is happy and successful as a result of using the product, the business is far more likely to succeed as well.
• I like this little mantra to explain that symbiotic relationship: • To the community, I represent the company. To the company, I represent the community. I must have both of their interests in mind at all times. • In order for the DevRel team to succeed, however, they must be fully supported by the company. From having a clear set of business goals and expectations to the right tools for the job, they need to know that their work is seen as valuable and is therefore not only allowed but actively encouraged by the stakeholders in their company. This brings us back to why I’m here today: helping you understand the value of developer relations via the analogy of avocados.
• So here we go! Principle #1, which you might have guessed from the name of my talk… • Avocados are the good kind of fat. DevRel tends to be a bit of an expensive, or “fatty” department, between the conferences they sponsor, the swag they give away, and the open source projects that they support outside of your own software. However… used at the right times, in the right ways, with the right combinations of items, Developer Relations can have amazing health benefits for your company as well as your community. • So what are some of those right times, right ways, and right combinations of items? Things like talking to developers about product feedback while at various conferences and events around the world; having 1:1 conversations with top community members and then being the liaison between those community members and your product and engineering teams; and creating open source tools and documentation around your product to make the developer’s lives easier.
• I call the connections made while doing this liaison work “warm handoffs.” These handoffs aren’t limited to sales— they could be to a variety of groups: • • Business Development / Partnerships - a potential company to integrate with or list as mutual partners • • Marketing - a customer to feature in a case study or a community member who’s willing to write a blogpost about an interesting way that they’ve used your product to solve a problem • • Product - a customer who’s willing to give extensive feedback about a new feature, or interested in beta testing features before they’re released • • Engineering - someone who’s stumbled on a particularly hard-to- solve bug and is willing to help engineering get to the bottom of it • • And of course, sales. Depending on the person you’ve met in the community will determine who exactly in sales you pass them off to— whether you start with the solutions architect (aka technical side of sales) or go straight to the enterprise sales team will depend on the need and (usually) the community member’s title. Sometimes, the handoff won’t be with the community member you’ve engaged with, but with their manager or the lead of the team that they report to. • These warm handoffs are incredibly important to keep track of for a number of reasons, the most obvious reason being, of course, that it’s a definitive way to attribute value to the activities that the Developer Relations team is involved in. Additionally, in aggregate, it’s a valuable way to see which activities overall are more effective than others in the long run as well as track themes throughout the industry.
• Twilio’s Developer Evangelism team puts it this way: • Our job is to inspire and equip developers to build the next generation of amazing applications. • This means understanding what they are trying to do, pointing them to tools and training, and generally helping them be successful. • Is this an inexpensive endeavor? No! But is it worthwhile? Signs point to yes! When Twilio was first founded, they were told they didn’t stand a chance with a developer-focused strategy, but they went on to land a 1 million dollar seed round from a group of angel investors including Chris Sacca and Mitch Kapor, and one VC. The first full-time employee that they hired, Danielle Morrill, built out what is now acknowledged as the startup world’s most effective developer marketing program. • Now, with customers like Dell, Twitter, Lyft, Salesforce, Hulu, Twitch, Intuit… the list goes on… they continue to cater to developers and build out what is now known as one of the top Developer Relations teams in the entire industry. • Twilio has invested a significant amount of money into something that they were told would never make them successful, because they understood the true value of Developer Relations: if you can prove to developers inequivacably that you not only want, but will listen to and implement their feedback, you will gain their loyalty.
• Principle #2! Avocados tend to take on the flavor of things around them. • There was a time when I didn’t understand the appeal of avocados. They were somewhat mushy, somewhat bland, somewhat odd-looking fruits that masqueraded as vegetables. And then one day, my aunt introduced me to the wonderfully simple lunch of a white cheddar rice cake, avocado spread on top, and a slice of havarti cheese to top it off. I later experimented, added a fried egg to the top of this, and turned it into a breakfast delicacy. I then realized that avocado was a wonderful agent of flavor. • And now that I’ve made you all hungry… what’s my point? • In the same way, Developer Relations teams tend to take on the flavor of the product that they’re working with. They can be fluid in goals, what department they’re in, and what the group looks like, depending on the needs and goals of the company.
• • What I’m saying is, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. What has worked amazingly well for Twilio and Github may or may not work well for you!
• If you can’t read that last panel in the bottom right, it says “Doug in marketing asks what our team is for. CEO notices. Team is disbanded.” • And while this is funny… it’s also unfortunately what happens far more often than you might think! When you look at someone else’s strategy with Developer Relations, you’re looking at a plan that they’ve developed over the months and years, which is specific to their audience, with their company’s strengths in mind. It’s likely not going to work for you!
• Which means you need to ask the right questions to figure out what your company will actually benefit from. • Let’s start with these two: • • Why do you want a community? • • What do you hope to accomplish with a community?
• First up… why do you want a community? Now you’ll notice I didn’t say “do you have a community?” Whether you’ve spent the time to build up a community, every product has a community of customers, both current and potential. It’s simply a matter of whether you choose to be an active participant in fostering the community that already exists. Your “why” determines how you choose to interact with this community. • If you’re familiar with Simon Sinek, this question won’t be news to you. For those of you who aren’t as familiar, you may be asking why it’s important that we start with this question whether than diving right into how to accomplish our goals. Here’s the thing: Our “why” drives how we respond to people, which drives what we actually say. This will also drive the structure of who handles and is responsible for which aspects, how we respond to community members, where we send people for more resources, etc. • So… why do you want a community? • The “why” doesn’t have to be quantitative metrics—it can be abstract—but it should be aligned with the organization’s goals and explain the purpose behind each community-related endeavor at the company. You’ll also want to make sure your “why” is driven by a reason, not a result. For example, “to make a profit” is a result of growing relationships, nurturing leads, and having a great product, not a reason to do what you’re doing. Your reason for establishing a community might be generating engagement, making a better product, or customer retention. • The RESULT of that reason may be those warm handoffs that we touched on earlier -opportunities to further product feedback, pass along possible recruits, facilitate a sales opportunity, or more. But your ultimate WHY needs to be the reason… your motivating factor.
• Next question: What do you hope to accomplish with a community? • This question helps you determine whether you’re trying to create a community of customers, or simply define a market. You might be looking for a core group of customers to get periodic feedback from; or hope to set yourselves up as thought leaders in a new space; or perhaps you want to follow trends within your niche in technology and are relying on your connections in the community to keep you apprised of these developments. • The answers to this question can help you determine now only how to best serve your community, but also what department is the best fit for your DevRel team. Are they mostly writing content and creating resources for community members? Maybe they fit best under Product. Are they speaking at events and educating people about the importance of the overarching topics? Maybe Marketing is a good fit. If they’re working on sample apps and developer experience, perhaps Engineering is a good fit. • But placement of the DevRel team is a whole other talk… the key here is figuring out what will not only allow your team to succeed, but make the most sense for the community.
• Principle #3! Avocados go well with many different cuisines. • From Mexican dishes, to omelets and scrambles, to the classic BLT, you can find avocados in all sorts of cuisines today. This couples nicely with the previous point, that Developer Relations teams take on the look and flavor of the company that they’re at — it’s not going to look or feel or taste the same at each company. • Not only can DevRel goals and the department they report to be different depending on the company, but the tactics that they use to build a community changes depending on the circumstances and the type of product. There’s rarely a set way to engage with the community -you experiment, and figure out what works best for your community by pulling a variety of levers and observing the outcome.
• This is something that the community team at Keen knows and understands well. • Their team mission makes it clear that they want to do whatever they can to support both their internal community — the business organization — as well as their external community — their customers and community members. • And again, more often than not, this success is achieved through connections. If you’re looking for a silver bullet… one simple principle that you can take back with you today, this is it: Developer Relations can fall into SO many different departments and be useful in SO MANY different projects.
• So here’s the important question: What is it that only DevRel can do? There’s a reason why you’ll find DevRel teams all over the organization — Product, Engineering, Marketing, etc… it’s because there’s a LOT of overlap. But the thing that DevRel really excels at is making connections. My friend Amy Hermes calls this being a Technical Cruise Director. We’re the people who are able to take a step back, observe the conversations that are going on around us, and then make connections, whether community member to community member, or community member to company employee. • But then we make sure to follow up with those folks — is there anything else we can help with? Anyone else we can introduce them to? Any other way that we can help solve the problems they’re facing? • And in doing so, we become the spoke of the wheel -absolutely essential to keeping that wheel of progress turning, but also the connection point between all of the departments -the internal community — as well as the external community members, and between those two segments as well.
• Principle #4: Avocados take a long time to ripen. • It’s an even longer process if you take into account that it takes 5 years for an avocado tree to be fruitful. But once the fruit is ripe, it’s not only delicious, but yields a good profit for the farmers. If you haven’t guessed it already (or if you didn’t hear me say it earlier), Developer Relations is not a quick fix if you’re looking for your product to take off and be the most popular thing on the market. It’s a long game. It’s not something that often has an immediate impact on sales. However, with a good upfront investment and careful nurturing, the final harvest can be incredibly rewarding. •
• So you might be asking… if it’s a long tail game, that’s fine, but what do we track?
• The logical thing to go to is work output — that’s what’s tracked by many other departments, right? How does your work input impact the bottom line? • But please… for the love of all things tasty, like avocados, PLEASE don’t track work output for your DevRel team.
• The problem with only tracking work output for DevRel is that there’s typically so much that goes into each single “achievement” (a conference talk, for example), that it can look like your DevRel team isn’t getting all that much accomplished on a day-to-day basis. Because a conference talk isn’t just a conference talk. It’s researching the right conferences… finding the ones that are the right audience, the right location, the right impact, and then cross-checking that list with the conferences that are still accepting CFPs. Then you write and revise your CFP. Then you hope and pray that the CFP gets accepted. Then IF you’re one of the lucky ones that gets into the conference, you actually have to write the talk. And practice the talk. And depending on your company, get the talk approved by corporate communications. And then book travel. And then travel to the conference. And then give the talk. And THEN you can say “I spoke at a conference!” and check that off on your list of goals. • And then if you’re lucky (and only if you’re lucky) no one asks you what impact that had on the bottom line for the business… but typically, people start to see you as the person who spends a lot of money flying around the world to exotic locations like Pittsburgh, Raleigh, and Pasadena, CA, partying with the community and not actually accomplishing anything. See the problem? • DevRel needs business alignment to have the ramp-up time to succeed on these longer commitment timelines, which building a community frequently requires.
• So what is the better metric? • Tracking connections, or… say it with me… — CLICK — warm handoffs. • Because here’s the deal - when your DevRel team is out at that event that they’ve spent so much time preparing for, they’re going to be meeting customers. They’re going to meet potential customers. They’re going to meet influencers. It’s what they do! It’s what they’re good at — making connections, being those technical cruise directors that I mentioned before. • And if you encourage them to then pass those people back into the company -making the appropriate connections to Sales, Product, Marketing, Engineering, etc. — AND if THEY know they can trust the rest of the company to handle those connections with the appropriate amount of respect and attention, then you’re enabling them to do what they’re best at… what only they can do… and turning that into a metric that directly proves just how valuable they are to the company, while allowing them to continue serving the community in the best way possible. • And then when these opportunities DO ripen down the road — when the developer who’s currently at a tiny startup that has no need for your product switches to a huge enterprise company, that developer knows and trusts both your DevRel team as well as your company, and suddenly their new company becomes your biggest customer. • But if you put a metric of sales, or recruiting, or any ROI goal that needs to prove an immediate return, they’re going to fail, because they won’t be able to do what you’ve hired them to do —
• … represent the company to the community, and the community to the company. They’ll be too focused on their goals to be able to effectively pay attention to the industry patterns and important changes, and they’ll be too worried about losing their job because they can’t make their “numbers”, which never should have been given to them to begin with.
• But by focusing on these warm handoffs, you set both the DevRel team AND your community up for success.
• So to recap… we’ve covered 4 principles today:
• And hopefully, these four principles, while perhaps a bit quirky, will help you to remember the true value that Developer Relations can bring to any developer-focused product and business. I believe strongly that as I said at the beginning, used at the right times, in the right ways, with the right combinations of items, DevRel can bring about the type of value that can absolutely transform your product, your company, and your entire method of doing business. Why, you might ask? Because…
• Bonus Principle! Avocados are good for your heart. The more that you look into the research and data around avocados, the more you realize just how good they are for you.
• Likewise, with more research and data around Developer Relations, you’ll realize that it’s not only good for your business, but in many cases, essential to maintaining a healthy product. And no one can deny that a happy community and a healthy product are good for the heart of every company, just like avocados.
What is Developer Relations, exactly? And what does it provide to a business other than a large travel and entertainment bill? As you’ll learn in this presentation, while Developer Relations and building communities is an investment, it’s one that will set your company apart from others. In this day and age where everyone is looking for a distinguishing factor, a thriving technical community can make all the difference between success and failure.
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