by David I | Feb 1, 2018 | Developer Relations, DevRelate, Newsletter, Webinar |
DevRelate Webinar February 27 & March 1, 2018 – Internal Evangelism and Enablement to Support your Developer Program.
Developer Relations team members spend most of their time doing external evangelism to their developer community and prospects. At the same time, it is even more important to have an active and ongoing focus on internal evangelism to keep key stakeholders and departments aware of what you are doing while eliciting their help and guidance for your efforts.
To some, it might seem like quite a task but it can be accomplished by setting up enabling internal technologies and systems to make it easy for employees beyond your developer relations team to support your efforts.
This webinar will cover multiple ways for you to keep your company up to date while garnering their continued support and provide assistance with your content generation and activities.
Dates/Times:
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
- 7am Pacific Time, 9am Central Time, 10am Eastern Time, 3pm London, 4pm Frankfurt
- 1pm Pacific Time, 3pm Central Time, 4pm Eastern Time
- 5pm Pacific Time, 7pm Central Time, 8pm Eastern Time, 9am Beijing (Wed, Feb 28), 12noon Sydney (Wed, Feb 28)
Thursday, March 1, 2018
- 7am Pacific Time, 9am Central Time, 10am Eastern Time, 3pm London, 4pm Frankfurt
- 10am Pacific Time, 12noon Central Time, 1pm Eastern Time, 6pm London, 7pm Frankfurt
This webinar takes place on several days and at multiple times.
Please register for the date and time that works best for you:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/rt/6662625237414693123
Agenda:
- The value of Internal Evangelism
- Where External Evangelism Meets Internal Evangelism
- Creating Enabling Internal Technologies and Systems for Use Beyond your DevRel Team
- Q&A
Who Should Attend:
- Managers & Directors of Developer Programs
- Technology & Developer Advocates
- Business Development Managers & Directors
- Product Marketing Managers & Directors
- Marketing Managers
- Product Managers
- Research Managers
- Corporate Communications Managers
- Heads of Developer Marketing
- ANYONE who deals with developers!
Presenter
David Intersimone “David I”, Vice President of Developer Communities
Register Now
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/rt/6662625237414693123
by David I | Jul 11, 2017 | Developer Marketing, Developer Relations, DevRelate |
On the road to my August 2017 DevRelate webinar, “Developer Marketing & Developer Relations – Similarities & Differences“, August 8 & 10, I am putting together background research and information about several high level aspects for each team member. In this blog post I am starting with a focus on education, skills and organizational reporting. Take a look at each of the aspects and let me know what you think about the details related to your own experiences and knowledge of industry experts you interact with. In subsequent blog posts I’ll drill down into roles, responsibilities, work done, audiences, metrics, ROI and other aspects.
Education
In looking at a wide range of Developer Marketing and Developer Relations practitioners active in the technology products, devices, platforms and services, I’ve found common characteristics, degree attainment, and focus areas. Of course there are many journeys that we take to get to a specific Developer Marketing and Developer Relations position. Do these educational backgrounds resonate with you and others you know?
- Developer Marketing: BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA and/or PhD in Marketing, Communications, Business Administration, Economics, Public Relations, Journalism, Computer Science, Software Engineering, International Business, Management, Finance, Creative Writing.
- Developer Relations: BA, BS, MA, MS and/or PhD in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Mathematics.
Skills
In the wide array of skills and experiences, you can often find some of the following listed for Developer Marketing and Developer Relations team members. There can be a wide range of past experiences, job history and interest areas. Some differences can be traced to the industry, product, service, device, platform or other positions held by each member of the developer outreach team.
- Developer Marketing: Messaging, Writing, Demand Generation, Marketing Campaigns, Go To Market Strategies, Budgets, Branding, Social Media, Events, PR, AR, Advertising.
- Developer Relations: Programming, Public Speaking, Demonstrations, Webinars, Videos, Developer Advocacy/Evangelism, Technical Writing, Blogging.
Ideal Report To
Depending on the size and complexity of the company, products, services, devices, platforms and other technology areas, Developer Marketing and Developer Relations leaders and team members would ideally like to report to one (or more) of the following executive level members and organizations.
- Developer Marketing – report to the CMO as part of the Corporate Marketing organization.
- Developer Relations – report to the CTO and be part of the Software Engineering organization.
Are there other education, skills and organizational reporting aspects that you’ve experienced or found?
There is never a college degree, experience level, job history and organizational structure that fits neatly for all Developer Marketing and Developer Relations professionals in each industry and company for today’s software, devices, platforms and services world. In looking at my network of friends and job requirements postings, I’ve found any number of additional aspects that could be (should be) included. Send me an email with your own experiences and history and I’ll consider them for the upcoming DevRelate webinar in August.
David Intersimone “David I”
Vice President of Developer Communities
Evans Data Corporation
davidi@evansdata.com
Blog: https://www.devrelate.com/blog/
Skype: davidi99
Twitter: @davidi99
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidi99/
by David I | Jan 31, 2017 | Developer Outreach, Developer Relations, DevRelate, Education, Evans Data, Presentations |
At this year’s Evans Data Developer Relations Conference, March 27 and 28, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Palo Alto California, attendees will hear from Guy Kawasaki, the world’s best developer evangelist. I first met Guy when the Macintosh computer was launched when he and Alain Rossmann delivered an early Mac to the company I was working for, Softsel Computer Products, in Los Angeles.
Guy and Alain carried the Mac on the plane in a bag (back then you did not have to take your computer out for screening before boarding the plane). They showed me the new computer, demonstrated the software and left it with me. Their goal at the time was to get as much Macintosh software into computer stores (yes, there were stores back them for hardware and software) as soon as possible. I remember taking the computer home over the weekend and with my brother-in-law Leigh, we played with and learned about the Mac. We first used Mac Basic to write some test programs and to peek and poke around the Mac’s memory. Then we used Digital Research’s CPM/68k and developer tools to do some additional testing.
I’ve had the distinct pleasure of introducing Guy as a keynote speaker at one of Borland’s (now called Embarcadero) developer conference. Guy often tells people that I’m the only one who has ever introduced him as a keynote speaker wearing shorts and a tie dye t-shirt. Welcome to Santa Cruz, Guy! At that developer conference, Guy spoke about his “Rules for Revolutionaries” with 10 rules taken from the book. I often use Rule #5, “Make Evangelists, Not Sales”, in my evangelism talks to developer relations program professionals and software companies.
I’ve heard Guy present more times that I can remember and I learn something new from him every time. After he spoke about his 10 tips for using Social Media (he and Peg Fitzpatrick are the authors of “The Art of Social Media“) at our local Santa Cruz New Tech Meetup, You can watch the Facebook Live replay. I went home and immediately updated all of my social sites avatars and background images.
Evans Data Press Release about Guy Kawasaki and the 13th Annual Developer Relations Conference
In a recent press release, Evans Data announced that Guy Kawasaki will be part of the keynote lineup of speakers for the 13th annual Developer Relations Conference on March 27-28, 2017 in Palo Alto, CA.
“Over the past 13 years the Developer Relations Conference has been bringing together leading authorities on developer relations and developer ecosystem strategy to meet, forge partnerships, and exchange insights on developer ecosystem development,” said Janel Garvin, CEO of Evans Data Corp. “This year’s conference will be no exception and we’re delighted to be joined by legendary evangelist Guy Kawasaki for his keynote session on “The Art of Evangelism.”
If you’ve never had the pleasure of seeing Guy Kawasaki, currently the chief evangelist of Canva, live you should join us in Palo Alto at the end of March. If you need Guy’s keen developer evangelism insights to help you enhance your developer outreach program, you shouldn’t miss this opportunity to learn from Guy any many other world class developer relations program leaders, advocates and evangelists.
Register now for the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference. You can also register for the Sunday, all day, Developer Relations Boot Camp to kick start and accelerate your company’s developer outreach program.
David Intersimone “David I”
Vice President of Developer Communities
Evans Data Corporation
davidi@evansdata.com
Blog: https://www.devrelate.com/blog/
Skype: davidi99
Twitter: @davidi99
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidi99/
by David I | Nov 1, 2016 | Big Data, Developer Outreach, Developer Population, Developer Programs News, Developer Relations, DevRelate, Evans Data, Internet of Things |
As one of the new team members here at Evans Data Corporation (EDC), I needed to learn about our ecosystem of sites related to developers, developer research, developer relations professionals and development tools. I’m using this blog post to bring everyone up to date on the aspects of software development and developer research that are at the focus of Evans Data’s expertise and execution. If you care about software development, developers, APIs, development technologies, marketing to developers, selling to developers, becoming a better developer and sharing your favorite best practices and experiences with tools and technologies, check out the following web sites, tools and events that are part of the Evans Data ecosystem.
The Evans Data Ecosystem
Developer Research
Evans Data Corporation creates market research, market intelligence, and strategic planning in the software development industry. The market intelligence research is focused on all areas of development from software to hardware to mobility. Developers present a highly focused, highly technical and very influential segment of the software industry, and the need to keep a finger on the pulse of the development community is well understood by many manufacturers. Because of the nature of development and the quickly changing technologies that form their world, traditional market research and consulting services seldom achieve adequate results. Evans Data has in-depth and focused experience working with high-tech professionals, and specializes in conducting market research in the IT and development community. We are experts in analyzing technology trends and attitudes. We know how to speak the language and ask the right questions and more importantly, we can understand the answers.
Each bi-annual multi-client subscription includes:
- Executive Summary
- Results of two complete surveys done twice during the year – full reporting with color graphs, detailed tables and commentary.
- PDF file of complete report and full rights to distribute anywhere within your company, anywhere in the world
- Invitation to provide questions or content topics and shape the content of upcoming surveys
Companies that purchase a subscription receive a substantial discount (40 percent off the second volume) and also receive a number of additional benefits – which include, but are not limited to, the following: custom webinars, ability to influence follow on surveys and analyst support. Read more information about subscription holder benefits.
You can track the research reports release schedule for 2016 at http://www.evansdata.com/reports/release_schedule.php
Strategic research reports include:
Tactical research reports include:
Vertical research reports include:
Custom research reports can also be conducted to your specifications. Before you commit to a major marketing campaign or a continuing product line strategy, wouldn’t you like to know how you’re plan will be received by real developers? The only way to be sure is to conduct quantifiable research with a significant number of programmers. Interviews are based on statistically significant sized samples within the time frame you need. Reports give thorough analysis to all questions and an overall summary.
Analytics Console
The Evans Data Analytics Console is a revolutionary breakthrough in data delivery. Providing seamless self-service developer intelligence on hundreds of software development subjects stemming from our semi-annual Global Development Survey. This user friendly Data Analytics Console allows you to dynamically view virtually limitless charts focused on developer demographics, firmographics, technology adoption and trends. With 26 built-in filters and on the fly data drill down, you can effortlessly dive deeper into particular data sets and instantly extract the developer insights most valuable to you.
Read more about the Evans Data Analytics Console
Watch a short Analytics Console demonstration video.
Developer Relations Conference
The Evans Data Developer Relations Conference (DRC) is an event unlike any other. Developer relations experts from leading companies in the software, telecom and web markets come together to discuss best practices and reveal the techniques behind their success! During the conference attendees hear keynote presentations from top industry leaders. Breakout sessions are presented by developer professionals from leading software, hardware, platform and services companies. During the two day conference you’ll have ample time to network with other developer relations professionals.
The breakout sessions cover all aspects of developer relations, ranging from the business side (program ROI, the connection between developer programs and company revenue, budgeting for/costs of developer programs, how to get an organization’s commitment of internal resources, etc.) to the marketing side (techniques for recruitment, awareness tactics, community loyalty building programs, legal/privacy and global privacy considerations, conducting a privacy audit, internationalizing a US-based developer program, etc), to the technical side (tools used, technology platform leveraged, APIs supported, etc) and much more. Whether you are starting a new developer relations program or building on a current one, you deserve all of the help you can get – and this is the place to get it!
On the Sunday before the two day conference we hold a developer relations Boot Camp that provides a solid foundation on which you can build or enhance your developer program. Concentrated sessions in this one-day instructional program provide the insight and actionable information you can use to build your brand and establish strong relationships with your developer community. The Boot Camp also includes careful consideration regarding the reasons why developers seek out and contribute to developer programs, the most effective means of reaching out to them, and how you can leverage social media to greatest effect.
Evans Data 12th annual Developer Relations Conference 2016 site – http://www.evansdata.com/drc/2016/
Save the dates for the 13th annual Evans Data Developer Relations Conference, Palo Alto, CA, USA – March 26-28, 2017.
DevRelate – Community for Developer Relations Professionals
DevRelate is the online academy and community center for developer relations professionals. At DevRelate you will learn the basics and explore advanced techniques for creating and growing a developer program through online courses that are based on over 15 years of developer research. We also provide additional resources that are geared towards advanced practitioners such as assessments, workshops, and consultations to take your program to the next level. Our insights stem from our vast experience and the direct input from a global panel of software developers about what works for them and what doesn’t.
Join for free, learn developer outreach best practices and collaborate with a global network of developer relations professionals. Once you join, you’ll have access to the member directory, certification exams, blog posts, articles, interviews with Developer Relations professionals, Evans Data Developer Relations Conference presentations, resource links and more.
DevRelate also offers program assessment and workshops by one of the top Developer Relations professionals in the industry. During David I’s forty-three years as a developer, development manager, developer community executive and chief evangelist, he has created a thriving global developer community, thousands of articles, videos and blog posts. View more information about our Developer Program Advisory Workshops and Assessments here.
Finally, the In-Depth Individual Developer Program Assessment is geared towards serious practitioners and provides an assessment of your company’s current (or planned) developer relations program with ideas for improvements and enhancements based on your industry, product, service or platform. Working with your staff, the assessment will do a deep dive into your company, product or services, current or planned developer program features and how well they mesh together.
DevNet – Evans Data Developer Panel
When conducting demand-side primary research it becomes important to recruit the participants (or samples) from sources that are as unbiased as possible. During the years that EDC has been recruiting developers to participate in surveys this ideal has continuously been foremost in our efforts. Consequently, though we have used over 100 different individual sources for recruiting, In this way we provide the most eclectic and unbiased sample available anywhere. With thousands of developers chosen in a deliberately unbiased way from a wide variety of neutral lists, our data truly provides in-depth looks at representative samples of the developer population. The EDC panel of developers includes about 75,000 professional developers in over 80 countries.
You can register to qualify as a developer panel member. As a developer panelist you will: 1. Have your voice heard on hot topics, innovative technologies and key initiatives, 2. Receive points for every validated survey submission, 3. Redeem award points for valuable prizes.
Read more about the Developer Panel.
Register to qualify as a developer panel member.
DevMetric – Reviews of Development Tools by Developers
The DevMetric site allows developers to give their reviews of development tools, libraries and frameworks. Members can browse through categories of developer tools give recommendations for those tools you like and reasons for why you dislike a tool, library or framework. Developers can submit new tool entries and give ratings for all of the listed developer tools. On the site you can view the top rated tools (overall and by category). You can also see the most recent tools added to DevMetric and add your ratings, post comments, and tell others whether a review was helpful or not.
I have never met a developer who doesn’t have an opinion about the tools they use. Developers love to share information, tips and critiques with other programmers. Do you want to Rate and Review your developer tools? Register here!
by David I | Oct 20, 2016 | Developer Relations, DevRelate, Presentations, Tools, Webinar |
I have given thousands of presentations to tens of thousands of developers in person and online webinars. It’s been great to be able to create and present a broad range of technical sessions, keynotes, webinars, hands on labs, briefings, etc. It’s also an honor and a privilege to talk and listen to developers while showing them new technologies, architectures, methodologies, compilers, frameworks, libraries and tools. One of the most important things that we can do in our developer relations programs is to help educate our members. Meeting and geeking with developers is always a shared experience for me as I learn as much from developers as I present to them. Sometimes I have the luxury of attending developer conferences and meetups and learn new, cool tech from other developers. What makes a great tech session? What do developers want to see and hear from a developer relations evangelist? Here are a few of the Developer Tech Session best practices, observations and ideas that I’ve learned over more than 30 years as an evangelist.
Giving a Great Developer Tech Session
Developers have told me what they look forward in a technical session. Developers are not shy or quiet. They will also tell me when one of my presentations didn’t live up to their expectations or doesn’t cover the topic.
- Have a clear session title, description, agenda, timing, prerequisites, use cases, expected audience (who should attend) and expected session outcomes (what they’ll see, learn and walk away with). Ensuring that the session information is clear and focused will set the stage for a satisfied developer audience. Of course there will always be a few developers who won’t read the session information in advance of your presentation.
- Developers want to learn cutting edge methods, technologies, architectures and best practices. Make sure that your presentation is as technically exciting and interesting to you as it will be for your audience. It’s always fun to be able to show cool products, cool technology and cool demos.
- Have more source code than slides. Developers love to look at code and dislike slides. My good friend Charlie Calvert would refuse to use a slide application and would instead put bullet points, images and notes on HTML pages and use a browser for the non-source code parts of his presentations. If you need to have a couple of slides, try to keep them to a minimum: title slide, agenda slide, an architecture slide or two and a final Q&A slide with your contact, short URL to your a blog post for your presentation and source code download information.
- For source code, make sure your development environment or programmer’s editor has a large clear font. For source code I use Lucida Console font with 14 point size (or higher if you are presenting in a larger room). If you are using an IDE also configure it with a “Source Code Only” layout option. If you are giving a webinar, use 1920×1080 screen resolution (your developer audience will have multiple high resolution monitors on their desktops). If you are giving a live presentation, know the size of the room, display your desktop with code and walk to the far reaches of the room to see if you can read the font.
- Prepare and practice, practice, practice for your developer technology presentation. Doing this will help you avoid some of the challenging demo issues, configuration settings and timing problems for your session. There is always the possibility that you will be hit by the “demo beast” and have to remark “that’s never happened before”. A mysterious bug or crash will also have happened to every developer attendee in the audience. Problems, hopefully only one, will show that you are human.
- Developers love to see and listen to a dynamic presenter. This doesn’t mean that you should run around the stage, crack jokes, rant, rave, wear goofy hats, etc unless they are relevant to your presentation. Your audience audience will enjoy your session when they see that you are really excited about the topic, technology, tools, projects, source code and techniques.
- Arrive early for your presentation, check the setup and configuration (especially if you have multiple computers, servers, devices and internet connections) and make one last pass through the slides and demos before you start your presentation. It’s always good to make sure that something didn’t change since the last night. Remind yourself to talk clearly, loud enough for the room and slowly (especially if audience members don’t speak the same human language as you, thankfully all programming languages and most libraries/frameworks have English keywords and function names). If you have consumed too much coffee, Red Bull, Mountain Dew Code Red, 5 hour energy drinks and other high octane beverages, take care to not over rev during your presentation.
- Turn off all of your popups, notifications, Skype, emails, alarms, screen savers, sleep/hibernate modes and other operating system and apps that will disrupt your presentation. Developers don’t want to read all of your instant messages, calendar alerts, etc. You probably don’t want them to see confidential information, meeting reminders, messages from your family either.
- Control the audience during your presentation. Don’t allow some attendees to take you and the audience off topic (they can come up afterwards to ask their specific questions). It’s okay to take some questions along the way, especially if your presentation has logical transition points. If you are going to cover a topic later in the presentation, gently reply to a questioner that patience is a virtue and what they are asking for is coming up soon in the presentation.
- Did I mention to show lots of source code? You can never explain the source code enough to a developer. It’s okay to type in code during your presentation. That’s what we as developers spend a lot of our time doing. This also helps the audience follow along and kibitz with you on typos and alternatives. I believe that it is also acceptable to open prebuilt projects as long as you explain the project and walk developers through the source code. It’s also okay to have snippets of code ready in a notepad, especially for some longer and complex code sections I doubt that they whole audience will sit there and watch you type in thousands of lines of code.
A Few Final Bits of Advice
If you are going to use some slides and other visuals here are a few additional bits of advice.
- Take care with your color sections for fonts. Some audience members may have a color vision deficiency for red, green or blue. I had presenter training early in my evangelism career and was introduced to Mr. “Roy G Biv” (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet). For text color selections choose one from Roy and one from Biv. Green, Black, White and 50 shades of grey are okay to mix in.
- If you need to include Slides in your technical presentation – you should read Guy Kawasaki’s “10/20/30 Rule for Powerpoint“. Visuals can convey so much more that text for most slides. If you have to have bullet points with words, try to use the 4×4 rule – 4 bullet points with 4 words max each.
- Have a blog post availalble in advance for every presentation you give. Make sure there is an easy to remember ShortURL for your blog post. With the blog post you can provide links to additional information, resources, sample code and some of the questions asked during your session. You can always update the information omn the blog post for days, weeks and years after the presentation takes place.
- Give the audience your contact information including email address, twitter handle, SkypeID and blog URL. If you take the time to present and your audience takes the time to attend, you will be just at the first step in a mutually beneficial relationship.
Do you have other Technical Presentation advice?
Being a developer relations evangelist or team member is a great thig. We are on this software development and technology journey together. I love getting your presenter and attendee ideas and feedback.
davidi@evansdata.com
SkypeID: davidi99
Twitter: @davidi99
Blog: https://www.devrelate.com/blog/
