Online Training, MOOCs and Your Developer Relations Program

Developers tell Evans Data that to be successful in their jobs they need learn about new tools, technologies and techniques that can facilitate their career growth and help their company. Some companies use Online Training MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), Learning Management Systems (LMS), training frameworks and online learning companies to provide continuing education for their software engineers. Companies also leverage these same educational systems to train their customers about their products, services, frameworks, SDKs and APIs. There are many ways that a company can provide training for their customers by providing how-to videos, tutorials, webinars, Wikis, white papers, development guides, and online conferences. In recent years, we’ve also seen the rise of developer focused companies leveraging course offerings by online training companies, universities and MOOCs.

Udacity, for example, has created “Nanodegree” education programs in partnerships with Google, Amazon, IBM Watson, Vive, Nvidia, Mercedes Benz, AT&T, Facebook and others. Universities, including MIT and Stanford, have put some of their degree program courses online. There are also several free, open source MOOC platforms you can use to create your own online developer university including edX and Moodle. At Khan Academy, anyone can create a new course and invite students to participate. Last December, Stephen  Wolfram announced “Wolfram|Alpha Open Code” saying “Every day, millions of students around the world use Wolfram|Alpha to compute answers. With Wolfram|Alpha Open Code they’ll now not just be able to get answers, but also be able to get code that lets them explore further and immediately apply computational thinking.”

Does your Developer Relations Program offer Education Courses for developers? Should you partner with a university, online education company or build your own? Here are a few of the many companies, services, and software that can help you keep your developer community learning and thriving.

 

Free MOOC Software You Can Use for your University/Academy/Company

You can set up your own training university/academy for your customers using free software. Here are a couple of choices to explore.

Open edX – The open-source edX platform that is used for http://edx.org. Open edX was created by Harvard and MIT for their use. It is now used by universities around the world as part of the xConsortium. You can self host Open edX and there are also a community maintained list of service providers who support the hosting of Open edX. Note: Open edX uses both the AGPL and the Apache licenses. There is a blog post about using edX and Open edX for corporations.

Moodle – open source under the GNU General Public License and can be used for commercial and non-commercial use. From the Moodle.org site: “Moodle is a learning platform designed to provide educators, administrators and learners with a single robust, secure and integrated system to create personalised learning environments. You can download the software onto your own web server or ask one of our knowledgeable Moodle Partners to assist you. Moodle is built by the Moodle project which is led and coordinated by Moodle HQ, an Australian company of 30 developers which is financially supported by a network of over 60 Moodle Partner service companies worldwide.”

Online Training Companies

Over the past several years, there has been an explosion of developer related online training companies. The following is just a few of many available companies that you can partner with.

  • Udacity – an online university spun out of Stanford University. Udacity offers courses and nanodegrees in partnership with technology companies including Google, Amazon, IBM, Mercedes Benz, NVIDIA, Salesforce, AT&T, Facebook, Cloudera and others. There is also a Udacity for Business page that describes how you can use Udacity for your employees and customers.
  • Coursera –  universal access to courses partnering with top universities and organizations. Coursera also provides “Coursera for Business“, online courses for a company’s employees and customers. Coursera also has a developer program with APIs that allow you to search for courses and also integrate into courses and tests.
  • Udemy – online learning courses. From the About Udemy page: “Udemy is a global marketplace for learning and teaching online where students are mastering new skills and achieving their goals by learning from an extensive library of over 42,000 courses taught by expert instructors.”  Udemy also has a “Udemy for Business” corporate learning platform with a list of corporate customers. The Udemy developer program and API allows programmers to create integrations and client applications.

There are many other learning companies that provide online and in-person courses for developers. Make sure you also check out General AssemblyPluralsight, Codecademy, Treehouse, LinkedIn Learning (formerly known as Lynda), Open Learning, etc.

Companies Offering Online Education for Developers and Students

Here is a short list of examples where technology companies are providing online education programs directly or in partnership with online learning academies.

What is Your Developer Relations Program Doing to Educate Developers?

Send me an email and tell me what your developer relations program is doing to educate developers on your products, services, platforms, software, hardware, devices, etc.

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/

 

Evans Data Developer Relations Conference 2017 – March 27-28 – Palo Alto, CA

The 13th annual Evans Data Developer Relations Conference (DRC2017) will take place on March 27 & 28 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Palo Alto California. This conference is an event unlike any other, where developer relations experts from leading companies in the software, hardware, telecom and web markets come together to discuss best practices and reveal the techniques behind their success! Topics will 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), 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!

Developer Relations Conference – Keynote Speakers

DRC2017 keynote speakers include:

Janel Garvin
CEO/Founder
Evans Data
Janel Garvin Developer Relations Conference Keynote Speaker
Guy Kawasaki
Chief Evangelist
Canva
Guy Kawasaki Developer Relations Conference Keynote Speaker
Willie M. Tejada
IBM Chief Developer Advocate
IBM Digital Business Group
Willie Tejada - IBM - Developer Relations Conference
Scott Apeland
Director Developer Program
Intel
Scott Apeland, Intel - Developer Relations Conference Keynote Speaker
Thomas Grassl
VP Global Head Developer Relations
SAP
Thomas Grassl SAP - Developer Relations Conference Keynote Speaker
Adam Rogal
Head of Engineering, Developer Platform
Uber
Adam Rogal Uber - Developer Relations Conference

 

Who will attend

Attendees come from global, enterprise and industry segments including registrants coming from the top software, hardware, telecom, cloud, IoT, device, brick & mortal, automotive, financial services, Internet and media companies. At the DRC2017 you will network with and learn from

  • VPs, CTOs, and CEOs
  • Business Development Managers & Directors
  • Managers & Directors of Developer Programs
  • Product Marketing Managers & Directors
  • Marketing Managers
  • Technology & Developer Evangelists
  • Products Managers
  • Research Managers
  • Corporate Communications Managers
  • Heads of Developer Marketing
  • ANYONE who deals with developers!

 

Developer Relations Conference Registration is Now Open!

You can take advantage of the Super Early Bird registration pricing for yourself and members of your team. Registration details are available at https://evansdata.com/drc/2017/register.php

Conference Schedule-at-a-Glance

You can view the two days of keynote and breakout sessions on the schedule at a glance page. The session slots also include Hot Topic Roundtables, The Data Game and new for the 2017 conference – “Pitch your Program” Ignite Talks.

Have you ever been or given an Ignite Talk?  Ignite talks are 5 minute talks using 20 slides that advance every 15 seconds. Developer Relations Conference registrants can sign up on advance to take part in this fast paced session. You can find addition information and example ignite talks on the Ignite Talks web site. Presenters will be judged by conference attendees and will win prices.

 

Developer Relations Boot Camp – Sunday March 26 9am – 4:40pm

The Evans Data Corporation’s Developer Relations Boot Camp 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 combination of an experienced boot camp faculty and Evans Data developer research will guide:

  • careful consideration regarding the reasons why developers seek out and contribute to developer programs
  • the most effective means of reaching out to them
  • how you can leverage social media to greatest effect.

 

At the end of the day you will leave with a certificate of completion as well as the knowledge and confidence to create, enhance and run a world class developer program.

You can register for the Boot Camp or add it to your developer relations conference registration – https://evansdata.com/drc/2017/register.php

 

See you next March!

David I - Developer Relations Conference
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

 

 

Developer Programs and APIs in the News – Volume 1, Number 7

In today’s interconnected world, companies in all industries need to publish APIs and cultivate a developer community to access and use them. To be competitive today, attracting and supporting developers is essential. The key to cultivating a vibrant developer community that uses your APIs and supports your platform is a good developer relations program. “Developer Programs and APIs in the News” is a series of news items from developer programs around the world.

Developer Programs and APIs in the News

SAP – November 9 – SAP Enables Fast and Efficient Development with New IoT Application Services – “SAP IoT Application Enablement provides Big Data management and services consumption without the need for managing the underlying data storage. It allows users to create an enhanced virtual representation of a product, service or process, combining sensor data, business data and contextual data.”
Google – November 9 – Introducing the Google Slides API – “we’re happy to announce that the Slides API v1 is now generally available and represents the first time that developers have ever been able to programmatically access Slides! The Slides API breaks new ground, changing the way that presentations are created.”
Facebook – November 8 – Delivering real-time AI in the palm of your hand – Lightweight and Fast, Developer Friendly. “As video becomes an even more popular way for people to communicate, we want to give everyone state-of-the art creative tools to help you express yourself.”
Blippar – November 7 – Blippar Opens up its Proprietary Tech to Democratize the Power of Augmented Reality and Computer Vision – “Providing public access to a self-service suite that includes its best-in-class augmented reality and computer vision capabilities. Alongside the release of Blippbuilder, Blippar is enabling access to its computer vision technology via the new Computer Vision API. Computer vision, a key capability Blippar uses to identify images and objects within its visual discovery browser”
DroneDeploy – November 4 – Introducing the DroneDeploy App Market – “Launching with 15 partners and unleashing the power of aerial data with integrations to Autodesk, Box, John Deere and more. Today, we’re thrilled to announce our brand new App Market, the next step in our mission to make aerial data accessible and productive.”
DreamFactory – November 3 – Tutorial: Using MQTT for IoT communication with DreamFactory and Raspberry Pi devices – “Last week we announced the DreamFactory integration of MQTT communication for IoT applications. It’s a powerful new addition to the capabilities of our robust REST API platform. For this demo we’re going to use DreamFactory as an MQTT broker for two Raspberry Pi computers acting as publisher and subscriber.”
Urban Airship – November 2 – Urban Airship Expands its Mobile Platform to Transform Customer Communications – “Urban Airship today unveiled next-generation platform services—Open Channels and Open Profiles—to deliver individualized messaging to any platform, device or marketing channel and use real-time customer data from any system. The first actualization of Urban Airship’s open channels approach is third-party support for Apple News notifications. ”
HealthTap – November 2 – HealthTap Unveils “HealthTap Cloud™ – “HealthTap Cloud™ is powered by HOPES™, the world’s first Health Operating System, which connects the entire continuum of care to each person’s unique Personal Health Record (PHR). Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Software Development Kits (SDKs) that help developers build highly personalized web, iOS, and Android apps are available with HealthTap Cloud™.”
Intel – November 2- Intel Security Outlines Strategy for Protecting New Digital Economy – “Intel Security announced an enhanced unified defense architecture designed to empower organizations to more effectively protect today’s new digital economy of trust, time and money. Through an open source strategy and the beta release of a new software development kit (SDK) for McAfee DXL, ‘white hats’ (both organizations and technology providers) will gain the ability to attach to a shared real-time communication fabric and exchange security intelligence as well as orchestrate actions for the shortest possible execution of the threat defense lifecycle.”
Wowza Media Systems – November 1 – GoCoder SDK App Challenge: Announcing the Winners! – “We’re excited to share the winners of the GoCoder SDK live mobile streaming app contest! Live streaming is becoming a part of everyday activities like shopping for clothes, watching the news, playing games, and connecting with other people, and that’s inspiring tons of new apps based on live streaming.”
VISA – November 1 – Collaboration with Open APIs – “In the fast paced world of innovation some say it is now easier than ever to become irrelevant. How do we use open APIs to stay in the game and to build the next generation of products and services for the financial services industry?”

Send me your Developer Programs News!

If you have news about your Developer Relations Program, send me an email about the news.

David I Facebook Avatar

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