Fireside with Voxgig

Danielle Krage is back on the podcast to give us some more invaluable speaker advice. We first had Danielle on Fireside two years ago, so we’re eager to hear her thoughts on what’s changed for speakers in the last two years, and what could be coming up next. She tells us all about her company, The Remote Speaker Coach, and her journey to founding it. While working on education projects, Danielle kept running into the same problem; she was meeting people with great ideas and amazing knowledge about their subjects, but when they got up onstage to speak - they froze. Sound familiar?

As someone who trained in theatre, Danielle knew she had the skills to help these speakers tighten up their talks, and bring the audience in with their presentation, rather than alienating them - an extra challenge when speaking remotely. It’s not just taking out an “um” here and an “ah” there, instead Danielle has a clear and systematic approach to maximising your talk to its full potential. As it turns out, a lot of this comes down to structure. After all, even though you're not performing a piece of fiction, you are still telling a story. And a story needs a beginning, middle and end. This is where Danielle starts when she works with a speaker. But there are many pitfalls beyond this.

Richard explores a particular problem that he has with slides - he pre-empts what they're going to say, making them miss their mark when he clicks onto them. Danielle drills down into the minefield that slides can present and tells us what to ask ourselves when putting them together.

Are the slides adding to what I‘m saying, or just repeating it?

Is each slide earning its place in the presentation?

What’s my plan B if things go wrong?

As she puts it, a lot of what Danielle helps people to do is cut, cut, cut. She’s worked with speakers that have decided their talk should last for sixty minutes. Danielle says, why? What are you trying to say, and is there a way you can say it in forty-five minutes instead? It’s not simply about cutting time. It’s about streamlining, about keeping that momentum going and only including the most important information necessary to get your message across.

All this said, speaking is a highly individual craft, something Danielle emphasises. It’s important to listen to advice, but equally to assess your own weaknesses and strengths. What’s going to make you feel your best before speaking? Are you someone who benefits from keeping focused on yourself, or do you feed off the energy of a crowd? Knowing what works for you is a key piece of information in putting together speeches, and building a routine for when you get up onstage. If you can’t get round to hiring Danielle as your personal speaking coach, you can at least get a sample of her wisdom in this episode.

Reach out to Danielle through Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellekrage/

Did we get Salma onto Fireside just so Richard could learn how to begin his Twitch streaming career? It's possible! Salma Alam-Naylor is a live streamer, software engineer and developer educator. She streams on Twitch under the moniker “whitep4nth3r” - and she dives into the backstory around this name in the episode (we think it’s great, for the record).

Salma gets into it about live streaming, content creation and personality. Over the years, she has carefully built her viewership into a vibrant, supportive community that has her, and each others’ backs.

As we learn, her journey began during the first covid lockdown, although unlike whipped coffee and homemade sourdough, her lockdown pastime actually outlasted the pandemic. As someone with backgrounds in coding, performance and teaching, live streaming her coding seemed like the perfect intersection of her talents, and we couldn’t agree more. Although coding isn’t all she does on her stream. Cross-stitching and playing music have also made appearances and yes, her coder heavy audience still shows up for these lives too. This can be understood when Salma goes into what makes people engage with content online. And what’s been obvious to her is that if people connect with someone online, it doesn’t matter what the content is. The audience will follow.

Salma tells us about the positives and negatives of Twitch, about the harassment she’s received, but also the incredible support of a community. There also turns out to be more similarities than just the code between streaming and working on a developer team.

From a metrics perspective, viewer and subscriber counts can be a tough taskmaster, and it can be a challenge not to judge yourself off of this very stark measure of “success”. Salma’s solution comes from Maya Angelou herself - people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. That metric is hard to quantify, but it’s probably also the best one out there.

This is Salma's valuable advice on Developer Relations and Community building using Twitch and live streaming. Not to be missed.

Reach out to Salma via LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitep4nth3r/

Today, Richard speaks to Maria Ashby, developer advocate at Kubeshop. She talks all things Kubernetes, community building, and how developer monoculture is a thing of the past.

Back in the days of an early version of Voxgig, Richard and the team got a crash course in Kubernetes which left more questions than answers. If Maria's work with Kubeshop had been around then, that might not have been the case. Kubeshop is a Kubernetes accelerator, which applies the power of Community and collaboration to open source projects focused on Kubernetes tooling.

A major benefit of Kubeshop? Speed. In a world where the first to market is essentially the "winner", speed is essential. The way we used to do this was to simply onboard more people. More people means more code, right? However, the work from Kubeshop, and other accelerators means that even the smallest teams of developers can now complete mammoth sections of work in a fraction of the time.

Another element of this is community. The way of holing yourself up in a dark room by yourself for 3 days is out and the way of sending out an email is in: "Can anyone help me figure out "x"? I'm really struggling with it?"

Maria touts the benefits of asking for help and support instead of trying to power through it alone. It makes sense, as before getting into DevRel, she was teaching Python to kids. A tough crowd as Richard notes, but an excellent training ground for the work she's gone on to excel in.

The conversation also covers events and speaking, another notch to Maria's belt. She speaks about the power of connection online vs in-person, and how if you want people to come to your event, you have to offer them something on the day itself - something they can learn, that they can get excited about. She hits on a note we come back to often on Fireside; progress is not linear. You can have a thousand viewers one day and five the next - but if those five people are there because they care about your work, that is totally invaluable.

Reach out to Maria here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-ashby/

Have you ever wondered what marketing people think of developers? As it turns out, it’s very positive, at least according to Anna Redbond, CMO of Flagsmith. Anna joins us to talk about the world of marketing in a technical space. As someone who works with words, how does she market towards people who work with numbers? Anna and Flagsmith find ways to bridge the divide with their work helping companies eliminate risk and increase efficiency in their development process.

The first thing to say about Flagsmith is that it's obvious they know how to market. Just have a look at their website. Jargon-free, easy to follow, and clear about what they offer. This is Anna's magic recipe when it comes to developer-first marketing.

Speak to people in the language that they themselves use: this may seem obvious, but it’s a key factor in how Anna delivers marketing to coders as someone who’s not from a technical background. She speaks about how she draws inspiration from the very conversations she has with developers about what they do. The reason for this? It’s the simple truth that no-one wants a stack of flashy adverts dropped in their inbox - spam folders were invented for a reason!

So Flagsmith avoids speaking down to developers, instead it simply gets on their level. It’s a thin line to walk. Avoid jargon, but don’t simplify your language to the point of vagueness. Be specific, but keep things accessible to someone just glancing at your materials. If you’ve ever seen an advert or a piece of marketing that made you physically cringe, you’ll know that it’s a challenging task.

Lastly, Richard broaches that awkward preconceived notion held by us all; if a product is good, I’ll hear about it! Why does it even need marketing? Well Anna has the perfect response to that idea - it keeps a fire lit under her.

At the end of the day, Anna believes marketing is just about talking to another human being. We were certainly glad she spoke to us.

Reach out to Anna via LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-redbond-580a0511a/

The first thing to know about Zach Peterson is that he’s a hardware guy. Richard is not. Can this divide be bridged by a friendly Fireside chat? Well as turns out, bridging the divide between these two industries is pretty essential for the tech world at large. It may seem obvious, but you can’t really have one without the other - until they learn how to install Twitter in our brains that is, and thankfully that seems to be a long way off yet.

So what’s the solution? DevRel, of course. This is something that Zach highlights so well for us in this episode. Meetups, conferences and social media have changed the game for developers in all fields, creating opportunities and connections that wouldn't have resulted otherwise.

Zach speaks about his start in the electronics industry, and the work he saw between the people creating software and the people creating the physical devices they exist in. From there, he moved into consultancy, where his work now focuses on making sure that software and hardware developers are working with materials and code of high quality and compatibility.

He speaks about the pipeline from an idea to a manufactured product. According to Zach, when it comes to vendors, it’s in their interest to work with developers who want to innovate - as they have the chance to integrate their products into pieces of hardware that may prove to be exactly what the market is looking for.

Lastly, he talks about content - Twitch, Youtube and even Webinars. Whichever avenue you choose to prioritise is perhaps not so important as consistency. Building a following that likes what you do, and being reliable in uploading the kinds of things they want to see from you matters more than the specific medium you deliver it through.

It’s all about connecting in this episode, whether that be with developers, customers, or your wider audience. Make sure to tune in!

Reach out to Zachariah Peterson https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachariah-peterson/

This time we welcome Jonathan Reimer to the podcast. Jonathan and I dive straight into his company 'crowd.dev', where they are working hard at building an open source developer data platform that they hope will help customers get a clear picture of how developers engage with their brand, their tools, and the developer community in general.

Continuing on theme from Emily Omier's episode last week, we discuss the magic word "profitability". With over five thousand open source products on the market, not everyone can bank on being the next Red Hat - so how can the rest of us do it? Few people would know better than Jonathan and the team at crowd.dev, as not only do they specialise in finding revenue opportunities for open source companies, they’re an open source company themselves.

Like many of us, Jonathan stumbled into the world of developer relations, meetups and open source products somewhat by accident. With a background in economics that became a career in sales and marketing, Jonathan realised that developers had a huge influence over the products their companies ended up purchasing. If he wanted those developers onside, the product had to be open source - from there, he co-founded crowd.dev and the rest is history.

He also informs me about a system called ‘accounts-based marketing’ that crowd.dev has had a lot of success with. How do you prove that your services are either making or saving money for a business? Accounts-based marketing is a new way for companies like crowd.dev to get proper attribution from customers, and display the value they add to the companies they work for.

For anyone interested in the nitty-gritty of life as an open source company, this one's for you.

From the pitfalls of rote memorisation to microphone technique - news anchor, presenter and anxiety coach Trish Lynch talks us through some common sense ‘dos and don'ts’ of speaking in front of an audience. The rest of us can take heart in Trish’s reassurance that even she experiences stage fright, and that (clearly) it can be overcome.

There are a number of valuable tidbits here. Trish’s wealth of experience translates to a deep understanding of the psychology behind audiences. Are we saying you should purposely add mistakes to your speeches to make you seem more “relatable”? Not exactly - but it turns out that it might not be such a crazy idea.

When listening to Trish, what comes to mind is the power of saying yes, and what can result from taking the opportunities that come across your path- you never know where they might lead! For Trish, it led from being an attendant at conferences to being the one speaking on stage, and getting a part on a TV pilot because it was raining and no one else showed up to the audition.

Post-covid the challenges for speakers are slightly different, and from Trish we can learn how to give our audiences the best experience possible, and how virtual speaking can still connect with people oceans apart from each other.

Tune in for an in-depth chat about how companies can improve their revenue through fully understanding their open source project and software. Emily speaks truthful sense. This is a tough message for the overly optimistic among you. As Richard so rightly points out – knowing the right thing to do vs doing it are two different things!

Emily outlines the many, many ways a company can leverage open source in their offerings and is beautifully frank about source available vs open source… So where does DevRel come in to this? Well – unless a company has clearly identified its positioning, then how can DevRel communicate the benefits your project, service or product deliver?

You need the template – visit Emily’s website (link below) – to clearly define your company’s positioning.

Now with clear positioning, the first thing you should do is raise your prices…what? Crazy! But no. It’s a real and possible strategy.

Emily shares her background with us, and issues a warning about choosing journalism as a career…a good way to get comfortable with not having any money. Do not ask Emily to write a Kubernetes 101. She’s had quite enough of that, thank you very much. But the repeated requests did wake her up to the opportunity to help companies to take their messaging and positioning seriously.

Reach out to Emily Omier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyomier/

Enter your name and email to download the template here: https://www.emilyomier.com/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

Richard talks to Natalie Gray, Head of Marketing and Partnerships at Codurance. Natalie is a former colleague and an expert community builder, previously with Voxgig and now with software consultancy Codurance.

In Codurance, Natalie and her colleagues are inherently linked to the Software Craftsmanship manifesto– a mindset to software engineering. Can your software scale with your business? Natalie explains that the Software Craftsmanship mission is to raise the bar in the software industry through professionalism and technical excellence. Ingrained in this mindset is the desire to always be and do better—to continuously push the limits in pursuit of excellence. The genesis of Codurance is in the Software Craftsmanship community founded by Sandro Mancuso and Mashooq Badar. With a community of over 6,000 developers in London alone, this is a living manifesto in a thriving community.

With regard to community success, Natalie is a firm believer in the need for integrity in your community purpose. A lot of people want to focus on quality and are proud of what they do, so a space for them to share and come together without a commercial reason allows new tech ideas to be born. An important aspect of preventing things to feel commercially driven is in your approach to content – are you producing resources and content people need and want rather than just selling stuff?

DevRel measuring gets touched on again, specifically on community, how do you know its sustainable? Natalie’s advice is to talk to your community. Ask them, is this what you want? And watch out for the core groups, the committed returning members, their enthusiasm is the thing to measure, not the size of the attendance.

All in all, this is a focused discussion on creating and supporting communities to ensure and recognise success and impacts.

Reach out to Natalie Gray: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliejgray/

Codurance: https://www.codurance.com/services

Software Craftsmanship: https://sc-london.com/

Find out more about Sandro Mancuso and Mashooq Badar here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandromancuso/

https://www.codurance.com/publications/author/mashooq-badar

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

Continuing our commitment to bring you voices rom across the DevRel ecosystem, this week Richard is joined by Louise Ogilvy, recruitment specialist for all things developer related. Louise defines roles clearly, helping companies and start-ups creating developer tooling to get from idea to market. She recruits for the entire product cycle: Product, build and go-to-market.

What has Louise noticed in the last few years in software development? Well, pressure on developers and awareness of developer burnout is one trend, including burnout of DevRel professionals. Dedicated VCs and investors for DevTools and start-ups building tooling for developers is another positive.

And Louise provides very clear expression of the confusion and challenges in getting DevRel accepted as a valuable function. Add in a difficulty of performing in an organisation that doesn’t fully understand and appreciate the value of DevRel professionals. So the setting of expectations around the role is becoming more important and through that, career progression.

Marketing awareness functions are not easy to measure, so while it might be nice to say we’re not worried about measuring the impact of DevRel on the business, what about the personal contribution or performance of individuals that might wish to know how they are being perceived and supported?

Listen to Richard and Louise discuss the complexities of DevRel’s acceptance in organisations. Real food for thought.

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com