Fireside with Voxgig

This week’s podcast-as-a-resource is focused on your technical content strategy. Richard talks to Adam DuVander, Principal Consultant at EveryDeveloper. Are you developer first or developer enabled in the way you sell software.

Discovery is Adam’s bread and butter. He helps companies understand how to be discovered in the first place – so what are developers or developer advocates trying to solve in the first place and then how Adam’s clients can describe how they can help.

So why can’t people do this themselves? This is the classic over-expectation – a developer will write about features, not benefits. And marketing without a technical competence will need a translation layer – that’s Adam and EveryDeveloper.

Forget asking for phone numbers or long forms to submit. Adam will bring you through how to market to developers, and the currency he has identified is knowledge. Yes, Code is important, but the experience that’s gone in to creating that code and the decisions and choices made to create that code is very interesting. How about use cases? Bring them on!

Another interesting approach is tell developers how to solve their problems without you, but also if they wish, you’ve built a tool to do it for them. The example of this in action is Edith Harbaugh’s Launch Darkly.

Then they have a detailed chat on developer first or developer focused – reaching developers directly, digging in to their problems and connects to this audience. Not scattershot, targeted help for specific problems. The developer enabled approach comes in to play when the buyer is other than the developer, but the developer is the user of the technical tool, and therefore must act as a champion for your solution. So they have to be armed with the language and explanation they require to get this discovered tool or service. Can all the stakeholders agree to move forward? Use cases, documentation and sample apps etc. can make all the difference here.

The developer first or developer enabled model for Adam’s clients has been a game changer for their marketing strategies.

Reach out to Adam DuVander https://www.linkedin.com/in/duvander/

Developer Marketing Does Not Exist: an Authentic Guide (everydeveloper.com)

Get the books: https://everydeveloper.com/developer-marketing/book/

Great blog post here on how marketing and developers can collaborate https://everydeveloper.com/how-marketers-collaborate-with-dev-rel/

An example of how to tell developers how to solve problems without you! https://launchdarkly.com/

Recently, guests have mentioned the public speaking side of the DevRel role, especially as in person conferences are back! So we've dipped back in to our archive to bring you this VERY helpful episode from March 2019. Here, Richard speaks to Oisín Lunny, professional public speaker, master of ceremonies (MC), radio presenter and journalist. He has hosted and moderated events and given keynote presentations at over 200 conferences worldwide, including TEDx, MWC and SXSW. He is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and is music editor for ‘The Phoenix’ magazine.

In this episode, Oisín talks to Richard about how his early PR career led him to public speaking and his ‘aha moment’, when he realized that speaking with authenticity and passion can make even a seemingly insignificant speech great. He also explains why stepping outside your comfort zone can be a brilliant way to learn; being put on the spot can sometimes lead to great creativity.

Learn more about Oisín https://oisinlunny.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

We celebrate our 100th episode welcoming back Andrew Grill to talk about Digital Curiosity.

Are you allocating enough time to think about what’s happening, trends and the future? Andrew’s new book, coming out later this year, is titled Digital Curiosity. Yes we are at the top of the hype cycle on AI (Generative AI in particular) it is hype that is prompting and causing government action. This is now mainstream.

And Andrew has a brilliant, brief and aha! take on Apple’s Vision Pro. For SciFi fans, there are even attempts to seek answers for the future from great authors!

Andrew doesn’t shy away from the risks and the needs for regulation, but does caution against hysteria. We are responsible, “we have a role” in where this goes.

This is both reassuring and thought provoking, and as usual with Andrew, he motivates us to get off the sidelines and engage with technology and digital opportunities for our own work, innovation and strategies. Leaders need to dedicate time to being digitally curious. There are costs to leaving this up to everyone else.

Enjoy this episode and whet your appetite for playing with and discovering new digital and technological opportunities for your business!

Reach out to Andrew Grill https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewgrill/

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

This episode is almost a case study in how askui.com engages with their developer audience. Johannes Dienst is the Developer Advocate and Apoorva Tiwari is the Community Manager with askui. How to get a developer to install and run the askui tool? And they’ve run a remote, online, hackathon overall several days…. There’s a revelation and an innovation here that is worth learning from.

Reach out to Johannes Dienst here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannesdienst/

Reach out to Apoorva Tiwari here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apoorvatiw/

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

You won't need coffee after this! Plug in to Richard & Tejas's chat and soak up the energy.

Richard and Tejas cover fresh ground in today's episode.

Watch out for the discussion of DevRel vs DevSell. Tejas talks us through the difference. And he gives wonderful insights in to an often under valued need – how to pace yourself at conferences. To be able to do this is crucial for physical and mental health.

Reach out to Tejas here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tejasq/

Also mentioned in this episode:

Vercel https://vercel.com/

Cloudflare https://www.cloudflare.com/

React https://react.dev/

Platformatic https://platformatic.dev/

Vitaly Friedman https://twitter.com/vitalyf

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 first encountered Steve DeveloperSteve Coochin when Voxgig experienced first hand Steve’s and Lumigo’s incredible developer relations and developer support. So did Richard get lucky or is this just how Steve rolls? Turns out – it’s just how Steve rolls. Getting an answer to a problem is central to Steve’s work ethic, and he’s pretty good at it.

And this dedication to solving problems has a benefit to his developer evangelism – when Steve absolutely understands the ins and outs of the tools and services, he can talk confidently about it and run workshops on it. Win-win.

Steve also has clear thoughts on WHERE DevRel sits within organisations, grounded in his experiences and training. Makes a lot of sense.

Mentioned on the podcast:

https://openapi-generator.tech/

https://lumigo.io/product/

https://rubykaigi.org/2023/

https://developer.ibm.com/callforcode/

Reach out to Steve here : https://www.linkedin.com/in/developersteve/

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

A two-for-one deal here! A tutorial on how international and card payments work. And then DevRel discussion on APIs and SDKs involved with Open Source projects and bringing in contributors and building the community. The power of Open Source communities as an incredible recruitment channel. Richard also challenges Alex to detail his journey in DevRel, from Mozilla onwards, building DevRel functions and the tools, and the team from four to 42! Wow!

Alex and his team learned by doing.

So then he arrived back at the beginning again, but now with a system! Alex uses metrics, but his awareness that the role has so much that must be done, he has taken a company wide approach, bringing in a developer relations culture company wide. This is ultimate holistic approach.

Finally, a discussion on the long, long cycle Interledger has to go through with clients, and how they can actually become their own set of committed community.

Alex is passionate and committed to Interledger’s mission and it was great to welcome him and Interledger as the first non-profit guests on the podcast.

https://interledger-foundation.breezy.hr/

https://developeravocados.net/

https://community.interledger.org/

https://www.vonage.com/

Reach out to Alex here : https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexlakatos/

Listen closely and you’ll hear the wheels turning in Richard's brain as this conversation goes on and he gets the how to guide from Megan on community building. They get in to the weeds on community building tools, especially Slack channels, Commonroom webapp and Discord. Megan chats about the “old guard” of devrel, with one of the old guards!

This conversation is a true guide to practical community building for your organisation and product or service. Using CTO Craft as an example of a start up with the sole purpose to build community, their success reflects just how possible and valuable communities are. Richard has used CTO Craft’s Slack channel and understands the loneliness at the top which Megan and CTO Craft aim to lessen.

As proof of success, the upcoming CTO Craft conference is sold out! This first in person conference in London, on 23rd and 24th of this month may be sold out, but they are announcing a November conference, so you can check out the outcomes of the May conference to make sure you book early for the November version!

Links discussed: https://ctocraft.com/

https://www.commonroom.io/

https://discord.com/

https://slack.engineering/

Reach out to Megan here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megankslater/

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

This was another enjoyable episode for Richard where he gets to talk to the Co-Founder of a service he uses, regularly and with great success! Tim Nolet is the CTO and Co-Founder of Checkly, a synthetic testing tool. Don’t worry – Tim explains synthetic in this context. Tim built Checkly through bootstrapping. This was a side project that grew out of control! And of course, developer relations makes an appearance. Tim needed to make a conscious decision to dedicate 50% of his time to developer relations (again, before it really had a name) and this consistent focus on Checkly’s voice, useful, teaching resources like longer blogs etc. …and now they have over 800 customers and a growing team! More proof, if required, of the value developer relations.

This podcast is for everyone, but is a great example to both tech and non-tech CEOs of tech companies to reassure them that devrel works.

https://www.checklyhq.com/

Reach out to Tim here : https://www.linkedin.com/in/tnolet/

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

Michiel Mulders is a wonderful example of a creative developer, driven to share knowledge and committed to quality documentation. He delivers a module on documentation and technical writing at DevRel University, free online course dedicated to Web3 DevRel.

In this episode, Richard and Michiel have a thorough exploration of documentation philosophies, approaches, tools and analytics for content engagement. Listen up here, understand the real benefits of paying attention to your documentation creation and its use.

Lots of food for thought here, but also practical steps and proven tools described to help get you started on your overdue Documentation Improvement Project!

Reach out to Michiel here : https://www.linkedin.com/in/michielmulders/

and find out about DevRel Uni here: https://www.devreluni.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