Cooperpress at DevRelCon London

Some takeaways from a conference focused on developer relations and community

Cooperpress were thrilled to attend DevRelCon in London last month — the event brought together an appealing mix of developers, marketers and community managers to discuss, share and learn how developers and the wider community can best work together.

The DevRelCon series of events have been taking place for a few years now, with events in locations such as London, San Francisco and Tokyo. They’re a fantastic day of learning that tends to offer something a little different — you can find out more about them here.

The latest event (in December 2017) took place at London’s Barbican Centre, a fascinating brutalist ‘concrete ziggurat’ that is home to performing arts, culture, and well, conference space. 😅

Image via Paul de Gregorio

I’d never been to the Barbican before, so after being taken back by its harsh exterior, I was then surprised by some of the interior styling — in the underground parking lot certain design choices evoked memories of Kubrick’s 2001 or the early Star Wars movies, whereas a conservatory space filled with lush greens stood out in stark contrast at the center of this otherwise grey monolith — the place could easily be a film set (and it turns out it has been, for a Bond movie no less, amongst other things).

Image via Andy Roberts

Anyway, enough about the location — it’s a great venue!

DevRelCon London 2017 saw over 20 speakers come together to offer advice, talk through problems and highlight how developer relations are changing.

Some of the Cooperpress team (Peter, Kristina and I) were in attendance as Media Sponsors, supporting the event and sharing what we do with all the lovely attendees. Peter was also on hand at the events ‘GitHub Lounge’ — interviewing some of the speakers (for some upcoming videos).

Peter speaks to Google’s Ade Oshineye

We were keen to let those attending know all about what we do with Statuscode and our numerous weekly developer newsletters, oh and we were also giving away our much coveted dev stickers.

If you were at the event thanks for stopping by our booth and saying hi! 👍

Talk Takeaways

So, whilst our Sales Director Kristina Hicks was kept busy at our booth, I went along to various talks throughout the day.

Here are few pointers I thought worth highlighting:

In her talk, Developer Strategist for Red Hat Leslie Hawthorn, asked ‘What is community, anyway?’. This presentation touched upon how developer relations can mean many things to many people, and how it shouldn’t just be seen as an on-ramp to marketing.

Leslie also touched upon how community efforts should be seen, and valued, as a genuine research and development expense — adding that community engagement is a powerful aid in developing user education.

Lover of words and Developer Advocate for IBM, Erin McKean spoke about modeling developer norms, how developers learn and what tools they use.

She highlighted how the developer community often associates as “self-taught” where in actual fact the more common reality is one of community based learning — sharing information based on mistakes, or ‘teachable moments’. It’s here where community/developer outreach can play an important role in shaping the developers of tomorrow.

Google’s Adewale Oshineye touched upon the pieces that really matter when it comes to developer relations. He highlighted how there are plenty of stereotypes now associated with what people perceive dev rel as, including hackathons, blogging and being a “rockstar”.

Of couse, the reality of dev rel is by no means one fixed thing to all people/organisations. Adewale explained how this lack of a ‘one size fits all’ approach is no bad thing, but added that an organisation needs to figure out what their approach to dev rel is, and ensure they articulate that purpose and goal effectively.

Here are some pointers from his talk:

• Dev rel is about bi-directional advocacy (a love/hate relationship);
• engage in meaningful outreach;
• have an awareness of real users needs;
• go beyond ‘customer zero’ — if you’re the developer, you don’t count, get real world understanding;
• Provide samples, support people with real answer to questions;
• Engage in partnerships, share the ‘burden’ and build out your community;
• Help your people grow.

If you’re looking for more insights from the conference Lucy Carey has written up a great retrospective of the day.

Thanks for reading!