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The Business Value of Developer Relations: How and Why Technical Communities Are Key To Your Success
Discover the true value of Developer Relations as you learn to build and maintain positive relationships with your developer community. Use the principles laid out in this book to walk through your company goals and discover how you can formulate a plan tailored to your specific needs.
First you will understand the value of a technical community: why you need to foster a community and how to do it. Then you will learn how to be involved in community building on a daily basis: finding the right audience, walking the tightrope between representing the company and building a personal brand, in-person events, and more.
Featuring interviews with Developer Relations professionals from many successful companies including Red Hat, Google, Chef, Docker, Mozilla, SparkPost, Heroku, Twilio, CoreOS, and more, and with a foreword by Jono Bacon, The Business Value of Developer Relations is the perfect book for anyone who is working in the tech industry and wants to understand where DevRel is now and how to get involved. Don’t get left behind – join the community today.
What You’ll Learn
Define community and sell community to your companyFind, build, and engage with the community
Determine how and when to hire community managers
Build your own personal brand
Who This Book Is For
Any business leaders/owners/stakeholders in the tech industry, tech evangelists, community managers or developer advocates.
- GenresBusinessNonfiction
344 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 10, 2018
61 people are currently reading
201 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 4, 2019
Mary is a former colleague of mine at Chef Software, so I'm already very familiar with her work. What I didn't know is that she has been engrossed in studying what does and doesn't work in developer relations from even before her time at Chef. Mary has continued to parlay her expertise into building communities at several other companies and now at her own consulting firm. Her book is concise, accessible, and extremely well-organized and well-written. I would even recommend it ahead of Jono Bacon's The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation (sorry, Jono) as a more up-to-date manual on how to organize developer communities.
Mary spends a great deal of time discussing where dev-rel should sit in an organization, as well as how to justify the investment up to the executive suite. Personally, I regard dev-rel as a very specific kind of product marketing, because it requires a huge amount of empathy for engineers and providing them actionable information on how they can solve problems that they have. Unfortunately, traditional marketing (campaign-based marketing for example) has a bad reputation amongst developers because it is seen as pushing product and tricking fools into parting with their money. I believe a lot of the backlash against dev-rel from ignorant engineers is because they have been exposed to more bad than good marketing.
In short, Mary's book encapsulates answers & explanations to many of the questions I have been asked about marketing to developers over the years. Next time anyone asks me how to do something in relation to a developer community, I will hand them a copy of Mary's book rather than having to, once again, develop one-off business cases/presentations, or have long conversations with folks when she has already covered this ground much better than I ever could.
Mary spends a great deal of time discussing where dev-rel should sit in an organization, as well as how to justify the investment up to the executive suite. Personally, I regard dev-rel as a very specific kind of product marketing, because it requires a huge amount of empathy for engineers and providing them actionable information on how they can solve problems that they have. Unfortunately, traditional marketing (campaign-based marketing for example) has a bad reputation amongst developers because it is seen as pushing product and tricking fools into parting with their money. I believe a lot of the backlash against dev-rel from ignorant engineers is because they have been exposed to more bad than good marketing.
In short, Mary's book encapsulates answers & explanations to many of the questions I have been asked about marketing to developers over the years. Next time anyone asks me how to do something in relation to a developer community, I will hand them a copy of Mary's book rather than having to, once again, develop one-off business cases/presentations, or have long conversations with folks when she has already covered this ground much better than I ever could.
November 22, 2019
Simple and grounded
It takes you through all the elements of a Dev Community: internal and external stuff. Real stories and cases from existing communities.
It’s more about the personal experience and perspective, not about a more general truth. Keeps things grounded in the basics of building a community.
It takes you through all the elements of a Dev Community: internal and external stuff. Real stories and cases from existing communities.
It’s more about the personal experience and perspective, not about a more general truth. Keeps things grounded in the basics of building a community.
November 9, 2019
A wonderful, warm, well written book. The author clearly knows what she's talking about. More books on this theme are needed.
June 25, 2019
I can't get enough of content around this topic of interest so I've encountered some concepts and anecdotes by the time I've read this, but I've wish I'd started here for a subject matter expert's curated focuses that includes other major players who share their success stories. I'd recommend this to anyone who's in the developer business especially as I've come up with the best ideas inspired by her content and layout here. I've always read along with a pen and highlighter handy to make the most out of this book, even though this isn't written as a workbook.
Personally a huge fan of the author and her benevolent contributions to developer advocacy/relations so I may be a bit biased, but I truly believe she has one of the best perspectives on the industry with all her work and networking. I truthfully haven't yet encountered any individual who has such comprehensive and updated subject matter expertise that's linked to smooth success than what she has directly influenced with her sound approach -- which isn't cookie cutter in the best way.
Even as developer strategy will grow and evolve along with technology, I believe the major takeaways here will be applicable for developer strategists unless MarTech and/or humanity completely changes and moves away from connection, support, and community building (which I don't predict is anytime soon).
Personally a huge fan of the author and her benevolent contributions to developer advocacy/relations so I may be a bit biased, but I truly believe she has one of the best perspectives on the industry with all her work and networking. I truthfully haven't yet encountered any individual who has such comprehensive and updated subject matter expertise that's linked to smooth success than what she has directly influenced with her sound approach -- which isn't cookie cutter in the best way.
Even as developer strategy will grow and evolve along with technology, I believe the major takeaways here will be applicable for developer strategists unless MarTech and/or humanity completely changes and moves away from connection, support, and community building (which I don't predict is anytime soon).
October 29, 2018
A question that is asked a lot about DevRel (and by myself) is "what do you do?" This book takes a great look at what Developer Relations is all about, with numerous case studies and examples, and provides a holistic view of how to build a rich, cohesive team.
June 14, 2019
This is book is a great resource for everyone either in Developer Relations or who work with DevRel.
I especially liked the short blurbs throughout by various DevRel professionals from a wide range of companies. They each provided real world examples of what the author was describing.
I especially liked the short blurbs throughout by various DevRel professionals from a wide range of companies. They each provided real world examples of what the author was describing.
July 11, 2019
A great source of actionable insights for anyone working with tech communities on an everyday basis. A must-read for all people intersted in DevRel, but also packed with ideas for marketing and product professionals. Compelling and useful, which is a rare combination 👌
February 25, 2022
This is essential reading to anyone starting out or working in DevRel. The author leverages their own extensive experience, while also including case studies and advice from other DevRel professionals of the same, incredibly high calibre.
My top three takeaways from this book are:
1. Developer Relations is a long term investment. This interdepartmental role/team needs to be set up for your specific company, as there is no one size fits all when it comes to DevRel.
2. A good DevRel professional should have the following qualities: self-driven, flexible, good communicator and be willing to learn.
3. Don't forget about your personal brand. It compliments your work and helps establish your credibility in the field.
My top three takeaways from this book are:
1. Developer Relations is a long term investment. This interdepartmental role/team needs to be set up for your specific company, as there is no one size fits all when it comes to DevRel.
2. A good DevRel professional should have the following qualities: self-driven, flexible, good communicator and be willing to learn.
3. Don't forget about your personal brand. It compliments your work and helps establish your credibility in the field.
November 12, 2022
Perfect for those that are just starting…
If you’re thrown into a situation where you suddenly need to manage a community, the lessons and advice in this book clearly come from years of having boots on the ground in the Developer Community space.
I can see where more seasoned professionals might find the information too general (the last chapter is pretty universally applicable), but I wouldn’t discount the book for that.
If I had any advice for future readers, I would follow an option suggested by the author: use the book by reading chapters that are applicable in the moment. Read those chapters slow, take notes, and then come back to the next one when you need to answer those questions or build out that function. And you can do that completely out of order.
If you’re thrown into a situation where you suddenly need to manage a community, the lessons and advice in this book clearly come from years of having boots on the ground in the Developer Community space.
I can see where more seasoned professionals might find the information too general (the last chapter is pretty universally applicable), but I wouldn’t discount the book for that.
If I had any advice for future readers, I would follow an option suggested by the author: use the book by reading chapters that are applicable in the moment. Read those chapters slow, take notes, and then come back to the next one when you need to answer those questions or build out that function. And you can do that completely out of order.
December 30, 2022
Una lectura para personas involucradas con el area de DevRel.
Me fue un libro difícil de leer principalmente a que mucho de lo que explica me hace pensar en temas de la vida ahora cotidiana y me lleva lejos de la lectura en curso.
Pero en el libro encontrarán una serie de observaciones, recomendaciones, practicas y tips que ayudaran a hallarle forma a esta area mutante que es DevRel.
Al final trae un apendice con unos checklists muy buenos para eventos!
Me fue un libro difícil de leer principalmente a que mucho de lo que explica me hace pensar en temas de la vida ahora cotidiana y me lleva lejos de la lectura en curso.
Pero en el libro encontrarán una serie de observaciones, recomendaciones, practicas y tips que ayudaran a hallarle forma a esta area mutante que es DevRel.
Al final trae un apendice con unos checklists muy buenos para eventos!
June 14, 2020
Great book both for professionals working in Developer Relations and for company executives to understand the value of the former. The content of this book resonated with my day-to-day work as a Developer Relations Engineer. Totally recommend it!
May 9, 2020
Must read book if you are into Developer Relations.
January 5, 2022
Great book about Developer Relations. It gives you a lot of insights on how to build a community and most important, keep it running.
December 30, 2023
Melhor e mais completo livro da área
Esse livro é essencial para pessoas interessadas em devrel.
Ele é super completo, cobre vários assuntos avançados mas também dá um introdução dr assuntos mais basicos
Esse livro é essencial para pessoas interessadas em devrel.
Ele é super completo, cobre vários assuntos avançados mas também dá um introdução dr assuntos mais basicos
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews