Upgrading Your Users: How We Get Better at Developer Relations

A look at Kathy Sierra's KickAss curve as a call-to-action for DevRel professionals to place less emphasis on Influencer Marketing in favor of upgrading their users by making them feel like we can help them become a badass at the things they want to master. I use a personal anecdote from my journey into motorcycle racing as a way to abstract away from software-specific concepts to make an impactful point around how we can build stronger community relationships in the software industry.

Transcript

1. @gmiranda23 Upgrading Your Users How We Get Better at Developer Relations
2. George Miranda Engineer, Traveler, Modern Art Fanboy Talky Person @PagerDuty gmiranda@pagerduty.com 2 @gmiranda23
3. @gmiranda23 Influencer Marketing @gmiranda23
4. @gmiranda23 Personal Brand @gmiranda23
5. @gmiranda23 Personal Brand @gmiranda23
6. @gmiranda23 @gmiranda23
7. @gmiranda23 @gmiranda23
8. @gmiranda23 @gmiranda23
9. @gmiranda23 Ken Hill (Who???)
10. @gmiranda23 Relearning old skills
11. @gmiranda23 Relearning old skills
12. @gmiranda23 Back to: Ken Hill
13. @gmiranda23 @gmiranda23
14. @gmiranda23 SLOW RIDER (me) BADASS RIDER (not me) @gmiranda23
15. @gmiranda23 A path to influencer @gmiranda23
16. @gmiranda23 The #1 thing we can do to become influencers is to make users feel like you can help them become a BADASS
17. @gmiranda23 Kathy Sierra @gmiranda23
18. @gmiranda23 "Upgrade your users, not just your product... make people better at something they want to get better at." @gmiranda23
19. @gmiranda23 "They don't want to be a badass at our thing. They want to be a badass at what they want to do with it. They want badass results." @gmiranda23
20. @gmiranda23 Applying this to DevRel @gmiranda23
21. @gmiranda23 Maybe the bigger thing is a better YOU @gmiranda23
22. @gmiranda23 The #1 thing we can do to become influencers is to make users feel like you can help them become a BADASS @gmiranda23
23. @gmiranda23 Kathy's Kickass Curve
24. @gmiranda23 Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
25. @gmiranda23 Suck Threshold Kickass Threshold Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
26. @gmiranda23 Suck Threshold Kickass Threshold Typical Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
27. @gmiranda23 Typical Ideal Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
28. @gmiranda23 Typical Ideal Bad Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
29. @gmiranda23 Typical Ideal Bad Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
30. @gmiranda23 The difference in curves @gmiranda23
31. @gmiranda23 Background knowledge and experience of users Actual design of product/API Quality of your documentation & training material The size and helpfulness of your community @gmiranda23
32. @gmiranda23 Curves relevant to DevRel @gmiranda23
33. @gmiranda23 Why we disagree with PMs & Engineers @gmiranda23
34. @gmiranda23 Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive Suck Threshold Kickass Threshold Where we spend most of our time
35. @gmiranda23 Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive Suck Threshold Kickass Threshold Where we spend most of our time PMs live here
36. @gmiranda23 Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive Suck Threshold Kickass Threshold Where we spend most of our time Engineers usually here
37. @gmiranda23 Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive Suck Threshold Kickass Threshold Where we spend most of our time Engineers usually here Engineers can also be here
38. @gmiranda23 Greenfield vs. migration @gmiranda23
39. @gmiranda23 Competing Product Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
40. @gmiranda23 Competing Product They try your thing Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
41. @gmiranda23 Competing Product They try your thing Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
42. @gmiranda23 Competing Product Surplus of Woe Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
43. @gmiranda23 Surplus of Woe @gmiranda23
44. @gmiranda23 Surplus of Woe @gmiranda23
45. @gmiranda23 BADASS RIDER (me) SLOW RIDER (not me) @gmiranda23
46. @gmiranda23 Typical Ideal Where I am Bad Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
47. @gmiranda23 Typical Ideal Where I am Bad Time Ability First Time Years Struggling Productive
48. @gmiranda23 A better YOU @gmiranda23
49. @gmiranda23 Mean-Time to Dopamine @gmiranda23
50. @gmiranda23 Upgrading your users: Step by step @gmiranda23
51. @gmiranda23 Focus on minimizing the surplus of woe @gmiranda23
52. @gmiranda23 One unit of time = One unit of dopamine @gmiranda23
53. @gmiranda23 Minimum Viable Dopamine @gmiranda23
54. @gmiranda23 Find your Engineering Allies @gmiranda23
55. @gmiranda23 Teach the same way, every time, regardless of experience @gmiranda23
56. @gmiranda23 Community champions amplify your approach @gmiranda23
57. @gmiranda23 Don't build your brand, build your user's brand @gmiranda23
58. @gmiranda23 Background knowledge and experience of users Actual design of product/API Quality of your documentation & training material The size and helpfulness of your community @gmiranda23
59. @gmiranda23 Upgrade your users not just your product @gmiranda23
60. @gmiranda23 @gmiranda23 Thank you! References Kathy Sierra, "Badass: Making Users Awesome" Kathy Sierra, Serious Pony Blog - http://seriouspony.com/blog Ken Hill Coaching - http://khcoaching.com Steve Pousty, for the KickAss DevRel inspiration