Taiji Eddie Hagino @taiponrock Please follow me! Lecturer, University of Tsukuba Lecturer, Meijo University Senior Technical Advocate My books for low-code programming: “Hajimete-no Node-RED”, “Node-RED Katsuyo Manual” (Kogakusha) “Practical Node-RED Programming” (Packt Publishing), etc. My books for developer relations: “Developer Marketing DevRel Q&A”, “Developerʼs Career with English” (Impress R&D), etc. My books for OutSystems: “Rapid Application Development with OutSystems” (Packt Publishing) * Foreword Hairdresser Musician Software Engineer Web Designer Product Developer R&D Developer IT Architect Tech Evangelist Dev Advocate Lead Dev Community Advocate 1997 GLUONS Inc. CEO Accurate Systems SOS Factory Udagawa Office Beaux Cheveux
Agenda 1. What is a user community? 2. User communities of different natures 3. The role that vendors should play 4. What is the motivation of the participants? 5. Who and what should we do?
Developer(Engineer) Community • Open Community • Closed Community Enterprise Community • No licence needed • Exisiting Customer Only Community Types X X
Sell to the Community Sell through the Community Vendors want to… Support developers(users) Get feedback Make opportunities to collaborate Increase Advocates / Evangelists as influencer
Business Perspective Community Vendor-driven promotion Participants are mainly user companies of the products Discussions are held on issues related to business using the target products Activities are relatively closed, and many are private. Provide feedback to vendors on feature improvement requests from a business perspective Participants' goals are to make requests to vendors and to create business opportunities with participating companies
User-oriented Community Users take the initiative and vendors provide logistical support Participants are mainly individual product users (including students) and developers, and are not dependent on a company or organization We do not hold events for commercial or business purposes. We will be open about our activities and actively publish our contents on SNS, blogs, videos, etc. with hashtags. We will provide feedback to vendors on feature improvement requests from a developerʼs(or user's) perspective. The purpose of participants is to exchange information on development methods and tips using the target products, and to increase the number of friends with the same motivation
Community managers are NOT always present DevRel Team Technical Evangelist Developer Advocate Community Manager They can drive Community instead of Community Manager Best role to drive Community Cannot be in charge of leading the community, but can provide backup and support
Marketers take charge Rampant lead acquisition events Sales is in charge Tends to call only on assigned accounts, resulting in a biased group CSMs are in charge So-called enterprise community for existing customers Anti-patterns
Although affiliated with a vendor, they can see things from a flat perspective with developers and engineers No sales responsibility, so it is easy to gain the trust of users without being positionality They are technically familiar with the target products and services, so they have a high affinity with the developer community If tech evangelist/advocate do it…
Community drives are just a part of DevRel (farming) process DevRel is a seed sowing. The field may not even be plowed yet. It would be troubling to sow seeds wildly in such a situation and expect them to sprout in a short period of time. Plow the field (market development) Sow the seeds in the right places (reaching potential users) Nurture them in the right steps (event implementation, community development) Until they finally sprout (interest in the product or service) Lead the flow of events until the seed blossoms (becoming a user) Take care of it so that it does not wither (preventing churn) The DevRel job is to lead them with Tech Skills