Developer Relations: How to Build and Grow a Successful Developer Program

ISBN-13: 9781484271636 / Angielski / Miękka / 2021 / 190 str.

James Parton; Caroline Lewko

Spis treści

·         FOREWORD – by a recognized industry personality e.g. Guy Kawasaki

·         Introduction

·         Part I:  Developing a Common Understanding

There is a lack of definition & detailed understanding of what DevRel actually is. Part 1 of the book sets out a clear definition which identifies and analyzes the constituent parts, looks at how DevRel differs to traditional marketing, where it sits inside the organization and explore how DevRel practitioners need to be equally adept at engaging both inside their organization and outside in their developer communities.

o   What is Developer Relations

o   The Key Differentiators of Developer Relations

o   The Core Components of Developer Relations

§  Developer Marketing

§  Developer Experience           

§  Developer Success

§  Developer Relations

§  Community

o   Where does Developer Relations Fit

o   Inside and Outside

o   Developer Relations Test

·         Part II: The Keystones of DevRel

Now the reader understands the topic, we move on to discuss the foundational pieces of DevRel. We start with a short history lesson to set the context, moving on to look at the target audience – software developers, the business models of DevRel and the typical DevRel roles.

o   The History of Modern Developer Relations

§  The Apple Didn't Fall Far From The Tree

§  Developer Relations Traps

§  The Rise of SaaS

§  The Rise of APIs

§  The Arrival of Developer First Companies

§  The Rise of Developer tools

§  Why now?

§  Case Study: Mobile Apps - Those that didn't believe

o   The Audience: Developers

§  Millions and Growing

§  Developer Characteristics

§  Still a Novice Group that Self Learns

§  Developers lack diversity

§  Developers are a technical crowd and don't like to be 'marketed to'

§  Developers are creative (mostly)

§  What Drives Developers?

§  Developers as Decision Makers

§  How are Decisions Made? The Decision Making Unit          

o   The Business Model: B2D

§  Developer First

§  Developer Plus

§  Adoption and Value

§  Types of B2D business models

§  B2D model for APIs

§  How many companies practice Developer Relations?          

o   The Role and Activities

·         Part III: The Strategic Alignment of Your Program

With the DevRel Primer covered in parts 1 & 2, we move on to look at the strategic alignment of your program inside your organisation. This section provides the strategic framework for a DevRel leader to be successful.

o   Get to Know Your Product

o   Developer Products

o   Your Value Proposition

o   Corporate Alignment

o   Corporate Commitment

o   Program Goals

·         Part IV:  Activating your Strategy

Having covered the strategic elements in Part III, we transition into the tactical side of DevRel for Part IV. This section is based on our proprietary “Developer Journey”. We walk the reader through the touch points with developers, the developer experience, the questions any program needs to be able to answer, and then discuss defining the target developer, and how to craft compelling marketing messaging and tactics that will appeal to that audience.

o   The Developer Journey          

§  What is a Developer Journey?

§  Developer Experience Journey

§  Who owns/Uses the Journey?

§  How it works - Using the Journey to Map your Program

§  Discover - the start of the journey: Is this of use to me?

§  Evaluate: Will this meet my needs?  

§  Learn: How does this work?               

§  Build: How easy is a proof-of-concept build?

§  Scale: Can I deploy this commercially?

§  How to find out if your Journey is working

§  The Developer Journey and the Funnel

o   Developer Journey Friction Logging

§  How to analyze your Developer Experience to ensure you don’t lose the developer

o   Where to Focus - Determine your Target Audience  with Segmentation

§  Why is Segmentation Important?

§  Segmentation Framework for Developer Relations

§  Pulling it All Together

§  Developing Personas

o   Developer Messaging

§  Chapter headings to be developed

o   Developer Marketing Tactics

§  Inbound Demand Gen (Marketing External)

§  Inbound Demand Gen (Marketing Internal)

§  Product Marketing and Support

§  Nurture Marketing

o   Communities and Engagement

·         Part V:  Metrics - Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Developer Program

Defining and achieving your metrics are the key to the success of any DevRel program. Metrics are the most discussed and perhaps the most controversial topic amongst DevRel practitioners. The authors thesis is often DevRel practitioners do not want to be labelled as sales & marketing, and therefore find it hard to resist creating novel sets of metrics which are not understood by their stakeholders, and often do not clearly illustrate how the success of the DevRel program contributes to the overall priorities of the company.

o   Program Metrics

o   Activity and Community Metrics

o   What do good metrics look like?

o   Metrics in Action

o   Metric Challenges

·         Part VI: Growing your Program

Having laid out how to think strategically about your program, how to implement your strategy, and how to measure your impact in Parts 1 through V,  we close by looking at how you scale your program over time and maintain the support and confidence of your stakeholders. We also look at how & when to use the tools and frameworks contained in the book mapped to the maturity stage of your program – this is in reaction to early market testing of the book content with practitioners – some of which were concerned they had to figure out and implement all of this when they were the only DevRel practitioner in their company.

o   Growing your Program

§  Asking for more budget

§  Getting feedback to your product team (making friends)

§  Internal Antibodies

§  Don't hit the iceberg

o   Growing The DevRel Team

§  Reporting Structure

§  Team Structure

§  Interdepartmental Collaboration

§  DevRel Demographics

§  Hiring DevRel

o   Mapping the Book to Your Program Maturity

§  Chapter headings to be developed

·         Part VII: Next Steps

We are proposing to close out with a summary of what we have covered in the book, featuring a call to action the DevRel practitioner community to get involved with the onward development of the theory, tools and frameworks provided in the book presenting an opportunity for a future revision of the book. We intend to provide key elements - like The Developer Journey - under a Creative Commons BY:SA license via the website for the book – DevRelBook.com. We believe this is vital to demonstrate the book is for the community, and that the authors understand the dynamics of the community, necessary for the book to adopted as a reference text for DevRel. Depending on the publication date, we may also have a DevRel practitioners Training Academy live for practical training based on the book material.

o   Chapter headings to be developed

·         Appendices - Developer Relations Resource Lists

o   DevRelBook.com resources

o   Developer Relations websites, newsletters & communities

o   Developer Relations Books

o   Developer Relations Podcasts

O autorze

James Parton created and ran developer programs for O2 and Telefonica, before joining Twilio as their first hire outside of the US to launch and run their EMEA business until IPO. James has also completed successful two-year board positions with the Application Developer Alliance and the Mobile Ecosystem Forum.

Caroline Lewko has been in the mobile and tech sector since 1995, helping develop ground-breaking tech and nurturing community connections and innovation. She started WIP, the first boutique developer relations agency in 2006, and has worked for companies ranging from the top ranks of the Fortune 500 to start-ups with an array of technologies from mobile to machine learning.

Both authors have operated at leadership level in both startup and corporate DevRel organisations, and run their own consulting businesses. They are passionate about the subject, want to actively improve the understanding of DevRel, and assist with its professionalization.

Blurb

Increasingly, business leaders are either looking to start a new developer program at their company or looking to increase the impact of their existing DevRel program. In this context, software developers are finally recognized as legitimate decision makers in the technology buying process, regardless of the size of their organization. New companies are appearing with the sole purpose of making tools for developers, and even companies whose primary focus was elsewhere are waking up to the developer opportunity. Even as the need and demand for DevRel has grown, there are still re-occurring challenges for DevRel leaders.

It is these challenges that this book addresses, covering all aspects of a DevRel program. It is an essential reference to professionalize the practice of developer relations by providing you with strategic, repeatable, and adoptable frameworks, processes, and tools, including developer segmentation and personas, and developer experience frameworks.

In Developer Relations, you’ll find the answers to the following questions:

• How do we convince stakeholders to support a program?
• How do we go about creating a program?

• How do we make developers aware of our offer?

• How do we stand out from the crowd?
• How do we get developers to use our products?
• How do we ensure developers are successful using our products?
• How do we measure success?
• How do we maintain the support of our stakeholders?

After reading this book you’ll have a clear definition of what developer relations is, the type of companies that engage in DevRel, and the scope and business models involved.