Daily Archive
Find all my writing below or use the search in the top menu.
Helping learners become a better version of themselves
With learning experience design (LXD), you are encouraged to create learning objectives that help learners change their behavior. I've talked about Terminal and Enabling learning objectives before but when I said those were the only two types of learning objectives, I was wrong. There aren't any.
Do we need a developer learning experience design system?
This talk of neurodiversity, tutorials, and shareable open source components brings up a thought I've had in the past but haven't written much about yet, which is the idea of developing a "developer learning experience (DLX) design system" (or maybe, "developer experience design
GitHub Copilot is the real deal
This past week I got access to the preview of GitHub Copilot X aka the one with Chat. I've been heads down delivering my next Pluralsight course on React debugging and between ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, I can tell you first-hand that AI copilots will change the way
The Developer Pour-Over
Let me introduce the Developer Pour-Over, a way to think about how the culture and practices of DevRel really enable developer adoption. The marketing funnel sits on top of an upside-down adoption funnel, and the critical chokepoint in the middle is the DX & UX onboarding and DevEd learning. You
Not the first and not the best
ChatGPT is the fastest-growing app in the world. It wasn't the first to showcase GPT and it's not even the most advanced. So if it's not the first and not the best, then what is it? It's easy. Do you know what
Here's a taste of Developer Content Meal Planning
Right now I'm designing integration guides for 3 major cloud platforms, one with multiple languages, and each docs how-to will have a corresponding video version. But they are not exactly the same, the videos are beginner-oriented and targeted at 5-8 minutes and the docs are more comprehensive so
Webinar Recording: Driving Developer Adoption with Higher DevEd
A few weeks ago I mentioned I had the opportunity to host the first Developer Marketing Alliance Drop-In webinar. The topic I chose was Higher DevEd, sometimes called "developer learning experience platforms" which is a mouthful. Talking Points * Why does upskilling matter for developers (and for you)? * What&
5 ways to watch your GitHub topic to see what's new in the community
I mentioned last week that your community can curate your product's GitHub topic. I also made a side comment that you could watch it to spotlight new community projects. However, watching topics is not as easy as it sounds. I'll go over 5 ways you can
How to generate wildly unique combinations of different ideas
Yesterday I shared a creative thinking tool I never leave the home without called attribute listing. That should get you unstuck immediately but it only gives you a 1D-view of the topic you need ideas on. To generate 5-10X more ideas that will likely lead to totally unique combinations that
The simplest creative tool anyone can use to cook up unique ideas
Stuck trying to come up with ideas on a topic? There is a classic design tool that you can learn in the next minute to get you unstuck on almost anything (and get you excited in the process). When we design games for game jams, we only have 72 hours.
Gamification vs. game-based learning
What's the difference between gamified learning and game-based learning and how does it apply to creating effective DevEd?
What's a developer learning experience platform (DLXP)?
A Learning Experience Platform (LXP) is a new generation of learning software that replaces the more traditional Learning Management System (LMS). LMSs are used a lot in corporate environments to host all the boring training 😉 In fact, that right there is the differentiating factor. An LXP is focused on providing
What's a Developer Learning Experience (DLX)?
You will probably hear me (or see me) use the term "developer learning experience." An experience leaves an impression on us. If I go to a restaurant and the food comes out cold, I will experience a negative impression of the restaurant. A developer learning experience is any
Umami content
Umami is a Japanese word for an off-the-wall taste experience – to say it's simply "savory" is to sell it short. It's umami. If your content is food (which it must be because we consume it), then you want your content to have that umami
The bad kind of tension
Continuing in this series of examples of tension in technical storytelling (part 1, part 2), I said previously that it's important to close the loop and release tension after you create it. Because if you don't, it will eat at the learner, at best distracting them,
The Why Won't That Work method
I just wrote about creating tension by showing The Wrong Way First, but there are other ways to do this, too. I said the Wrong Way First method isn't as effective when introducing new concepts. So, how can tension be created effectively in that case? This example comes
The Wrong Way First method
I have written before about the strategy of creating tension in storytelling – and I get that it might seem abstract so I wanted to share a concrete example (a tactic!) of one way to create tension in teaching technical content. I am reviewing an upcoming Pluralsight course that deals with
Storytelling in technical courses
Hint: Tell a story
N+1 content strategy
Recently for Excalibur we've been seeing some success driving traffic through blog posts cross-posted to Dev.to (with canonical source set to our blog). These are not written by me or Erik, they're written by some of our amazing community members and contributors. Excalibur — DEV Community
Think of it this way...
One of the roles I get to take on at Pluralsight is being a technical content reviewer for other people's courses. This is a great way for me to help other authors make better courses and also helps me identify common pitfalls new authors fall into. I often
Dates are hard
How to hide system time and date for Windows and Mac while recording screencasts
What size sock do I get for my daughter?
My middle daughter is five years old and is outgrowing her socks. As with most families, we have a resident sock ghoul who hides them and makes them disappear for weeks at a time, only to reappear in random locations – amongst the Goldfish cracker crumbs on the floor of the
Helping learners become a better version of themselves
With learning experience design (LXD), you are encouraged to create learning objectives that help learners change their behavior. I've talked about Terminal and Enabling learning objectives before but when I said those were the only two types of learning objectives, I was wrong. There aren't any.
Exporting your slides as a video for faster editing
One production tip I implemented recently I got from my team at Pluralsight was something I had never thought of. Exporting my PowerPoint as a MP4 video. 🤯 That way, you can easily keep it updated, and video editing software can handle replacing it in place. Before, I was recording the
The pain of live video
My latest course on React performance is my first time doing live video. Here's the course introduction that I iterated on until I got my set up in order: 0:00 /1:15 1× I have to admit, it's a pain – and if someone asked me,
How web.dev Handles Courses and Creates a Growth Loop in Their Docs
When I say "course" you say...? "Video!" But a course is just format and structure (with learning objectives) – the implementation could be through email, podcast, Slack messages, video, or... docs. For a dev tools docs site which is chock full of written content, one idea for
Ending a video on a cheat sheet
At the end of a video, how can you drive people to take action? After all, for videos you post on YouTube, you are hoping to get people to go visit your product and use the dang thing. Unfortunately, most videos end with... nothing. No call to action, no next
The million-dollar slide
I shouldn't be writing this blog post right now – I should be trying to deliver my course. But I can't help it. I shared in my last post an example of a Wardley Map but didn't really explain what it was or why you
Fundo Friday: How to (Quickly) Extend the Last Frame of a Clip in DaVinci Resolve
So I've been learning Davinci Resolve lately for my upcoming course because I'm, gasp, doing L I V E V I D E O. Anywhoo, one of the nice things about my old editor, Camtasia, was it was well-designed for "slideware". For example, you
Do we need a developer learning experience design system?
This talk of neurodiversity, tutorials, and shareable open source components brings up a thought I've had in the past but haven't written much about yet, which is the idea of developing a "developer learning experience (DLX) design system" (or maybe, "developer experience design
Reader response: I summon the Astro-nomicon (Neurodiversity and long tutorials, part 2)
Last week, I asked what your experience has been with neurodiversity and long tutorials, and I got some great responses! Fellow educator and trainer Kevin Cunningham (@dolearning) shared his recent experience learning Astro (shared with permission): Super interesting article Kamran. I recently migrated my website to Astro and was super
Neurodiversity and long tutorials
As much as 15-20% of the population are neurodiverse – and plenty of developers are part of that population. StackOverflow wrote about developers with ADHD and what they want you to know. Speaking for myself, I suspect I'm neurodiverse in some way – though I've never officially been
An Agile Approach to Developer Content
This week on DevEducate, Shruti Kuber from Restack joins me to talk about how her startup uses an iterative, collaborative approach to planning developer video content that works for their small team – and why starting with a niche audience is helping them create content that is getting noticed.
*whistles*, here boy! 🐶
Ever found yourself staring at your video editor after doing a long recording session and wish you could figure out where you messed up? (because you DID mess up, stop trying to hide behind the couch! I SEE you!). Here's a hot tip from Mason Egger, Sr. Technical
[Free Template] How to help developers help you
When I worked at General Mills, I evaluated a bunch of artifact repository vendors, did all the research, and put together POCs (even bringing in on-site solution engineers). At the end of the day though, it was my manager's decision on which vendor to go with. Not a
Guides are a proxy for what you (actually) do
Imagine you were taking a look at PostHog and as a developer, you skip the homepage and shoot on over to the docs (like you do). What do you think is happening in your mind IF you see a Guides section with things like... * Create cumulative time series charts * Send
From Developer Fashion Lines to Onboarding Games
In this week’s episode, I’m joined by Ivan Burazin to talk about his creative approaches to developer marketing – from designing custom fashion to an API onboarding game.
Creating an empathy map for developers
After chatting with developers in your community and diving into how they learn, you'll have a pile of notes and data you can use to improve your marketing and DevRel efforts. What do you do with this data? Turn it into insights! One of the tools I use
Design better DevEx by asking better questions
In part 2 of the Uncovering your product's unique insight email series, I teased that having developer chats can help you design better developer experiences. How so? You can ask questions related to how people learn. By doing this, you can start to form a picture of how
How to have better chats with developers (Uncovering your product's unique insight, part 2)
In the previous email, I shared how April Dunford says to lead with your unique insight when pitching your product. But how can you uncover insight if you don't really know what it is? Let me share a tip that's worked for us as we work
Uncovering your product's unique insight
This week was the Product Marketing Summit, and Richard, the CEO, posted a clip of April Dunford's talk related to her new book, Sales Pitch. If you don't know April, she's a positioning expert, and her previous book Obviously Awesome is a "classic&
The State of DevRel Report 2023 is out!
Some DevEx and DevEd highlights from the recent State of DevRel 2023 report.
Telling Delightful Stories for Developers Through Doodling
In this week’s episode, we unpack the transformative power of illustrations in developer education with David Neal.
There's been a kidnapping
Creating content and marketing to developers without positioning or messaging is like driving up in a white van with fire decals with the words "BLAZING FAST," asking which devs care to hop on in, and they immediately report you for kidnapping. And you're like, "What
Resources for Launching Dev Tools on ProductHunt
I see a lot of questions about launching on ProductHunt in the developer marketing communities I'm in, so I thought I'd keep a running tab on some good resources I've come across in the dev tools space. GitHub - fmerian/awesome-product-hunt: awesome developer tools
Generate faux code in a jiffy
Working on technical content means that you usually need to show real code. But other times, you need to show something that looks like code but isn't – faux code. These are super useful in explainer-style videos where you want to use placeholder code and not distract viewers with
Tension is the magic that keeps you watching
You need to create tension to tell a good story, inspire someone to action, and get them to pay attention. And not just any old tension: generous tension. A concept I learned from one of my favorite (copy)writers, Margo Aaron. But what does that look like in practice and
Video length doesn't (really) matter
Here are two video stats from the top 2 Pluralsight clips I posted on YT. They are different in length; one is 6 minutes the other is 3. Both are informational-style videos. Notice how one has a marked drop-off in viewing retention, whereas the other has a well-sustained viewing retention:
What's the ideal video length?
There's not an "ideal" video length, but there are guidelines. TechSmith (creators of Camtasia) found the preference by viewers falls into two primary buckets: 3-6 minutes and 10-19 minutes. When planning videos, I usually have "explainers" (informational) be less than 6 minutes long. "
Don't ignore competitors.
I specifically included competitor comparison info when I made the Time Series feature explainer video for RavenDB. Why? Because that's exactly the info developers evaluating you are researching themselves. Your dev tool doesn't exist in a black box, so don't pretend it does. Know
Fundo Friday: Using an AI voice to narrate a rough-cut video
I'm working on a showcase video for RavenDB this week, and part of my video creation process is creating a storyboard. It's nothing too fancy – just Google Slides with screencaps, rough diagrams, and placeholders for what the video will eventually contain. A storyboard is supposed to
Developer waypoints, part 2: Learning paths
Last week I talked about developer waypoints and said that even in open-world games, designers intentionally guide players to parts of the world on purpose. They do this by creating "quests" (in RPGs, at least). A quest has a narrative that provides the motivation as to why. Medusa.
Here's a big list of DevRel metrics
Whether you are focused on developer marketing, experience, education, community, or success, you need metrics and measurements. But it can be tough to know what exactly you could measure. I've collated almost 50 metrics and measurements that span across DevRel practice areas from multiple sources. Since you'
Developer waypoints
As I mentioned last week on the heels of my course release, I have been absorbed in the loot-fueled hellscape of Diablo IV (I'm level 32, btw). As I was playing today, I was thinking about waypoints. Players need quick ways to get around in large sprawling games
📢 New course release and React Summit recording
Today I have two, okay three, quick announcements for you. 🎉 New Course: React 18 Debugging Playbook First, I am excited to share that I finished my 8th Pluralsight course this week on React debugging. You can watch the course trailer below (we're allowed to post it on YT
Disney-style DevRel
Brand affinity is hard to measure, and that's why it's everything.
Gameplay-first
As a reward for finishing my latest Pluralsight course (releasing soon), I told myself I could buy Diablo IV. I played the early access weekends in May and was sold immediately – I've always been a fan of Diablo games since the days of having LAN parties in high
Inconvenient content
Yes, creating educational microsites, interactive learning experiences, game-based learning, and involving your community in co-creation is not as convenient as churning out fast food content burgers. That's what makes them valuable. Successful competitors can't be bothered to experiment or invest in creative development beyond articles and
Chock full of empty calories
If you rely on AI to create your content for you, you might as well hang a sign outside your dev tool office that resembles a golden arch. "Over 1 Billion Content Burgers Served" Because it's now really easy to generate 1 billion fast food content
Every link is a potential distraction
"Links are the currency of the web." That might be some kind of SEO proverb, I'm not sure but I swear I've heard it before. It's true to some extent – cross-linking between blog posts and web pages helps search bots index your
4 short AI development courses to go deeper
Developers and customers will likely start to ask you questions about how your dev tool integrates with AI or how you plan to leverage AI so it pays to know the details – like that "AI" is really a bunch of different kinds of things, like text-to-speech, stable diffusion,
GitHub Copilot is the real deal
This past week I got access to the preview of GitHub Copilot X aka the one with Chat. I've been heads down delivering my next Pluralsight course on React debugging and between ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, I can tell you first-hand that AI copilots will change the way
5 moments of developer learning need
There are 5 moments of learning need: 1. When you learn something for the first time 2. When you want to learn more, 3. When you try to apply and / or remember 4. When something goes wrong 5. When things change This has subtle power when you think about how
Start thinking about AI integrations for your developer product
This week is Microsoft Build and it's often an exciting week for me. I was lucky to attend a few times throughout my career – and now, I have no boss that can tell me to stop watching videos (but I do have a course to deliver, which is
What are some ways to slow down developer evaporation?
Developers will evaporate throughout the process of interacting with your dev tool. That's natural. But... in real life, there are ways to slow down evaporation: * Use filtered water * Use cold water * Don't heat the pot How would these translate? Are there more ways? I have my
Fundo Friday: How to Use AI Voices for Videos
To continue this trend of playing with AI tools to speed up developer content production (see previous Fundo Fridays), today I'll be showing you how good ElevenLabs is. ElevenLabs is an AI text-to-speech (TTS) service that has really good trained voices (and lets you train your own) – importantly,
Evaporated developers (Pour-over, part 5)
Previously I discussed the invisible sub-process of boiling developer water on the pour-over diagram (email titled, "Developer temperature (Pour-over, part 3)"). As I hoped, this brought up more questions that we can explore together. Lovely reader Stephen asked: Can you elaborate on "Evaporated developers"? The phrase
Developer absorption >>> adoption
Developer tools want to increase developer adoption. Duh! But let me pose this to you: If 1000 people adopted your tool, then left after a year, would you consider that a success? I think I hear you shouting NOOOOO all the way from here in my basement. You want adoption,
Fundo Friday: Automagically extract screenshots and animated clips from tutorials to include in docs
I'll show you how to embed short clips or screenshots into your docs that are taken straight from the source video without any manual work.
Aim to be missed
Metrics are hard, especially in DevRel. How do you tie your work to the bottom line? A while ago I came across an article about Slack and how they measured PMF early on. To measure how much traction they were getting, they asked their customers a single question: Would you
Entertaining and Educating Developers Through Music
In this week’s episode, literal developer rockstar Dylan Beattie joins me on DevEducate to talk about writing parody songs for developers, handling live performances at conferences, and creative ways to incorporate music into developer content and education.
Fundo Friday: Cut long-form videos into shorts in a few minutes
Most AI tools at the moment are over-hyped which is why I try to take a pragmatic approach. I'm most interested in ones that can augment and shorten mundane workflows – like slicing and dicing content, which is something we have to do a lot in developer relations. I
Flaunt your lower third
Did you know "lower thirds" refers to the kinds of motion graphics you see on videos that appear in the, ahem, lower third of the video? In technical videos, these would be used for adding extra annotations or callouts, visually reinforcing or augmenting what is being said – like
Reaching for the developer water (Pour-over, part 4)
In the previous pour-over part 3, I pointed out that the heating sub-process represents positioning and messaging. So what does the kettle of developer water represent? Clearly, you cannot just take all the city's tap water to brew your coffee. You're taking a slice of the
Developer temperature (Pour-over, part 3)
In part 2 of the developer pour-over metaphor, I zoomed in on what kind of developer water is used to make community coffee: distilled or filtered, referring to the "richness" of persona development. But there's another aspect to the type of water... the temperature. I'
Distilled vs. filtered developers (Pour-over, part 2)
Coffee is 98% water so it makes sense to think about what kind of water you use to brew your Jet Black Potion of Stamina. So in the developer pour-over, if we zoom in on what type of developer water are we using, what could we say? Talk to a
The Developer Pour-Over
Let me introduce the Developer Pour-Over, a way to think about how the culture and practices of DevRel really enable developer adoption. The marketing funnel sits on top of an upside-down adoption funnel, and the critical chokepoint in the middle is the DX & UX onboarding and DevEd learning. You
Engaging Developers with Edutrainment
This week Dale Meredith, cybersecurity expert and recovering Batman addict, joins me on the show to talk about how to engage developers with “edutrainment”, how to work in branding with developer content and education, and why he owns a business named Wayne Enterprises.
Getting reviews and feedback on your videos without the headaches
One of the benefits of doing custom video for clients is that I can work with them directly to incorporate branding, visual design, and get SME review. After all, they're the experts in their product. So... am I sending zip files around in Slack or attachments via email?
Intent to implement
In the sample dev journey audit I'm putting together (more on that soon!), I am tracking "intent to implement" which I see as a contextual input to developer onboarding. You can think of it like this: if you intend to go to the coffee shop tomorrow,
Dang cursor, GTFO
Sometimes when you're recording video, your cursor is not in the right spot because you aren't thinking about it at the moment. No matter. Through the magic of screen recording software, you can deal with this "in post", as they say. In Camtasia, there
Information hiding
Information hiding makes for great software but poor developer education and marketing. I read a tweet recently lamenting a runaway serverless edge function leading to a $3,000 bill in just 6 hours! One reply in the thread from another customer said they might leave the provider due to this
On Windows? I use Fancy Zones to help with recording
My primary machine is a PC, not a Mac, and for the longest time, it was lacking good tools to use for managing windows (oh, the irony). I have an ultrawide monitor and I love it but it makes window management hard. On Windows 10+ you can use the Windows
There's a fly in my soup
Ever had hair in your food? Did that make for a positive or negative impression of the restaurant? Now: how do you think developers react when running into broken links, outdated versions, non-working code examples, a required dependency that wasn't listed, or just plain obtuse explanations of complex
Developer Content That Lives Through the Seasons
This week on DevEducate, Jason Alba joins me to discuss evergreen content – what it is, what it's good for, how it applies to different formats, and why it's not really the panacea you'd expect it to be.
How babies see
At the science museum, there's a tiny little exhibit where you can put on some glasses with special lenses that emulate how babies see. How well do they see? Spoiler: not well. Everything is like a big blurry shape moving around. Here's the thing... When you
Open core is a dual flywheel
Please shoot me if you ever see the word "flywheel" in my website copy but... I'll admit it does convey meaning. If you checked out GitLab's latest investor presentation, you would have seen this slide which caught my attention: This is a great visual
Jump to recipe
Having to read through the text in a content marketing post just to get to the actual code so you can complete the JIRA task is like wanting to just get to the bottom of the page and view the godforsaken recipe so you can make dinner. Have a lovely
Take the Developer Program Leaders Survey
What metrics do you use to measure the success and ROI of your developer program? Do you segment your audience?
Speeding up templated onboarding experiences
For a developer service that has an integration starter or template, you often need some form of prerequisite before the experience can be fully "connected" like a database connection or API auth token. The default experience would be the template not working or throwing an error without this
Not the first and not the best
ChatGPT is the fastest-growing app in the world. It wasn't the first to showcase GPT and it's not even the most advanced. So if it's not the first and not the best, then what is it? It's easy. Do you know what
A trick to hide sensitive info without video editing
Often when making training videos for software, you need to be signed in to some account and deal with API keys or other sensitive info. The common approach is to use blur effects with the video editing tool, and since I use Camtasia primarily, it's not too difficult
Here's a taste of Developer Content Meal Planning
Right now I'm designing integration guides for 3 major cloud platforms, one with multiple languages, and each docs how-to will have a corresponding video version. But they are not exactly the same, the videos are beginner-oriented and targeted at 5-8 minutes and the docs are more comprehensive so
Lowering concept count
In the announcement blog post for the 5.0 release of TypeScript, they used a phrase that caught my attention: In 5.0, we’re cleaning up some of these problems, as well as reducing the concept count needed to understand the various kinds of enums you can declare. Reducing
You can use GPT with your docs now
It's official: the AI hype is in full force. One of the things I'm thinking about lately has been what this can do for developer tools and the answer is: a lot. Last week I tweeted wondering whether you could now use GPT to ingest your
I once made a documentary
And it is still being shown in the town museum in Hibbing, Minnesota. It's still being shown because it was evergreen – it was about the history of the town, its inhabitants, and how they fought against the mining companies who were taking their land through eminent domain. It
Webinar Recording: Driving Developer Adoption with Higher DevEd
A few weeks ago I mentioned I had the opportunity to host the first Developer Marketing Alliance Drop-In webinar. The topic I chose was Higher DevEd, sometimes called "developer learning experience platforms" which is a mouthful. Talking Points * Why does upskilling matter for developers (and for you)? * What&
So What is DevEd Anyway?
This is a short interstitial episode featuring some past notes from the DevEd Test Kitchen that elaborate on some thoughts I've had about what DevEd means and why it's critical for product adoption. Listen to Episode
Provide directions to your backyard docs BBQ
Imagine getting invited to a friend-of-a-friend's house and then when you get there, there's no indication of where to go. Do you knock? Go through the house? Around back? Do you need to 'beware of dog'? Oh CRUD, did you forget to bring dessert?
A developer opens the door to your house and finds...
A dirty pile of landing pages lying on the floor? Dried copy stuck to the ceiling? An evil onboarding cat – HISSSSSS (BAD kitty, NO)? Stale docs milk in the fridge? Here's the thing... Awareness is great and all, but if your developer house isn't in order,
5 ways to watch your GitHub topic to see what's new in the community
I mentioned last week that your community can curate your product's GitHub topic. I also made a side comment that you could watch it to spotlight new community projects. However, watching topics is not as easy as it sounds. I'll go over 5 ways you can
Mini case study: Bubble Academy's no-code Responsive Game
Bubble.io is a no-code platform for building apps. Recently they introduced a new engine that lets you design responsive pages that adjust based on device dimensions. In order to introduce the idea to users and get them acquainted with the way it works, they built a game – which is
Have you curated your GitHub topic for your product?
On GitHub, topics are used in the Explore section of the site. Topics can be used by developers in your community to "tag" their repositories – and it's very likely if you have any ecosystem at all, people have added a topic for your product (they just
Educate Tomorrow's Buyers with a Developer Content Program
This week on DevEducate, Erik Dietrich joins me to discuss what we need to think about when creating an effective developer content program.
How to generate wildly unique combinations of different ideas
Yesterday I shared a creative thinking tool I never leave the home without called attribute listing. That should get you unstuck immediately but it only gives you a 1D-view of the topic you need ideas on. To generate 5-10X more ideas that will likely lead to totally unique combinations that
The simplest creative tool anyone can use to cook up unique ideas
Stuck trying to come up with ideas on a topic? There is a classic design tool that you can learn in the next minute to get you unstuck on almost anything (and get you excited in the process). When we design games for game jams, we only have 72 hours.
McMansion strategy
There is a phrase we use to describe those suburban developments with tract homes that all look the same – McMansions. They are builder homes and they all follow the same architectural design and layout. They are modern and look nice but they all look the same. You can go ahead
Here are some reasons why developers are motivated to learn
Ever asked what motivates your community to learn? It's not your product. The reason lives at a higher abstraction than that. Here are some examples: "I think about the future I want to live and then remind myself I can’t show up for others and not
No users, only learners
Unless you believe that learning suddenly stops at some point, when I think about the audience of a development tool, there is never a point where someone stops being a learner. If someone is trying to understand how to integrate Kafka with your API, they want to learn. If someone
"I'm going to ask you to stand up."
Oh God. Every developer just felt a chill go down their spine. 🥶 You see, effortful learning isn't always fun. It's hard! And we as humans generally don't like hard things, we prefer things to be easy. "Please don't pick on me.
Effortless vs effortful
What's the best learning experience you've ever had? Could be a university course, could be something your parents taught you, or could be a lesson learned from a failed startup, think about it. How did it change your life? How were you better off after experiencing
Self-centered marketing
The easiest place to start when creating content is from our POV – to be self-centered. How can our product be used with X? How can we make people aware of feature Y? How do we drive people to this landing page? You know you suffer from this if most of
Marbling
There is a design mantra that goes something like, "A designer is not a typical user." This is because a designer looks at something differently than a non-designer. It's like how someone who knows how to make great steak will look at a steak and see
Building a Developer Recording Haven
What does it take to get started recording professional video content? In this episode, Xavier Morera joins me to share his journey to becoming a full-time Pluralsight author and what ultimately led to building his own recording studio – and what Vin Diesel has to do with it.
Slicing content on a bias
Recently I was making a recipe. It has a step in the directions that says: Slice chicken on a bias I didn't know what that meant. I had to look it up. BUT I didn't look it up the first time – I cut the chicken into
Classifying steps into higher-level learning objectives
Continuing on this week's exercise of defining learning objectives for a hypothetical new Excalibur.js learning experience, yesterday I grouped the steps we laid out and asked if you had any ideas. Here are the groups again for reference: Group 1 * Explain what Actors are * Explain what Scenes
Consolidating steps into enabling objectives
Yesterday we started to think about how to create enabling objectives from scratch using the Excalibur.js quickstart as an example. We came up with the following terminal objective: "Create your first game." The rough steps, in no particular order, that would be required to reach this objective
Working backwards to create learning objectives
Yesterday we reverse engineered some learning objectives in the wild and at the end pointed out there was a sequence embedded in them that matched Bloom's Taxonomy. So let's try to put this into practice a bit using a hypothetical situation. For Excalibur.js, let'
What learning objectives for technical articles look like in the wild
Last week I covered what learning objectives are and how to write them using Bloom's Taxonomy. Today I want to share what they look like in the wild so you can see how we reverse engineer them. In the course of doing some client work, I came across
DevEd That Sticks
What makes effective developer education? Joe Eames joins me to explore how to create more effective learning content that ultimately helps your product get adopted faster by developers.
Fundo Friday: Extract talking points all at once from a podcast
Descript is an AI-powered audio/video editing tool that I use for podcast production. On the last Fundo Friday I recorded a session where I showed you how to extract segments from a podcast episode into a new composition to create multiple "audiogram" clips. In that session, the
Can people explain how your product is different?
Let me ask you this: if you spoke to a developer in your community or a customer using your product and asked them to tell you the difference between your product and a competitor's product, do you think they could articulate it clearly? 🧑🍳Chef Pro Tip: Go ahead,
Answering "What's in it for me?" for developers and customers
Learning objectives are what learners will get out of finishing a learning experience. They are used as part of the design process to make it clear what someone will learn and to sequence the material in a way that makes sense to the learner. It's useful to you
DevRel is a sales enablement strategy
Lovely Chef Vishal wrote in with a reply to a recent message giving me some great feedback (shared with permission, bold mine): "I would rather say in DevRel, we would not sell at all and it is rather a by-product of the efforts we put in through education, inspiration,
Using illustrations to visually explain metaphors and ideas
Much of effective learning comes down to simplifying ideas. Metaphors are a great tool for this. They don't have to only be limited to text. They can be visual (that's one of my favorite ways to explain things). This recently made the rounds across the web
Sorry Rockin' Bod Boi, this is why we didn't buy
Happy Friday, I hope you have a great weekend. Here's a little anecdote to send you off. One time at my first company I was tasked with designing an artifact and CI/CD architecture. This must have been nearly 10 years ago. I was evaluating about 5-6 different
The #1 reason why people buy
Someone who paid for my humble little SaaS product told me the reason directly: I like what you're doing and want to support it The answer is there in plain sight: like. In DevRel, you sell developers on your product – through education, inspiration, outreach, community, etc. How do
Get writing help from Hemingway's ghost
Writing is a skill that can be learned and improved with practice. Everybody writes badly before they write well. The Hemingway editor is a writing tool that helps make your writing bold and clear: Some writers I know do all their writing in the app and then paste it into
If documentation were a product...
How would that change the way you thought about it? Would you... * Create a product team around it? * Create a roadmap for it? * Work on it in sprints? * Have daily scrums? * Instrument and measure the experience? * Perform usability studies? * Market it? * Create native apps? * Add a SaaS on top of
Bypassing the walls developers put up around themselves
In the inaugural episode of the DevEducate podcast, I invited Todd Gardner (co-founder of TrackJS) to come on the show and talk about how he approached marketing and educating developers to grow his two developer tooling SaaS products.
Fundo Friday: Extracting Reusable Audiograms in Descript
This week's Fundo Friday event is about creating reusable "audiogram" templates in Descript, something I worked on this week as I get ready to launch the podcast.
Using Discord's Forum Channels for developer community support
Recently I wrote about the challenge of communication tools like Slack and Discord locking in knowledge within their walls and not making it easy to find previous discussions. This makes learning less accessible and searchable. Despite this drawback, many companies use Slack and Discord as developer communities and support forums.
MDN Plus is... docs-as-a-service?
Normally we tend to see docs as ancillary to a software product – but what if it was another product? I'm not sure that could be the case all the time but for reference material sometimes there's innate value in it depending on how it's
Compliments to the chefs
When a developer leaves a comment on your work, you know you've cooked a tasty piece of content – they've engaged! But that's where the trail ends. If they copy/paste any code somewhere else, you won't really know. On the other hand,
How's the music on WII-FM?
On Friday, I made a bet with you: I bet $76 billion dollars that you've never bought a pair of shoes. In fact, I bet NO ONE YOU KNOW has EVER bought shoes. I wish someone had taken the bet but FINE – maybe you knew it was a
A billion-dollar bet about shoes
I bet $76 billion dollars that you've never bought a pair of shoes. In fact, I bet NO ONE YOU KNOW has EVER bought shoes. Hit reply and prove me wrong. My bank account is ready and waiting for you 💰. Up too late (again), Kamran
Parrot integration test
One way to integration test your value proposition is to see if developers and customers will explain your product back to you using the same language you used. Like parrots. Here's the rub... Parrots can learn to talk on their own – but they will say whatever their parrot
Uncovering third-party tooling issues during course creation
Last night as I was working on my course on React debugging I ironically ended up debugging the React Dev Tools themselves. You see, in-between sessions, the Dev Tools had some new releases – and the extension broke in weird, strange ways. I made a clip that I included in a
Extract, transform, and load community learning
A community that learns together is constantly generating valuable knowledge but when those conversations are happening in the halls of Slack, nobody else can listen in and benefit – so you end up with repeat questions and support calls. That's one reason why with Excalibur we've stuck
What is Time to Mind Blown?
If you think of a learning experience like user experience, there are performance metrics. I might call them Developer Learning Vitals. I see Time to Mind Blown as one of these vitals. Let's say you're doing a workshop on your product and the room is full
Using ChatGPT to create code samples
ChatGPT is wild. This week I played with it (more than I should have). I had it: * Create songs * Design game worlds * Suggest messaging for homepage and sales page copy * Explore the topic of gamification and game-based learning * Create a weird epic fan fic starring two friends * Create 6-panel comic
The point of an experience
If you want to create an experience then by definition it must be memorable. "Good" isn't good enough. Think about your last "experience." The greater the peak moments we felt during that experience, the more parts of it you probably remember. You likely bring
Ahem, how's my AI voice? A peek at Descript
Over the past week, I've been playing with the Descript trial (it's 7 days). Descript is an audio/video editing tool that essentially focuses more on the narration and script than the timeline, like other tools. You can correct words, remove them, replace them with your
Gamification vs. game-based learning
What's the difference between gamified learning and game-based learning and how does it apply to creating effective DevEd?
Little Timmy's indecent requests
Listen to Kamran read this0:00/0:301× Saying you "have to" create more content because you want to cater to everyone is like saying you "have to" cater to every child's preferences on candy during Halloween. What does that do? It means you&
Works as designed
Listen to Kamran read this0:00/1:211× A developer files a GitHub issue and "solutions it" in the issue. In the end they boldly claim: "Here's what you should do. That should work." Ah... a maintainer nightmare scenario. Close the browser tab. It
Learning styles are a myth, part 4
Why does understanding learning styles are myth matter anyway? Surely it's good to create different kinds of content. It is... and it's important because we are creating content for others, not ourselves. But when you repurpose content or make your next content plan, I want to
Learning styles are a myth, part 3
There are some reasonable questions to ask about learning styles after claiming they are a myth, like: My cousin/nephew/daughter has {LEARNING DISABILITY} and can only learn with {LEARNING STYLE}. Are you saying that doesn't exist?! Ahhh! No. A learning disability is different than a preferred learning
Learning styles are a myth, part 2
To determine whether there was any evidence that learning styles resulted in better learning, scientists did a study to try and answer two questions: Is it true that you learn better when instruction is in your preferred learning style? And is it true that you are at a disadvantage when
Learning styles are a myth, part 1
Do you say to people, "I'm a visual learner!" or "I can't remember anything from videos, I prefer reading blog posts" or "I love workshops but can't learn through video courses." I said similar things myself too – I
Who reads young adult fiction books?
"Young adults." You'd think so, right? Well, yes AND... Over half of readers of young adult fiction are adults. What?! How come? Because people like the emotionally-compelling stories and they're relatable – they see themselves in the characters and situations. These books speak to our
What's a developer learning experience platform (DLXP)?
A Learning Experience Platform (LXP) is a new generation of learning software that replaces the more traditional Learning Management System (LMS). LMSs are used a lot in corporate environments to host all the boring training 😉 In fact, that right there is the differentiating factor. An LXP is focused on providing
Using web animations for teaching concepts
In developer education we deal with a lot of conceptual information and mental modeling. For example, when talking about application architecture you form an image in your head – you think of a picture, not code. When teaching concepts, I almost always turn to visual aids. Visuals can truly speak a
NodeGuardians is gamified DevEd for learning web3
This week a new web3 education site launched, NodeGuardians. And it's a prime example of gamifying DevEd with character progression, quests, skill trees, and items, using a fantasy RPG theme. It is giving me Dark Souls and Destiny vibes and I'm lovin' it. This experience
Cinememes
What do you call a clip of a TV show or movie, where the audio is replaced by funny captions? A cinememe! I love these because they take care of one huge issue in video production – the video. And let you focus entirely on the content (which normally involves writing
Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!
On Saturday we went to a monster truck rally, put on by Hot Wheels. It was like that Simpson's episode where the family goes to see "Truckasaurus." In fact, this show did have a Truckasaurus but it was Megasaurus – a fire-breathing, car-crushing metal dino. Probably the
Explain stress like I'm 5
How would you teach the concept of stress to a 5-year-old? Today our 5yo son was having trouble listening and following directions to get prepped to go sledding with our friends. My wife asked if he felt stressed and decided to show him what that meant. She went to the
Lovedown: rdoc-markdown learning experience
Stas wanted some feedback on his new open-source project: rdoc-markdown. I released an open source library that generates markdown documentation for ruby language and libraries. This library is a small part of my side-project called Posh TUI, API documentation browser for developers. I did two lovedowns, each focused on an
Pluralsight's Office-style mockumentary
Here's a fresh example of umami content. This is the first episode of a fake show created for Pluralsight's rebranding effort, produced as an Office-style mockumentary ("fake company, real problems"): I've watched the whole series and I love it. The videos are
What's a Developer Learning Experience (DLX)?
You will probably hear me (or see me) use the term "developer learning experience." An experience leaves an impression on us. If I go to a restaurant and the food comes out cold, I will experience a negative impression of the restaurant. A developer learning experience is any
Foundation of trust
When you build a structure, you need to spend time on getting the foundation right. I know this first-hand building my office in the backyard. The reason is obvious though: you can't build anything without a foundation. And you can't cut corners. Building a level foundation
Surfacing umami content with Awesome DevEd
DevEd with umami needs to be visible. I've created an open source repo following the conventions of other Awesome Lists where you'll find all the DevEd I can get my hands on that fit the criteria of having umami (aka being awesome). GitHub - kamranayub/awesome-deved:
Avoid reading micro debts aloud
One lesson I learned early in my video course career was to avoid embedding small details in my audio recording that could change in future updates. Obviously, some things can't be avoided like major APIs but small things can be – call it "micro debt." Some examples
DevEd is not just for devs
A couple of days ago I talked about identifying assumptions underlying your current DevEd strategy. Here's one you might have: "Our DevEd content is only for developers." Is this true? Nope. Even though we say "developer education," your audience is technologists – and they all
Lovedown: rdoc-markdown
Stas wanted some feedback on his new open-source project: rdoc-markdown. I released an open source library that generates markdown documentation for ruby language and libraries. This library is a small part of my side-project called Posh TUI, API documentation browser for developers. I did two lovedowns, each focused on an
Assumptions are guilty until proven innocent
You've determined the scope of the problem your lasagna strategy is intending to solve, now you uncovered different bits of info: * It's 3pm and lasagna takes at least 2 hours * There are no tomatoes at home * Can't shorten the recipe * It's Carla&
A wooly doom
In 2005, a flock of 1,500 sheep jumped off a cliff to their wooly doom. How come? Because sheep follow the leader. One started it and the rest followed. So... If your competitor jumped off a cliff, would you follow? No? Then how do you know they aren'
DevEd microsites have umami
One example of umami content is DevEd microsites – these are dedicated sites that teach a specific topic or concept and don't involve more than a few pages (but are packed with value). Jeremy Thomas is the creator of Bulma, a free open-source CSS framework used by over 80,
Umami content
Umami is a Japanese word for an off-the-wall taste experience – to say it's simply "savory" is to sell it short. It's umami. If your content is food (which it must be because we consume it), then you want your content to have that umami
Sharketing
There needs to be a word for the traditional form of marketing that turns off developers and IT folks. What about sharketing? I was going to call it barketing except apparently, that's marketing for vets. And that's cool. When you read that, if you immediately think
Friction in learning reduces adoption
In 2011, Amazon found that every 1-second increase in page load speed cut conversions by 5%. Gatsby recently featured an auto dealer agency that discovered that "every extra second of page load time increases the bounce rate by roughly 1.5% and decreases session duration by about 10%."
You could save Princess Peach
When you drive awareness and leads, that's like letting Mario know that Princess Peach is in trouble. Please help save her! Saving Princess Peach is a deeply desirable outcome for Mario so he is happy (nay, eager) to jump into action. Imagine if Toad came to Mario and
Not all your learners are Masterchefs
Most of us can't cook as well as Gordon Ramsay. That's why recipes have difficulty levels. You have to start with eggs before getting to slow-roasted rosemary lamb chops. Not every developer or decision-maker will understand what you're trying to teach them which is
What are you assuming about your learner?
When you're cooking, recipes assume you have prerequisite knowledge – they don't explain every little technique ("Put it in the broiler for 5 minutes" vs. "Put in the broiler, which is a mode your oven can go into that heats food with a flame
Articulating a problem lets you explore its domain to create a better strategy
Yesterday I said that communicating a strategy without including the actual challenge being targeted is like asking, "What's for dinner?" and the answer is, "Lasagna. And it has to be ready by 6pm sharp." But... why? Articulating the why is part of diagnosing the
But, why are you having lasagna for dinner?
If I asked you what your current documentation strategy is, and you said: "We are planning to cover all major features in our docs by Q1 next year." You didn't tell me your strategy – just what you're doing this quarter. It doesn't
Blurry phrasing
When your learning experience incorporates phrases that are blurry it makes it hard for the learner to clearly understand you. My wife was relating to me how there's this lady at work, she called her Corporate-speak, the person. Apparently, in a meeting, this lady said to the group:
What do all foods have in common?
Software is never done. The tools or dependencies required to adopt your product will eventually become a point of friction if you don't update them. All food goes bad if you don't restock it. Yesterday I listed the ingredients for a cucumber cooler gin cocktail. Limes
Prerequisites are friction to adoption
Let's say it's Friday night and you want to mix a cocktail, a cool Cucumber Cooler. Here's what you need: * Cucumber * Sugar * Gin * Mint * Lime * Tonic water If you don't have the ingredients, you'll have to get them before even
Aragorning your content
Yesterday, I talked about Gandalfing: blocking spammy content on your site from being indexed but today, let me ask you... How strong are the bonds between your content? Aragorn strengthened the bonds of Men, Elves, and Dwarves across Middle-Earth during his time with Frodo. He did it through everyday actions
YOU SHALL NOFOLLOW
When Gandalf yelled at the Balrog and broke the Bridge of Khazad-dûm, it's just like invoking the rel="nofollow" attribute that can be summoned for links on the internet. It looks like... <a href="https://definitelynotaspamlink.com" rel="nofollow">Grow
Won't you be my neighbor and bring some content over?
Mr. Rogers would likely agree that guest posting is like bringing food over to a neighbor's. It's a lovely way to meet people and reach adjacent audiences to yours. Almost always, a quality guest post will attract people to your site for as long as it
Squeeze more SEO apple juice from Google with OG content
You might be losing out on some SEO apple juice if you aren't canonicalizing your content. The article above goes into more depth but here's the gist: To a search engine, canonicalization means, "Tell me where the OG content is for 'duplicate' (to
First-person messaging
In games, when you view the game from the perspective of the player, only seeing their gun or arms, that's called a "first-person view." That's why FPS stands for first-person shooter, like Halo or Call of Duty. When you can see your character as
No messaging survives first contact with developers
“No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” – Attributed to Helmuth von Moltke (“The Elder”), 1800-1891 It's the same with messaging. Except "the enemy" is exactly the opposite of how to think about the developers you are helping. Before even writing any copy, talk with your
Copywriting in DevEd
When you write a piece of fan fiction, that's writing. It asks nothing of the reader accept to take it in and (hopefully?) create a best-selling vampire franchise out of it. When you write the email that invites people to your annual Harry Potter marathon, that's
Don't repeat what you just said at the end of a video
Instead, summarize the key points as if the learner was going to get a pop quiz. Lay out what's relevant and valuable to the learner in their context. Here's a poor example: In this video, you learned: - How to write a React component - How
XTREME couponing
If questions are like coupons then XTREME couponing is like... answering tons of questions (no, like, tons). You know what I'm talking about. When Nana is holding up the line with her fanny pack bursting with coupons and you're like C'MON NANA, THIS IS
Questions are like coupons
Coupons are something you have to apply intentionally to get the discount. You usually need to be on the lookout for them. In content marketing, questions are like coupons. Redeem them by dropping an answer apple and you get store credit on buying attention – developers are willing to pay you
6 types of content sales can you take advantage of
I mentioned the other day that trending topics or news is like having a sale – a sale on knowledge acquisition, topics, audience targeting, and other content inputs, in other words, a tactic to spend less on the ingredients to cook your meals. But what type of content sales are there?
Marketing to doctors
Saying you are marketing to "developers" is like saying you are marketing to "doctors." Which of the 68+ kinds of doctors, exactly? Have a lovely day, Kamran
A windy day
As we were driving out of a small town today, a chalkboard sign posted outside caught my eye. Do you want to know why? I knew exactly who it was for (and what it wanted them to do). It said: It's not windy in here ⬅️ I knew it
First "lovedown" for Excalibur.js, the open-source game engine
My first "lovedown" (teardown). A new community service where I offer 20 mins of recorded feedback on your messaging/copy for dev projects/products. Batched every Friday, for free. This is for Erik, maintainer of Excalibur.js.
Deals, deals, DEALS!
In 2006, digital game sales were unheard of. In the good ol' days I had to pirate pay $50 for a new PC game! But when Steam introduced their marketplace they discovered that creating digital sale events significantly improved revenue. For a long time, my entire teenage years and
Bring your Grandma's famous React soup to the next swap
It smells amazing, I can't believe you didn't use Redux! One approach to creating a bunch of owned content is by inviting external contributors. Inviting external contributors is a great way to: * Network into your niche * Leverage the author's own audience * Bring in expert
Soupy vs. flamebroiled content
When you cook and prepare food on Sunday ahead of time, that's meal prepping. Well, kinda, you're not a True Prepper unless you make all your meals for the week. (I don't do this personally, I don't think I own enough food
WHO INVITED GARTH TO OUR CONTENT POTLUCK???
Yesterday I said you could hire out your developer content production to Instacontent and that's fine. It's a viable approach when you're short on resources. But I left out a key element: your ecosystem. Your open-source product has an ecosystem – a community surrounding it
Outsourcing to Instacontent
When you're low on time or resources, you simply can't produce all your developer content on your own. So naturally, you look outside – hire an agency or freelancer. But there's a trade-off. You trade convenience for control. Not just quality control but process control
Dropping answer apples 🍏 on your audience's heads 🤔
Imagine getting a developer to check out your product simply because you helped them out in a lovely way. One way is by dropping valuable knowledge. Like Newton's Apple – an answer apple 🍏 – something that answers their question where they have an epiphany and get a ton of value.
DevRel Kitchen Nightmares
If a restaurant has kinks in the system, you get your food cold, late, or just plain wrong. If those kinks don't get worked out, customers walk out the door. How is your system doing for content marketing and production? Are people working with each other? Front-of-house and
Don't have time to make all-new content? Have leftovers!
If you're smart about what recipes you cook (like my wife is), you might have leftovers. What are leftovers good for? Oh, a lot. The kids are angry you stopped their podcast in the car and are jumping all over the couches – which you TOLD them not to
Sharing content ingredients
Yesterday I said that transforming content apples into apple pies takes time but it doesn't have to take all the time in the world. One way to save time is by sharing ingredients. Content creation is a process. To write an article, you'll do some activities:
Transforming content
Transforming content is like baking an apple pie. The apples combine with other ingredients to become something new – but the apples are still there. Their soul is preserved. You cannot bake a strawberry rhubarb pie with apples. Baking takes time and effort. Think about lyrics: taking music and turning it
Converting content
Content can be produced in one format and then converted to another format. Like converting WAV to MP3, to the consumer it sounds, looks, and feels (basically) the same. Convert a set of blog posts into an ebook. Convert a conference talk into a webinar. Convert a podcast episode into
Remixing content
When a song gets a remix it's still a song. Anything could change: genre, lyrics, instruments, melody – there aren't really any rules except one: it is derived from the original. Its essence remains intact. You can think of your content the same way – once you release
Slicing a content cake
Once you have a piece of content, you've baked a cake. Now you can take this cake and slice it up. Serve those slices to different channels to reach new audiences. Some get smaller pieces, some get bigger pieces. Serve a slice of webinar as a YouTube short.
Developers and barber poles 💈
Did you know that rotating helix thingy outside barber shops is called a barber's pole? It's something you see but you don't see it, right? It's enough to signal you're in the right place but that's as deep
Very Good Webinars don't sell
They educate. Inspire. Help. Inform. Celebrate. Include. Question. Explain. Demo. Answer. Explore. In other words, they build trust. They don't sell... until the very, very end. IF at all. The content itself is the persuasive factor. Here's just one example of a Very Good Webinar.
Are you making a good first impression?
You know the saying, "The first impression is the last impression." For someone using your product or open source project and learning it the very first time, is it any good? How do you know? Are you measuring it? How do you measure what "good" is?
First-time Learning Experience (FTLX)
Your first-time learning experience (FTLX) is an owned experience you create that teaches users how to use your product. This would be something like: * In-app onboarding * Course * Quickstart tutorial * Sample app * Readme There's another adjacent term, first-time user experience. That is used within the product context. I'
The passive ROI of conference booths
It might be nice if people stopped by to chat with your advocates or team at the conference booth. But conferences are busy, noisy, and often create circumstances that uh... aren't great for interaction. I can think of tons of situations where I couldn't easily interact:
Live events, live streams, webinars, Twitter Spaces, Insta Live, oh my
What's the heck's the difference?! Well, I don't think it's about one-way or two-way interaction – every platform can basically work both ways. Instead, I think each type of event evokes a vibe: * A live event's vibe is electric, there'
The Three Tees of talks
If you give conference talks as part of your DevRel work, there are many ways to structure them. One of the first ones I remember being taught is what I'll call The Three Tees: Tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em Tell '
Trust in community-led vs. commercial-led open source growth
If an open source project is created first and then a community grows around it before a commercial offering is available, I'd call this community-led growth (e.g. Redis, Red Hat). If an open source project is created alongside a commercial product (aka "open source core"
DevRel wolf packs
If you're the alpha, you probably have the resources to hire an army of developer advocates to maintain your dominance. If you're the underdog, it's going to be an uphill battle to take over the pack. Instead, you could leave and find a new
Ogres and onions 🧅
If complex concepts are ogres 👹 then Shrek was right, ogres are like onions. They have layers. When teaching a complex concept you can start by introducing the outermost layer of high-level explanation, then peel back a layer to explain the next level of detail, and so on until you'
Content turds
Sorry but no amount of SEO will polish your content turds.
Developers dislike low-effort lead magnets
Developers will be the first to sneer at the exchange-email-for-a-url lead magnet because they will (rightly) point out: you don't need my G-D email to download a file. What might make sense to be gated by email? * email-based courses * open source boilerplates * membership signup * web-based content * platform content
Open source lead magnets
Can open source code be a lead magnet? It sure can! Creating open source projects within the community that integrates your product (think freemium subscriptions) is definitely a viable way to generate qualified leads for your business! Open source lead magnets can be things like: * Boilerplates (like the Remix Grunge
Lead magnets
On a client call recently, a technical founder asked me, "What's a lead magnet?" Marketing and sales often frustrate developers because it's very buzzwordy. A lead magnet is the "carrot on a stick" method to entice someone to enter your sales funnel
Your OSS project is a reflection of your internal culture
A public open source product is a window (or VIEW for you SQL nerds) into your internal culture. It's part of your brand. Lurkers and potential contributors will be watching how you work with new first-time contributors and interact with community members. It's important to set
The economic influencer
In sales there's a term used, the "economic buyer" aka they who hold the wallet. So for a developer tooling product, the economic buyer is likely a director, CTO or other kind of leader who will make the purchase. A developer within a company, on the
Marketing to developers is like pizza crust and garlic sauce
It's not about: * Posting on social media * Going to conferences * Writing articles * Making videos * Putting on events * Hosting a workshop * Creating courses Those are your activities. Just like pizza crust is the vehicle for garlic sauce, these activities deliver some desired state (the tasty garlic sauce in my
12 things you can do in a live developer event that are pretty nifty
Are you treating live events like in-person events? Stop limiting yourself! Live events offer more scale and interaction than in-person events. With in-person, there's an "interactive tipping point" where you'll never be able to involve everyone. With a live event, everyone's connected,
Webinars == conference talks
If you think of webinars more like conference talks (and less like sales events), it makes it easier to understand why they're useful. Teaching at scale. Conferences are platforms that do the marketing for you with the trade-off that you may not get accepted. Once you (or your
If your project requires specialized expertise, stop making excuses
It can be hard to attract core contributors for open source projects that require "specialized expertise." Think databases or game engines, which might have heavily optimized performance code or complex algorithms. But that's no reason to throw your hands up and declare, "Nobody can contribute.
