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 should care.

I will rectify that today by sharing a single talk you should watch over your lunch (especially if you play at 1.25x).

Here it is:

And to entice you, here's a slide in the talk that is worth millions of dollars – because if you realize what this slide implies before doing any big "strategic initiative," you will almost certainly save yourself years of headache and wasted spend on stuff that won't work.

Even though the talk is aimed at engineering leaders, the content is applicable to all business domains – including developer relations and marketing.

For example, common questions I've seen in this space:

• How do we get stakeholder buy-in?
• What's the optimal way to organize marketing, growth, and DevRel teams?
• How come it's hard to measure marketing and attribution?
• What channels will work best for marketing to developers?
• Should we write blogs or do videos?
• Should we focus on SEO or paid ads?
• Should we hire an agency or build our own in-house marketing team?
• Where should we go to engage our community?
• Should we build our own community?

The answers to all these questions are "it depends" but that's why mapping is a super power – because it puts everything into a visual landscape you can use to communicate with. I really believe you can use a Wardley Map and the discussions it sparks to answer these questions for any situation.

I think you'll see the same thing when you watch that talk over a yummy bowl of chicken makhani (what I'm eating right now – and yes it's homemade).

Have a lovely day,
Kamran