[2024-07-25] APAC & EMEA Building DevRel Foundation Community Call

[anajsana]

Agenda

👋 Intros - If we have a large group we'll use chat
🧹 Housekeeping

• Code of conduct
• Intro to roles: facilitator, moderator, scribe, crier

🤔 What we're doing in this call

• Intro to FAQ Document

• Feedback Gathered so far - review and comment as a group

  • Categorization table
  • The different categories that seemed to rise to the top
  • Identify where people in the call would like to help

• Participant Engagement & Location Survey: Identify community's type of interest/commitment roles and location

Essential Information

• 🕛 Thursday 25, 13:00 - 14:00 pm CEST
• 📝 g.doc agenda

Frequency	Duration	Zoom link	Join Discord
Weekly	1 hour	Here	Join

[anajsana]

Meeting Notes

FAQ Content

Intro to the work in progress Frequently asked questions (FAQ) list based on the questions raised during past community calls. This FAQ serves as a foundation to address some of the key inquiries and to guide our ongoing discussions and can be found in the #💬faq Discord

Action Item: read the FAQ content from discord and work async to provide input in the next call

Feedback Gathered so far

Review and comment as a group on the questions gathered during the past community calls / devrelcon unconference:

• [2024-07-11] APAC & EMEA Building DevRel Foundation Community Call #50
• DevRelCon NYC Unconf - Building a DevRel Foundation Open Discussion #52
• [2024-07-05] AMER Building DevRel Foundation Community Call #49

Proposed Segments / Categories to discuss:

• Common language / definitions / frameworks
• DevRel as a business influencer
• DevRel personas
• Professional growth

Proposed Table to start:

Comment	Segment / Categories
What else can this organization contribute to the definition and education of DevRel?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
DevRel is defined differently in each country and each community. Are we aiming for a manifesto that encompasses the whole?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
Should we have some kind of standardized names for different functions in DevRel?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
There seems to be a lot of fragmentation in the DevRel resources space - should we be striving to connect/unify/aggregate?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
How may we make it easier for teams to build out the DevRel function? Job descriptions, training, getting started guides?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
What is DevRel? What are the shared practices and values?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
Since 2021, I’ve been organizing the Dev. Together Summit in China, which is all about DevRel and DevMarketing. We have felt that DevRel is receiving increasing attention in China, but it is still a niche field. So, How should we define DevRel? How do we distinguish DevRel from DevMarketing and developer ecosystems? In China, there is still no common answer to these questions. Last year, SegmentFault, together with Huawei, conducted a developer relations report. We tried to define what developer relations means, but I believe there is still no consensus. I hope the DevRel Foundation can come up with a glossary to help everyone understand the concepts better.	Common language / definitions / frameworks
Does the foundation plan to focus on education about DevRel for non-DevRel professionals (adjacent teams like Engg., Sales, Marketing, etc.)?	DevRel as a business influencer
What's the value of DevRel, especially in terms of business value? During tough economic times, many DevRel professionals are facing layoffs. Marketing folks focus on getting sales leads for the sales team, and the sales team brings in revenue. But DevRel folks are often seen as a cost center. How can we change that?	DevRel as a business influencer
How can we avoid the cycle of DevRel teams hiring and firing. Hiring when DevRel is trending and firing as soon as the trend ends or cuts need to be made?	DevRel as a business influencer
How can we position a multi-disciplinary role like DevRel as specialized and critical?	DevRel as a business influencer
Why do we have such a hard time clarifying our roles and justifying our impact?	DevRel as a business influencer
How do we amplify the value of DevRel outside of DevRel?	DevRel as a business influencer
How well known is DevRel? What are our assumptions? Does it need to be better known, have a better rep?	DevRel as a business influencer
How will the foundation help connect people with similar professional backgrounds, like types of companies, approaches to the discipline?	DevRel personas
Who are the personas we address in the Foundation	DevRel Personas
How are we delineating between the different disciplines of DevRel and DevMarketing?	DevRel Segments
How will the foundation add value to people at different stages companies/organizations (early stage to late stage/public ones)?	DevRel Segments
Are DevRel and DevMarketing distinct?	DevRel Segments
Would it be fair to say that in the same way that “development” is a spectrum and there are many different types and styles of developers (for lack of a better name, as of course devops, data scientists, and even developer advocates would fall under the “developer” umbrella term), we should also acknowledge that DevRel is not a single thing and there are potentially many different ways of doing developer relations?	DevRel Segments
Why is the median work experience of a DevRel with one company less than 3-4 years? What can we do to improve it?	Professional growth
How will the foundation support folks looking to break into, per se, the DevRel or DevMarketing spaces?	Professional growth
How do we grow the pie for everyone in DevRel?	Professional growth

Comments / Questions by the attendees from the table above:

MR: A few of the questions within the categories seem to be repeated. We would remove the repetition before
Idea: Make a copy removing all the repetition
Atsushi: There are some very specific and wide questions. For instance, persona might be a very specific concept. Do we need to focus at this point on this? Maybe is better to focus first on the wide challenges, and in the future, deep dive into more intro granular
MR: Maybe having a third column with times / sequences / order that share a better view on what to prioritize in these first-period
PL: I think the definitions of the categories need to be clearer
MR: I believe 3 things should be prioritized. (1) An elevator pitch of what devrel meant for devrel foundation. (2) Clear definition of what the foundation is for and what it achieves. (3) Common language around devrel - creating a glossary / common language
A word about Working Group - this could put people off because sounds like an imposition.
Ana - commented that "working group" may be less commonly used within DevRel
Anita: when starting devrel, not everyone gets into open source -that’s not a common path- are we an open source community for devrel? A group of people to understand what devrel is about?

Action Items

Sent a Participant Engagement & Location Survey:

• Identify attendee's type of interest/commitment roles and location - the aim is to determine which themes participants would like to be involved with, either as members or leaders of a committee
• share table (with grouped questions) with proposed segments / categories to identify common themes in groups and priorities for a initial phase for this foundation to focus at
• leave room for feedback improvement on the FAQ list

Attendees

• Matthew Revell, Hoopy
• Phil Leggetter, Hookdeck
• Atsushi Nakatsugawa, MOONGIFT
• Anita Ihuman, MetalBear
• Ana Jimenez, LF

[anajsana]

Proposed Table to start:

Comment	Segment / Categories
What else can this organization contribute to the definition and education of DevRel?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
DevRel is defined differently in each country and each community. Are we aiming for a manifesto that encompasses the whole?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
Should we have some kind of standardized names for different functions in DevRel?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
There seems to be a lot of fragmentation in the DevRel resources space - should we be striving to connect/unify/aggregate?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
How may we make it easier for teams to build out the DevRel function? Job descriptions, training, getting started guides?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
What is DevRel? What are the shared practices and values?	Common language / definitions / frameworks
Since 2021, I’ve been organizing the Dev. Together Summit in China, which is all about DevRel and DevMarketing. We have felt that DevRel is receiving increasing attention in China, but it is still a niche field. So, How should we define DevRel? How do we distinguish DevRel from DevMarketing and developer ecosystems? In China, there is still no common answer to these questions. Last year, SegmentFault, together with Huawei, conducted a developer relations report. We tried to define what developer relations means, but I believe there is still no consensus. I hope the DevRel Foundation can come up with a glossary to help everyone understand the concepts better.	Common language / definitions / frameworks
Does the foundation plan to focus on education about DevRel for non-DevRel professionals (adjacent teams like Engg., Sales, Marketing, etc.)?	DevRel as a business influencer
What's the value of DevRel, especially in terms of business value? During tough economic times, many DevRel professionals are facing layoffs. Marketing folks focus on getting sales leads for the sales team, and the sales team brings in revenue. But DevRel folks are often seen as a cost center. How can we change that?	DevRel as a business influencer
How can we avoid the cycle of DevRel teams hiring and firing. Hiring when DevRel is trending and firing as soon as the trend ends or cuts need to be made?	DevRel as a business influencer
How can we position a multi-disciplinary role like DevRel as specialized and critical?	DevRel as a business influencer
Why do we have such a hard time clarifying our roles and justifying our impact?	DevRel as a business influencer
How do we amplify the value of DevRel outside of DevRel?	DevRel as a business influencer
How well known is DevRel? What are our assumptions? Does it need to be better known, have a better rep?	DevRel as a business influencer
How will the foundation help connect people with similar professional backgrounds, like types of companies, approaches to the discipline?	DevRel personas
Who are the personas we address in the Foundation	DevRel Personas
How are we delineating between the different disciplines of DevRel and DevMarketing?	DevRel Segments
How will the foundation add value to people at different stages companies/organizations (early stage to late stage/public ones)?	DevRel Segments
Are DevRel and DevMarketing distinct?	DevRel Segments
Would it be fair to say that in the same way that “development” is a spectrum and there are many different types and styles of developers (for lack of a better name, as of course devops, data scientists, and even developer advocates would fall under the “developer” umbrella term), we should also acknowledge that DevRel is not a single thing and there are potentially many different ways of doing developer relations?	DevRel Segments
Why is the median work experience of a DevRel with one company less than 3-4 years? What can we do to improve it?	Professional growth
How will the foundation support folks looking to break into, per se, the DevRel or DevMarketing spaces?	Professional growth
How do we grow the pie for everyone in DevRel?	Professional growth