Mailing List Cleanup - DevRel Weekly (Part 1)

(This is part of an open ended series of posts where I write down random things I feel are sharable from the years of mailing lists I’ve not caught up on…)

Another neglected mailing list was DevRel Weekly which ended with issue 232 in October of 2023. I have from issue 95 (February of 2020) to deal with. Here is the best parts (per me) of 2020. Side Note – it is amazing how embedded Twitter was in our lives back then. And now, I suspect most of these newsletters wouldn’t have as many links to tweets. For a variety of reasons.

As mentioned prior, I do love DevRel. Even if I have spent the last decade at companies where ‘community’, etc. doesn’t make sense to foster.

• Editorial Guidelines for Developers and Data Scientists – Guidelines improve consistency, and consistency is a Good Thing[tm]. Unfortunately it appears the book referenced at the end is no longer available.
• The Community Manager’s Weekly Planner – I really like this printable planner at the end. More things should be analog.
• ‘Controversial thought: #DevRel is not something you just decide to do. It’s not something you do to be “internet famous” and be adored.’ – Oh I have thoughts on this. If ‘your’ brand is bigger than your employer’s then you are probably doing it wrong.
• Rewarding Documentation in DevOps – Some good ideas on how to measure and incentivize writing documentation

• When I sent people drafts of my posts for feedback, I never knew what to say if they asked “what kind of feedback would be helpful?”

  Now I use the “ABCD” framework:

  what’s Awesome?
  what’s Boring?
  what’s Confusing?
  what Didn’t you believe?

• This quote reminds me how much we lost when Kathy Sierra was chased off the internet.

  Upgrade your users, Not your product.

• How I write: Start with a Series of Sincere Sentence – I also really love ‘craft of writing’ things. Even if I have no desire to write another non-fiction book let alone a fiction piece.
• 10 Golden Social Media Rules for Developer Relations Manager – A decade old, but still fresh.
• Tracking a Developer’s Journey From Documentation Visit and Sign Up to First API Call – Time To Value remains the only metric that matters. Yes, I’m willing to die on this hill.
• Treat code like code and prose like prose – This phrase is great, but the article also gives examples how Twilio does things. Or did 6 years ago… Also, this blog seems pretty good in general.
• Why we write at a 6th grade level – Another up-front decision it is better to conciously make with intent
• 4 Wheels That Run an Engaging Community – Yup.