A Day in the Life of aDeveloper AdvocateLet’s Get Started…

ReyBango

@reybango

blog.reybango.com

About me

Roles

• Principal Developer Advocate for IE

• Director of Developer Relations for Telerik

• Head of Developer Relations for the jQuery Project

• Firefox Add-ons Community Manager at Mozilla

• Editor for Nettuts

• Editor at Smashing Magazine

Associations

• Team Allaire

• Team BlueDragon

• Team Sybase

• Team Powersoft

About me

Writing

• Nettuts

• ScriptJunkie.com

• Ajaxian

• Sys-con

Podcasts

• The Web Ahead

• Hanselminutes

• jQuery Podcast

• Dotnet Rocks

• JSConf

About me

Speaker

• Fluent Ignite & 2015

• W3Conf

• Microsoft Build

• AngleBrackets

• JavaScript Summit

User Groups

• South Florida JS Group

• PowerBuilder User Group

About me

Kudos

• 33 Developers you MUST Subscribe to as a JavaScript Junkie

• 40 Web Developers to Follow on Twitter

• Top 20 Devs of 2014

• Referenced in “Success in Programming”

Dance Skills

• ABCNews.com

Pretentious much?

My life

• Speak with developers

• Engage with product teams

• Write articles and tutorials

• Write code

• Engage in social media

• Contribute to the community

• Present at events

• Represent Microsoft at different functions

I am an advocate for you!

Your advocate

• Lend an ear and “listen”

• Offer advice and solutions

• Send feedback to the product teams

• Advocate for changes and new features

• Contribute to the community

• Collaborate on projects to make you successful

• Offer unbiased guidance

Don’t be a shill!

You need to be genuine.

Hardest part of this role?

Time (or lack thereof)!

No time

People want you to:

• Speak at user groups

• Write articles

• Write books

• Go to conferences

• Solve their problems

Family

Work/life balance trumps all!

Other hard parts

Consider these before jumping in:

• Are you an introvert?

• Do you hate presenting to a crowd?

• Do you love writing production code?

• Are you okay with traveling?

• Are you passionate about the subject you’re advocating?

Do you like helping people?

Becoming an Advocate

Manage your brand.

Perception counts

Manage it

• Identify your niche and cultivate it

• Understand your audience

• You need to add value

• Watch what you say

• Watch how you say it

Get social.

Community

Be Involved

• Understand your audience

• Contribute

• Demo

• Add value

Engage

Talk “with” people

• Listen

• Sympathize

• Advocate

• Participate

Tools

Which ones matter?

• Twitter

• Your personal blog

• Blog comments

• YouTube & Vimeo

• 3rd party sites (Smashing Magazine, Nettuts, etc.)

• IRC

• Slack/HipChat

• Stack Overflow

Get known.

Lead

Thought Leadership

• Speak

• Write

• Code

• Influence

• Cater to your audience

Fan Worship

Be a groupie

• Seek out influencers

• Proactively engage

• Share relevant info

• Offer value to their work

Don’t be a STALKER!!

Pastelitos!!!!!!

Coopetition

Be a facilitator.

Connections

Build Bridges

• Connect people

• Connect businesses

• Connect groups

• Help people get jobs

• Help find resources

Resources

Read

• http://developer-evangelism.com/

• Success in Programming - How to Gain Recognition, Power, and Influence Through Personal Branding (http://www.apress.com/9781484200025)

Follow

• @reybango

• @codep08

• @paul_irish

• @johnbristowe

Be an advocate for your community!

Fin