Slides from my talk on building developer communities at London Software Craftsmanship conference 5th & 6th October. I share my experiences of interacting with the software development community over the last 22 years. Discussion includes what kinds of events you could run in your community and how to get your community started.

1. Confessions of a
developer community builder
by John Stevenson
@jr0cket

2. Warning:
This speaker is
biased

5. The truth is out there...

6. What is Community
And what makes communities so valuable

8. My definition of community:
More than one person with a
[ keen | passionate ]
interest in something
and willing to [ learn | share]

9. We rely on community
to get things done

11. Your Development Team is a community

12. Community is more effective for all
Company success
- Greater awareness of technology, tooling, api / product use
- Easier to hire new staff and keep existing staff engaged
Team success
- Increased collaboration and communication
- grow the team in capability & effectiveness
Individual success
- Grow your skills
- Keep your job interesting for longer

13. The great thing about community is...
you can be a member of so many!

14. The great thing about community is...
you can be members of so many!

15. What is your Community
about?
And why should people join in

19. What can your community do?
Ask those involved in the community as it grows...

20. Within you development
team
Brown Bag / lunchtime talks
Pairing / Mob Programming
Book Club
Kata / Coding dojo’s
FedEx day (scratch that itch
projects)

21. Starting your own developer
community
Monthly meetups
- Talks / lightning talks / demos
Coding dojo’s
Workshops / hack days
Conferences
Hackathons

22. My Community Experiences
~22 years in the community

23. Getting into Linux @ University
88 Floppy disk install
A few months later
install from tape

25. Open source
workshops
- Using Ubuntu Linux
- Poster design
- Video Editing
- Desktop Publishing

27. University outreach

28. Organised my
first coding
dojo
Organiser for
ClojureX conference,
ClojureBridge London,
London Clojurians,
& logo designer

29. Atlassian
Sometimes you can get
paid to build communities
(and wear t-shirts)

30. Salesforce / Heroku

32. Diversity in Tech

33. Mentoring / Inspiring others

34. Inspiring others

35. Inspiring others

36. Mentoring (virtually)
A Slack community is handy for mentoring individuals or groups

37. Mentoring widens your own
horizons

38. Standing on the shoulder of giants
A well used phrase that encourages us to build on work done by others

39. If I have seen further &
achieved more,
its because I stood
on the shoulders of others

40. Starting a community

41. If you create it,
they will come...

42. If you don’t create it,
they can’t come

43. Things to do...
to help the event be successful
Describe why people should attend
● say who its for or who will be attending
● say what people will gain from it
● include feedback from past events
Promote the event effectively
1. use social media networks & contacts
2. create a meaningful hashtag & put it
everywhere
3. go to other events and talk about your
event
4. look for media partners who can spread
the word in their networks

44. Code of
Conduct
&
Under 18’s
Policy

45. Provide detailed
location
information
- Especially if the
directions are
complicated

46. Help people contribute
https://skillsmatter.com/skillscasts/7853-workshop-giving-your-first-meetup-or-clojure-exchange-talk

47. Visualise
the
schedule

48. Make all the things
visually appealing
beware of your own bias
though...
beware of expensive
print costs too…
not everyone loves
purple...

49. Work out your budget early
What are your costs for
- venue, food, advertising, swag, extra wifi, video screens / tv, etc.
- speaker hotels / travel, speakers dinner
- diversity fund for those otherwise unable to attend
Plan for contingency
- last minute sponsor drop-out
- unknown expense
- event more popular than you planned

50. Give your sponsors clarity & options
What are you willing to allow sponsors to do ?
What are you definately not going to allow them to do - ie. product pitches
Provide several tiers of sponsorship packages in a very clear document / pdf
- include reasons why sponsors should sponsor you!
Include a menu of options and encourage sponsors to get in touch and share what they
would like to do
- Atlassian sponsored one event and paid for all the event staff to wear an Atlassian
t-shirt. This helped the organisers & attendees as well as the sponsor

51. Healthy
food
options,
please

52. I love Raspberries
Have more Raspberries at your event
and I will come :)
Finding something simple that your
audience will love will improve
attendance and return visits.

53. Things to avoid
unless you like stress
Personal Life upheavals
● don't change jobs
● don't move house
● don't take a holiday whilst organising
Organisational challenges
1. don't try and do this alone
2. don't leave everything until the last
minute
3. don't do it alone, seriously!!!
Even if this is your job, find
someone else to help you and
delegate like crazy

54. Doing the event again? Have a Retrospective
What worked
What didn’t work so well
What should you do more of
What should you do less of
Document as much as you can, so it's easier next time!

55. Rounding things up...

57. Find your local community and get involved
No local community? It’s easy to start one..

58. Thank you
@jr0cket
jr0cket.co.uk