CCW #14 -Developer Communities, Community Resources, and more
The best resources from the world of community this week
CCW is a newsletter about building and growing communities, featuring collected tweets, posts and thoughts from various community leaders.
❓ Question of the Week
How did you get the first 100 members to join your community? Any actionable tips for those just starting out?
Reply with your thoughts on the QOTW for a chance to be featured in next weeks email!
👩💻 Developer Communities and Dev Relations
Community is core to the software development profession. According to the recent Devada State of the Developer report, 94% of developers have visited at least one community over the past thirty days. (Whereas the community manager industry is likely sitting at a cool 100% 😎)
The distribution of community member involvement is relatively even across years of development experience, with the exception being that junior developers ask significantly more community questions. Have you ever considered segmenting your community members into cohorts by age, or by the ways in which they engage?
As community becomes more top of mind for software companies, the Developer Relations role has skyrocketed in importance and popularity.
Community builder Mary Thengvall describes the role of developer relations succinctly:
To the community, I represent the company; To the company, I represent the community, I must have both of their interests in mind at all times.
📚 Some of our Favorite Community Resources
In the spirit of knowledge sharing, the Community Chat Weekly team created a roundup of some of our favorite places to find community content on the internet. Enjoy!
The Community Canvas – A useful framework that breaks down all of the key components of a community. It has three sections, identity, experience and structure, which is subdivided into 17 themes such as platforms, rules and rituals.
The Community Stash – A curated list of resources and tools for digital communities, featuring notable articles, books, job boards and newsletters!
The Joy List – One of the most comprehensive, master lists of community building resources we've ever seen! Find community projects, studies, popular articles, podcast episodes, and guidebooks.
Rosie Land – Another fantastic list of community resources including events, websites, and podcasts. This one is maintained by prominent community builder Rosie Sherry, who is best known for her work with Indie Hackers and The Ministry of Testing.
🐦 Tweets
An inspiring story about how an engineer found a job through one of most renowned news-board communities, Y Combinator Hacker News.
Scale yourself, empower your community members.
What community do you wish existed for your future self?
Community managers are the backbone.
📝 Blog Posts
A handful of recommended readings from the past week.
Why Members Come Back (2 min read)
Community manager Blake Ethridge sat down and asked real-world community members on what keeps them coming back to an online community. Their answers might surprise you.
Why Community Success is Critical in Modern Software (3 min read)
“Communities feel magical, but they don't appear out of nowhere." A practical guide on community building for your startup by the folks at First Round Ventures.
Turn Your Customers into Your Community (4 min read)
Building a community isn’t about what an organization can achieve; rather, it’s a manifestation of what an organization and a group of passionate people can do together.
💬 Join the Community!
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Have a suggestion for a piece of content we should include next week? Email us and let us know!