Book Image

Developer, Advocate!

By : Geertjan Wielenga
Book Image

Developer, Advocate!

By: Geertjan Wielenga

Overview of this book

What exactly is a developer advocate, and how do they connect developers and companies around the world? Why is the area of developer relations set to explode? Can anybody with a passion for tech become a developer advocate? What are the keys to success on a global scale? How does a developer advocate maintain authenticity when balancing the needs of their company and their tech community? What are the hot topics in areas including Java, JavaScript, "tech for good," artificial intelligence, blockchain, the cloud, and open source? These are just a few of the questions addressed by developer advocate and author Geertjan Wielenga in Developer, Advocate!. 32 of the industry's most prominent developer advocates, from companies including Oracle, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, open up about what it's like to turn a lifelong passion for knowledge sharing about tech into a rewarding career. These advocates run the gamut from working at large software vendors to small start-ups, along with independent developer advocates who work within organizations or for themselves. In Developer, Advocate!, readers will see how developer advocates are actively changing the world, not only for developers, but for individuals and companies navigating the fast-changing tech landscape. More importantly, Developer, Advocate! serves as a rallying cry to inspire and motivate tech enthusiasts and burgeoning developer advocates to get started and take their first steps within their tech community.
Table of Contents (36 chapters)
34
Other Books You May Enjoy
35
Index
36
Packt

The value of attending conferences

Ted Neward: In some sense, it's the same as asking, "How does marketing get their budget?" People understand intuitively that brand recognition is an important thing.

As a non-developer-product company, we have an API, but we don't have that direct connection. Coca-Cola is considered to be the number one most recognized brand in the world and yet it spends billions of dollars every year to stay that way. Part of it is this notion of locality of reference inside your brain. If you've just seen a Coca-Cola commercial, you say, "Oh, yeah! Coca-Cola! I want one of those!" It's that idea of keeping it fresh.

For Smartsheet in particular (and I think this is true of Netflix, Ford, and, again, all of these other companies that are being told repeatedly that they need to go and build APIs), we have to justify internally why we need to create these APIs. The CEO, the chief financial officer (CFO), and the vice president...