Understanding and approaching developer communities in smaller regions

Shedrack Akintayo: Hello, friends. My name is Shidra Kakintao. I'm a developer relations engineer at platform dot s h. I am also a part time community builder in Lagos, Nigeria, basically, in Africa, generally. So for my talk today, I'm going to be talking about this is based on my entirely based on my experience building communities in, like, a region like Africa.

So understanding and approaching developer communities in smaller region. So let's get started. So like I said, I'm a developer relations engineer at PlatformSH. And during my free time, I write technical articles for popular blogs like Slashmashy Magazine, LogRocket, Container Journal, etcetera. I like to call myself a community expert.

I'm a developer relations strategist. So let's just get into the talk. So the way I like to give my talks, like to give my talk like a conversation. So you are seeing the title. You are wondering, Smallari John.

What did what does he mean by that? So what do I mean by that generally? What smaller regions are? And smaller region, basically, is not what you're thinking. It's not it's not a very small region, particularly.

It's not like, okay. A particular part of the world that is small geographically. It's because I tagged this region small because they lack certain facilities, they lack financial support, they lack access to information, and they lack opportunities. This is, the treats I like to call a smaller region. Yep.

They all have this certain characteristics. So now let's give an example of smaller regions. Yeah. We've seen the characteristics they have, and what regions do we have in the world that I would tag as a smaller region. So Africa is really a really small region compared to The Americas, to Europe.

The Middle East is really, really small, and Oceania, which is most most of the time the smallest. These are, like, the regions of the world that I like to tag as smaller regions. Now okay. So you're asking, okay. Why should we care about how we approach these regions?

Why don't we just use the same method of approach we've used in Europe, we've used in The US, and various parts of of America? Why don't what's so special about these regions? Well, I'm here to basically educate every single one of you watching this talk on how to really approach this region, which because it's an entirely different method from how it is in various parts of Europe and The US and and different parts of America, South and North. So why should you care? Now the reason why you should care about this region is because the there's an availability a very large availability of undiscovered tech talent.

There is it is a whole different market, different from what you are used to, and diversity is very important in every single industry. So as a tech industry, we should be encouraging diversity. So why I would say you should care about this region is because of these three things. Availability of undiscovered undiscovered tech tech talents. We need a really it's a large pool of tech talents that are really undiscovered and unheard in these particular regions.

This it's a whole different market from what you used to. So you get to learn more stuff about, you know, different type of people, a different market, a different community, then diversity, which is, like, one of the most important reasons why we should or you should care about the smaller regions. Now I've managed to convince you why you should care about these regions. Yeah? Now so the next question that would probably be in your minds or your minds is how do we understand these smaller regions?

Okay. We know that it's different from what we are used to. We know that there's a large pool of talents here. We know that we need to encourage diversity more. So how do we understand this smaller region?

It's it's pretty simple to do it, actually. And every single thing I'm going to be giving in this talk is based on my experience interacting with this with region and coming from this region. Surveys, very important. Before you take a a dev role program to this particular sides side of the world, to this smaller region, you need to do a survey to understand who your demographic are, to understand the kind of people that you'd be interacting with, which leads us to the next, which is interviews. Now one of the most successful way of doing this is interviewing community leaders in this region.

You get to know what it's like, you know, building a community in these smaller regions. You get to know the pan points that you need to take in take note of when trying to build a community in this region. Very, very important. Now one fast way of also penetrating into this region is sponsoring tech events in this region. Like I said initially at the beginning of the talk, I said these regions are called I tagged them as smaller because they lack financial support.

They lack financial resources compared to the bigger regions we have where tech is really, really booming. So a way you can really, really have access to this region is sponsoring tech events in those region. When you sponsor a tech event in in these regions, you you have access to a pool of different communities, a different people. You can also go there to talk to to talk to individuals that are part of these communities in this region. Now another very important aspect of understanding is hiring from this region.

Yeah. I mean, a lot of times, it's difficult to hire from these regions because of setting compliance data, privacy, and compliance laws. But when that is out of the case, when that's you figured out how to, you know, bypass how to how to still do this particular hiring, it's really important to go to these regions and hire people from there. Yeah. So thankful well, we are really thankful for remote the way remote work has, like, you know, has taken no shape, and we can really work from any part of the world these days.

So hiring from those regions give you an access to the talent there and to understand how the talent there and the people there think. Now attending events held in those region. So you necessarily do not have to sponsor all the time. Necessarily do not have to hire to understand this region. You can just look for one of, like, the biggest tech events happen in this particular regions.

Okay. Let's go there. Let's take our dev team there. Let's take our marketing team there. Let's take whoever whatever team we want to take there and just attend the region and blend in, like, locals of that particular region.

That way, you'd be able to have meaningful conversations and understand how people in this regions think and understand how to connect more with them. It's really, really important. So these particular ways I've mentioned are one of, like, the most effective ways to really understand how things in these regions work and how to approach them and understand them generally. Now I've convinced you. I've I've I've mentioned how you can understand it.

Now after understanding, you're probably wondering how do we actually approach them with our via our program. Yeah? So this is this is based on my experience, like I said. And this way this way, I'm going to mention now are, like, based on my experience, and let's just see how far it takes us generally. Now so how about we so, generally, how how how about we use Africa as a case study?

Because it makes more sense. Right? I'm from Africa. Yep. So it will make more sense if I actually say things based on my experience.

Personally, I love to give talks that are based on my experience. So how about we use Africa to take history? Makes more sense, generally, for me. Now let's talk about Africa. Now Africa has a population, as of 2018, it's way more now, of 1,300,000,000 people.

It is the largest black continent in the world. He it has a very large and untapped developer ecosystem, surplus talent, and there's enough space for growth. So at Africa is like a gold mine of talent and a really, really large and untapped developer ecosystem for dev rel teams all across the world. Now I'm going to just give an example of successful dev rel programs that I've experienced and I've seen prosper in Africa. The Google Developer Groups, Google Developer Experts, Google Developer Student Club.

Google has figured out how to approach Africa, generally. They are one of the first organizations I've seen that really took their time to send out employees to come and understand how things work here in Africa. That's one of the reasons why I'm giving them this honorable mention. Then Cloudinary Media Developer Experts. Cloudinary is an image processing company in San Francisco, I think.

They've been doing really well trying to, you know, penetrate into Africa. Facebook developer circles, they have as much influence as Google over the developer ecosystems here. Odd Zebra Ambassador, Kotlin User Group, which is still under Google, GitLab Heroes, Figma, and GitHub Campus Experts. Now these dev op programs have found they've really understood how to approach developer relations here in Africa. They've been able to make meaningful relationships.

They've been able to get meaningful connection with the community here. So that's one of the reasons why I gave these examples. Now the question you're wondering, yeah, I think everybody's really wondering. Even I'm wondering, why are these programs successful? What did they do?

What's so special about these programs that it was successful in this part of the world? Well, I'm going to make a rundown of that pretty soon. So let's go straight into that. Now they followed a few and a couple of steps that I'm going to be mentioning. The first is they recognize and understood their target markets.

Yeah. They made sure they understood the demographic. They followed the method I mentioned, you know, understanding these regions, surveys, interviews, hiring, attending tech events, sponsoring tech events, etcetera. So they recognized that this particular region has what we are looking for. Very untapped, fresh talent have a very different market that would see how our product would play there.

So they recognize this market and then understood how to approach this market. Really, really important. Now they partnered with already popular community leaders with which gains more traction for them. Now when when you partner with people that are, like, influenced like, let's say that influence influencers in that particular community or leaders in that particular community, it gives you a boost. You do not need to go through the stress of starting from, like, you know, scratch.

The community the community is basically going to come to you, basically, when you use when you partner with these popular community leaders. They sponsored large developer communities in the continent. For example, here are some, like, really, really popular and large developer communities in Africa, for loop, concatenate, and the open source festival. Then, they also hired folks from the region. Very, very important because once you've made them when you've made the community members part of you, you get to understand how they think.

You get to understand, hear from them directly on how things are generally in that region. Another way to foster adoption of your of their products in this particular region is they hosted hackathons that let developers use and leverage their technologies. Very, very important because that way, developers become very familiar with your your technology. If your technology is great, if your product is great, they do evangelism for you by themselves without you spending in marketing budgets. Very, very important.

These these this steps I've mentioned this these points I've mentioned are really, really crucial and very, very important if you want to succeed in these particular regions. Now how can you also approach these communities? So I've told you my experience. I've told you how Google, how Facebook, how HotZero, how this dev various developer relations teams have approached this community. So how can you approach these communities?

So don't just take from these communities. Give also. So I've seen various dev op programs go to these communities and take from them, gather their insights without actually giving to these communities. It's it's it's it's just not ideal because you cannot there's no sense of trust between you and these communities anymore if you do not give back to these communities. So it's very, very essential.

It's very, very important that as you are taking from these communities, you are getting insights from these community, you are doing market research from these communities. It's very, very important to also give back to these communities. Examples of giving back is sponsoring tech events in these com communities, very, very important. Doing hackathons where people win prizes, very, very important. That way, it creates a sense of connection.

It creates a symbiotic relationship between yourself as a dev role team or and the community's members generally. So it's very, very important to not just take, but also give back to these communities. Now invest in nonexploitative developer programs. I'm very, very particular about this particular point because about this point is because I've seen this happen times and over and over again where teams come to Africa, come and get you know, do market research, do the various things, exploit, developers and, communities in this particular region just because they are small, just because they don't have a voice, exploit them and go away. So if you're bringing any developer program to these smaller communities because of they are small, they don't have a voice, that's very wrong.

So instead, spend more time investing in non exploitative developer programs. Give back to them. Help them even get better. Help their voices to be heard. Very, very important.

Now shine light and provide opportunities on the local talents in these communities. Like I mentioned earlier, hiring from these regions is very, very important because that way, you are you are you are making sure that the local talents in these communities are giving the global stage to, you know, share another, share their ideas, and are also giving them a voice. So it's very, very important to shine light. That's reward your champions generally and provide opportunities on the local talent in these communities. Very, very important.

Next stop is hire these community members if you can. It's I know it's a hiring. It's a hassle when you have to do it internationally. I know how much of a hassle hiring is. But when you get the time to figure out how to do this, it's very, very important to hire these community members because that way you've made them a part of you.

You've given them a voice. Very, very important because these communities are small and or head of. They are untapped. So doing all of these will say, oh, okay. When you when you when company a hires from a particular part of Africa and they see how well they do generally, how well they are, how good they are, and they begin to talk about it on maybe various platforms.

Other companies will try to emulate because, I mean, everybody wants to win the talent war. Yeah? Everybody wants to do that. So it's very important. That way, you are giving more visibility to that region.

You're giving more visibility to the talents in those regions. Very, very important. Now speak their language. Now what do I mean by speak their language? I'm not talking about learning how to speak Swahili, which is like a language here in Africa, or learning how to speak Yoruba, which is a also a local language in Africa, specifically Nigeria.

I'm saying that you should understand how these people what excites them, what this in this community members in this region, what excites them, what gets them going, and try to do the same thing. That's what I mean by speaking their language. It's very, very important to be this this creates a sense of connection, a sense of trust and empathy between you and the these communities and these regions. Very, very important. Now while I've I've given tips on on on how to approach this, on how you can approach this region, so I just want to quickly to round up my talk, I want to give some key takeaways that have I've I've that I've experienced over the years, and I also want to share with every single person in this that's watching this talk.

Don't just throw financial resources everywhere. Plan and recognize where needs works. Very, very important. I know a lot of DevRel teams today have hundreds of thousand of dollars in marketing budgets to do whatever they want to try to create adoption for whatever product they are evangelizing for. It's nice, really great.

It's every dream of a dev world team to have enough budget to do whatever, execute every whatever idea they want to execute. But it's really important to understand that you cannot just throw your financial resources everywhere to be able to achieve your goal. It would feel woefully, and you would not be able to explain to upper management why you have not did not gotten any return on investment. So when you are pushing this region, do not just come with the idea that, okay, they lack financial resources. Let's do let's do courses here.

Let's do give swags here. Let's do let's sponsor events here. Even though these are nice things to do, you need to understand that you don't just do it all the time. Need to plan, strategize, and recognize what parts of this region needs what. Very, very important.

So because investments in dev rel programs take a lot of time to even to get fit to get feedback, to get any form of return on investments. Very it takes a lot of time. So Mhmm. Just keep yourself within your budgets, understand what needs what. So when time to explain to upper management, I'm pretty sure everybody that is developer relations person watching this talk knows why explains with upper management how our program is going is very, very important and how much of a stress it is.

So don't just show the financial resources there. Plan, recognize when it was. When it's time to explain, and it's easier for you to really be able to show where you are investing in and where you are not investing in. Very important. Now recognizing developer communities in smaller regions and paying attention to them is very important as it encourages diversity.

I mean, a lot of we've been talking so much a lot about diversity. It's very, very important. It's not just a buzzword that is going on in the tech industry. It's very, very important in every single aspect of the tech industry, even in developer relations. Recognizing developer communities, these smaller developer communities, giving them a voice, sponsoring them, paying attention to them is very, very important.

So they feel welcomed in various parts of the world and bigger regions. It's very, very important, which is why I'm really, really I'm really, really grateful and honored for to bring me on on this talk. It's very, to come and give this talk. I really, really appreciate the gesture. So so that's one thing.

Very, very important, diversity. The next thing is measure and gather metrics. Use those metrics to improve your DevRel process. This is not just for smaller regions, generally. This is just in my experience.

Yeah. Measure and gather metrics. Very, very important. Everybody, managers, upper management wants to see data. The data informs decisions.

So use those metrics, the data that you've gotten to improve your Deborah process when approaching these regions or when approaching any region or approaching any any problem generally. Data and metrics are very, very important. Now ask questions and get feedback from the community. So one thing I used to always tell DevRel teams that I'm, like, talking to general consulting for is always listen to the community. Very, very important to listen to the community because that way, you need to know what you are doing wrong and what you are doing right.

This would improve your process. So asking the right questions and getting feedback on the community makes it very, very makes your work much easier. And for in terms of the community members, it creates a a sense of trust because they believe that every single word matters. Every single person words matters. Very, very important.

And I've come to the end of my talk. Thank you so much for listening. I hope, like, you've been able to learn, like, a couple of things. And I also, of course, learned a lot preparing this talk. You can follow me on, like, Twitter if you have any extra questions at Koda underscore Black.

I also have a personal blog where I write a couple of technical things, shady.xyz. So thank you so much for coming to my talk, and have a nice day.