Events have always been a central aspect of DevRel strategies—in fact, in 2019, only 17% of DevRel programs didn't run events. As a cornerstone of DevRel programs, events have traditionally served as the most popular channel for developer outreach.

But 2020 has seen a different and unique set of challenges that have brought in-person events to a halt. This has meant that those working in DevRel have had to make the shift from in-person events to virtual events—a change that's been difficult for many since it has required a massive adjustment to a long-held strategic approach to developer networking, outreach and relationship building.

So how do DevRel teams successfully make this adjustment without losing the value that in-person events deliver to the developers and to the brand? This is a question that was recently tackled in our 2020 Vanilla Conversations Virtual Conference by three DevRel experts: Mary Thengvall, Jessica West and Tessa Kriesel.

I’m a people pleaser, a helper, and a fixer. I always have been! When I was little, my dolls used to get upset with me when I played with one of them more than the others, so I made up a rotation schedule to ensure that I played with all of them equally. When my favorite teddy bear had to get a “bath” in the washing machine, I made my mom open the lid of the washer to prove to me that Stephy was simply swimming and hadn’t drowned in the water because I wanted to make sure she was okay. I was a very imaginative child with a big heart and a desire to help everyone around me.

“What actually is Developer Relations?” is a question that I see almost every week as I’m compiling tweets and articles for DevRel Weekly. The confusion doesn’t stem from the fact that it’s never been defined (narrator: “It has!”), but rather from the fact that if you ask 10 different people in the tech industry for a definition of Developer Relations, you’re likely to get 12 different answers.

In this fourth and final post in our series about encouraging developer community collaboration, we’ll take a look at how some established and newer developer communities including Slack, Shopify, Atlassian and Stoplight fostered collaboration from the earliest stages of their developer community.

Managing your own developer community spaces is enough of a challenge, so how do some of the most successful platform companies approach developer magnets like Stack Overflow and Reddit, and how do they decide whether or not to join in or let developers collaborate on their own in these spaces?