Scaling your developer program

Editor's Notes

• #4: Eclipse is a large successful open source community that has scaled to many millions of developers.
• #5: Eclipse is a large community but the staff and resource available to the Eclipse Foundation is smallWe really don’t scale to the size.We had to look for different ways to scale.
• #6: The way you scale is to enable Developer to Developer marketing.How do you get your community to do the marketing and evangelism?
• #7: 80% developers report that code in their personal timeWhy do they do this?To learn?How can you tap into this desire to learn.
• #8: Developers are passionate. If they love you they will tell others.If they don’t love you they will tell others.
• #9: Google is your friend40%+ of our web site traffic comes from Google search.Content feeds GoogleContent also feeds Social MediaContent also first step to learning
• #10: How hard is it for a developer to learn your technology?Remember developers are learning on their OWN time. It has to be easy.
• #11: Developers learn by doing. You need to have a download.No download, no scaling your developer program.
• #12: Registration pages are a barrier!Most developers will have an e-mail account for sign-ups. They don’t read your follow-up e-mails.
• #13: Call a sales reps or sign a contract is a huge barrier! Huge?Some vendors stil can’t quote a price without talking to a sales rep.Remember, developers are doing this on their personal time. It might be in the evening.
• #15: Once download how easy is it to get going.What else needs to be downloaded?Tutorials, examples, getting started are important.Content is king!!
• #16: Developers want to communicate with each other.They don’t expect to just talk with a vendor.
• #17: There is no one channel. Developers will use the channel of their preference. You need to be aware of them all.Stackoverflow is huge referral of traffic to eclipse.org. We have never formalized it as a channel for Eclipse support.
• #18: Early adopters are the developers that will hit your barriers first. Make it easy for them.Quick responsesPromote their contentAcknowledge their achievements
• #19: Leader needs to be a developer or technical person to gain credibilityDevelopers will want to follow the passion of the leaderLeader can set the tone and culture
• #20: Vendors tend to want to control too much. Control the message.Control what gets built.
• #21: Lots of people influencing this control. A lot is based on fear.
• #26: If no one is saying bad things, do you have a bigger problem. Is anyone using your technology. Are you relevant?
• #27: Vendor needs to be part of the community.Open source thrives on openness and transparencyFor vendors, think about open bug tracking databases, publish project plans, developers responding to support questions.Encourage participation, encourage interaction
• #28: Marketing should be a service to communityDon’t organize meetups, provide services to have the community organize meetupsSponsor community eventsSponsor community web sites