Running effective developer champion programs

Speaker 1: Debrael gone deep dives. Yar.

Speaker 2: First off, I would love to have both of you introduce yourself and kind of let me know about what you're doing in this space and what you're most excited about this space about.

Speaker 3: Okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Ali Diamond. I am actually super excited about this panel because I well, first of two people that I absolutely love. And second of all, the reason why I'm in DevRel today is because I did a champion program with Cassie Williams, six or seven years ago now where I learned how to do DevRel.

And I it was literally called Clarify Champions. And so when Erin invited me to come on, I was like, literally, this is the reason why I'm here. I would be so happy to talk about what makes an effective champions program. Oh, also, could find me everywhere at ending with Allie. That's e n d I n g w I t h a l I.

Please follow me on Twitter if you want to see me post weird memes. Also, I use sheher pronouns because I think that's important to point out.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And sheher as well. Pachi, would love to have you introduce yourself and a little bit more about you.

Speaker 3: Hi.

Speaker 1: I'm Pachi. Sheher. I'm Brazilian, so I'm Brazilian now. I wish I could Ali to not long ago. So yes.

Love her. So I'm working in GitHub now as a developer devocate. And I am the first person in GitHub to focus on growing the Brazilian community. So that's something that I'm super excited about. And, yes, I'm GitHub now.

I'm working in GitHub stars as a great program. I'm a part of some others. While I was in New Relic, I started building a central program that didn't work because, no, we are doing too much stuff. And, yes, we don't work ourselves. So I'm super excited to be here with you all, and thank you so much for inviting me.

And for inviting Eileen, so I can be with Eileen.

Speaker 3: Literally, it's a

Speaker 2: big I know. It's it's so fun. I'm this is a fun group, fun things. And we get to talk about champions program, which is, like, one of my favorite things in this space that we get to do. And I always joke that one of my most favorite things to do in developer relations or community building is, like, you get to be the fun high five person.

Like, you get to help people be the best versions of themselves. Like Yeah. And it it I it makes it super exciting. But, when we think about specifically champions program, like, what if just kind of overview, what is the most crucial thing? Like, if you're willing to start a champions program before you even start, what is the one thing that you need to do?

Like, square one, square zero, square negative one.

Speaker 1: I guess it has to have it has to have the right people in mind. Like, who what does a champion look like? And what can you give what can you do for them? Like, sometimes champions are like, hey. This person wanna represent us, but, like, why would they do that?

Like, what can you what value can you offer to them? I mean, not on the swag. Swag is great.

Speaker 3: Okay. Swag.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Swag is cool. I love it.

Speaker 1: But yeah.

Speaker 2: Swag isn't a champions program. Like, we like, and I think we said a lot. Like, you get a cool t shirt, but cool. You're wearing a logo. You're getting a t shirt.

So what? Like, a champions program goes a lot further than just cool swag or a sticker. Like, what else came out in recent years? I've seen a lot of, like, temporary tattoos is becoming a new one that's starting to come out, which is another one. Ali, what would you start with?

Speaker 3: I would first start with understanding what's the what is your goal with creating the champions program? Because, for example, while I did a champions program for learning how to be a DevRel, is that necessarily like, what is the purpose of that? Like, I can understand why as a DevRel or as a DevRel wanting to create more DevRel's because you can get them to create interesting projects and go out and and apostolize, I think is the right word. Is that a word? Apostolize?

Evangelize. I don't like I don't know. I used to I I started back when the term dev developer evangelist was a thing, I'm like, I'm Jewish. So this is uncomfortable. Yeah.

So apostolize like, they had us go out and apostolize at hackathons and sort of create mini dev rels at hackathons? Like, is that what you're going for? Are you looking for people to create interesting products? Are you looking to create, like, a really dope core community who you can go and do testing with and get direct feedback on products? Like, what is your point of your champions program?

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think that's a good point because we've seen some champions programs. Like, there's a good sister act of, like, the relationship between champions programs and beta programs. Like, they're very there's two very similar programs. Yeah.

But they have two different functions. Like, for a beta program, you're likely to get that more experienced user of your product, someone who's in it every day. They're usually the person who, like, tries to break a lot of things. I'm an avid beta tester, and I'm always breaking all the things that my friends work on in our own app, so love it. But a champion is a kind of a different persona, some would say.

Or could they ever be the same? In y'all's opinion.

Speaker 3: I think I think that personally, if you have a strong rapport with a certain community and also your champions, like, when you're picking a champion, whether that is, like, someone who applies or someone that you handpick, they're going to be added users of your program. So I think that even giving them the chance to be a beta tester elevates that champion responsibility and elevates that expectation of what they do as a champion. You don't always have to expect them to be beta testers, but, like, it makes them feel special. The whole point of a champion program is to make

Speaker 1: those love. Mhmm. Yes. Yeah. Like, I agree.

What do we have, like, with the GitHub sponsors? We had to have, like, cows that they can show new features, they can go, they don't have to, but it's open for other stars. So now if you want to be into this new cool thing and we are doing, you're super welcome to give us feedback. But if you don't want to, you just want to be here, you know, so you can show off your cool secrets, that's cool too. So I like that.

That's there's a possibility. It's not mandatory. So for you to keep the status was a nice asset. Yeah.

Speaker 2: And I think there's a there's always the other fun thing because I think and this is something I've encountered at my last role was kind of a pain point at champions programs. And I think this is we're gonna start talking about the scary dark pain point stuff, and I think this is important to go over is DevRel and community, oftentimes, you're, like, interacting with other parts of your organization. And people are like, great. Let's start a champions program. And then it's like, of a sudden, you're like, woah.

This is an influencer program, and this is now a marketing thing, which is not what I wanted to do. And it is not achieving the goal that you wanted to achieve. How would you say a champions program can help your organization or, like, think about, you know, how it interacts with other parts of the organization internally? Like, maybe it is you know, works closer with marketing. Yeah.

Speaker 3: I think that one of the first things you can do to separate it from an influencer program is, in my opinion, giving education and and using and instead of instead of expecting your champions to highlight your work, you're highlighting your champions' work. Mhmm. Mhmm. So I I'll so education and highlighting their own work, not expecting and not only picking champions who are highly influential, which I know that there are some some champions programs, which I think the AWS community builders might require some sort of community growth in that aspect, but don't quote me on that. I have never looked into it before, but I think that it the term community builders probably mean something, which is why I'm saying that.

But continuing some sort of in some form of education and and uplifting your community members because they're not always gonna be highly impactful like, not excuse me. Highly community attached people, but instead are just doing cool things that need to be highlighted.

Speaker 1: Mhmm. Yeah. I think I'll go back to what Alice said in the very beginning. Like, what is your goal? Like, if you have your goal with this program really clear from the get go, so when you get to the point and if you see that it's, like, getting out getting the chores, hey.

Let's go back to this. Again, people don't have it's not because of the person who saw, you know, I have 10,000 followers on Twitter. But there's lot of people that do great work in the background of committee. Right? Like, for this event, for example, you're three with the beautiful faces, but Manuel is in the background.

He's doing a great job. Like, how many other people are there? And if you do know, you're there watching. You don't have, like, you don't have their names, don't have their faces, but they're doing an awesome job. So just keep it in the heart, like, what is this program goal?

And what do you want even if he's want you a number, it's gonna your pro pro to go far away. So have the influencers might make sense. You know? But if you really want to get to the people's hearts and have a bigger impact, So where do wanna go? Who you want to attend?

Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think that's a good a good point. And I I can't believe we I'm, like, going over here, and I I realized we dove really quick in the weeds without even addressing, like, what is a champions program in the first place? So I think, you know, and that's totally on me, but, like, how like, let's go over what is a champions program, what does it look like, what are the key tenets of it when you're getting started, and how do you get started? And, like, maybe maybe it's like, Ali, like, how did you I'd love to hear your story of, like, how you got involved in DevRel because of this.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I'm gonna actually pass off the to answering those series of questions to Pachi because Pachi's working on it. She has worked on it. And so I think that my perspective is a little different coming in from from doing champions programs, and Pachi's building champions programs. So I'm gonna let Pachi answer that, and then I'll come in and answer how I got involved.

Speaker 1: Okay. So champions programs. There are couple things. So, basically, Shapo program is a way that a company or a community can highlight people that are doing great job or people that are they make sense for what are you doing. Like, you know, for example, and they're gonna be using GitHub stars because they were doing.

So we are looking for people in Brazil that they're inspiring. So, you know, you wanna speak with your community. You speak with, like, when they talk and say, hey. I wanna be with your friends. But they are also, you know, technical, they have something to teach because our focus is developers.

So something that you can look up to. You can go no no one look up to, but you can go to for information education and the person that answer you. And the person that gonna care about you. And for us, no. What do you do?

This person is a star. They get a cool swag. They get insights on what are we doing. They get invited to speak and talk. But, again, that's what I write a lot.

So but in sum, a champion is somebody that you're gonna highlight. Somebody that's special and get with stickers and somebody that you should follow the friends with.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And I I think, like, to add one thing onto that, a champions program is really, like, someone you really want to it's a way of rewarding the people who have, grown with you or helped you grow to the community. I think in community, we do, like especially in open source, like, a lot of that work is done for free. No one's making a dollar. Yes.

And I personally I'm like, pay your people. Pay your people. Pay people. Pay fair wages. But, I think my biggest thing is, like, it's a way of acknowledging, and it's a way of providing the organization, especially when they're ran by companies.

It's a way of a win it's creating win win scenarios. Like, it's a way for the company to learn a lot about their early users. And also, it's a way of thanking those who helped you get to where you are today. And so you see that mutual growth happening, which is very much a great segue into how Allie is here today. She's now a DevRel folk, and she's killing it, but all because of a champions program.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay. So my champions journey starts off with I mean, it's literally like my career journey. How did Ali get into DevRel? Many moons ago, Cassidy Williams posted an article about how to do the cold email, and I had already seen her align at hackathons and things like that, killing the game.

And so I sent her a cold email being like, I just read your cold email article. I'm gonna be in New York. This is when she was living in New York. I'm gonna be in New York. I would love to meet with you.

I talk with her. She gets to know me. I get to know her, and I'm like, I'm gonna continue following what you're doing because I think what your job is doing is really cool. I always knew that DevRel was a really interesting opportunity for me because I love talking, interacting, and being in developer communities, But, also, it's a really cool way to do, like, rapid prototyping, getting to build things really quickly. They don't have to be perfect, but then at the same time, like, they get seen by lots of people.

There's just so many cool benefits to being in DevRel. And so when I saw that she was doing this Clarify Champions, I think they had done it, like, once or twice prior to me to prior to mine, but don't quote me on that. I applied. I didn't realize how many people were gonna apply. I think, like, a couple 100 applied and only, like, 20 people got in.

And the entire pro the program took place from, like, September to December, where once a month, we had lectures with the Clarify team, the Clarify DevRel team, where they sort of walked us through, like, what it means to be an effective DevRel, whether that's, like, how to give good talks, how to write good blog posts, like, how to go out and build demos, things like that. And then we would tap we had the Slack group where we all sat and we talked about what we were working on. And then we'd, like, have monthly, like, op or weekly office hours where we could get together and talk if we wanted to. And it's actually really interesting because now some of my closest friends in the DevRel space are through that program, like Prince Wilson, Nick Walsh, like, so many people, like, that I realized now are absolutely killing oh, Lizzie Siegel. Like, all these people who are absolutely killing the DevRel game came from this program, which is so crazy, like, that I think about.

And I'm like, oh, I think I did my program with that. And so I did this program. And, honestly, when I was going out and looking for DevRel roles, companies were like, you actually did this program that taught you this championship program that taught you how to do DevRel, taught you how to use our product. Like, this is really helpful for us because we're looking to start a DevRel program, whether it's champion or not. They were just looking to start DevRel.

I'm like, I have this experience. Here you go. And they're like, let's go. So that's kind of what happened.

Speaker 2: Well, and I think, in the kind of core, we think about DevRel or community as a function. I love this story because it's a way of kind of really getting your users building with your product, your maintainers involved, your and leveling up skills from everybody. Like, you like, when you do a champions program effectively, you level up the collective skills of the community, of your contributors, of your volunteers, of your organization, even the people working with it. Like, I can think of our kind of our core or do we call them, like, satellites. I can think of our core satellite folks, and we're, like, really thinking about how they approach what we're doing when the things that they make, which is, like, always and that's my exciting thing.

I'm like, what did you make this week? This is the coolest thing to learn about. Alright. We gotta go to the dark side. But, like, is there any pitfalls that can happen?

Like, when do we see champions programs kind of go wrong or go rogue?

Speaker 3: First and foremost, when you're whenever you're starting any program, no matter whether it's starting a community Slack, a champions program, anything that involves people outside of your job, please, like, in your first five things you publish about this, publish a code of conduct. Publish a code of conduct because it is so important to have a way in order to protect your community from day one where they are very aware of, like, for example, the steps and what is good, what is bad, and what are the steps that are taken in order to reprimand that. So there is no confusion as to why maybe an issue. I think that's, in my opinion, super important and that's a way that that champion programs can fall apart is allowing bad actors and not having the right way to resolve those issues.

Speaker 1: Yes. I would really really like that. It's not an option to a call that will say, hey. This is not cool. You have to say, hey.

This is what is gonna happen if you do that. Because you say, hey. Okay. Don't be a bad person. That is no.

Okay. And what I'm gonna do that, but nobody gonna keep me accountable. So really have accountability for that, and it's somebody that's something that doesn't agree to community. You just you're gonna get up, and that's not

Speaker 3: not right now. I think what really makes an effective code of conduct is, again, like, outlining what the steps are. Like, what is strike one? What is strike two? What happens in strike two?

What happens in strike three? And, like, what are the, like, eight cases where you can supersede the code of conduct? Like, how extreme? And and allowing, like, community discretion to be able to and having a way for community members to easily report issues anonymously or non anonymously and or and take them seriously every time.

Speaker 2: Mhmm. I think the, like, I always like, I love these, like, important on that safety is, like, in all of these community things. Anytime you're working with people, safety and everything is, like, first and foremost, a super big priority. You can't do if no one feels safe to be who they are, you can't create anything. But I think the other thing I my two rules is I've started adding, what do you what are we what do you what do we do and what do we don't do in a program?

So this program is for x y z. It's for people who love the product, people who love making tutorials about the product, people who like x y z beta testing. And this program is not for an interview process. It's not for us to play favorites. It's not for and clearly, like, things like compensation of, like, if you are compensating someone, make it public.

I think that's a fair fair statement. And the last one is, I learned a really good trick of and I don't remember who I picked this up from, but it was a this server or this community is not subject to your definition of fairness. And that's one that I kinda have in your back pocket because it's a hey. I don't like, you're on our turf, and for the sake of our community, we this is why it's not allowed. And it obviously, that is a very sparingly used rule and very subjective, but it's kind of a we're not doing that here.

That's okay. If you think that this is something else, what we need to do. And I think that's an important one when we think of champions programs. And I'm curious to get y'all's takes of, like, the expectations from a community member. So I've seen champions program that require a lot of, like, you have to publish five pieces of content a week.

You have to you know? Or, like not a week. That's a lot. I'm like, I don't even do that now.

Speaker 3: That's why you said that. I'm like, that's a full time job. Pay them.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, a tutorial quarter or make a feedback. Like, give feedback without a recent time standard. But what are the like, what differentiates a champions program from a full time content creators? Guess this

Speaker 1: is just being official. Like, you don't have to hey. You have to create one article a month. No. Hey.

We have space for that. Like, we have space in this conference, and we'd love for you to give a talk if you want. Or, like, you know, we're releasing this new feature and, you know, make sense with your job. So we'd like to write an article for that. So being a patient of hey.

If you do that, you're gonna highlight your order. You're gonna put your name over there, but you don't have to. And I think that's what makes the difference. Yeah. I

Speaker 3: think I think also to sort of build on that, like, the people that are you're putting into your championships programs are already either one, doing that or two, want to do that. Mhmm. And so you're giving them the space for your company to promote that content, but you're not, like, obviously, having some sort of expectation of of deliverables in a way. And I I don't like saying that because it does sound like a job, there needs to be some sort of criteria to continue to remain involved in a championship program. You can't just pick to be a part of it and then do nothing.

I think that that's a little unfair because there are other people who are really also very qualified, and there's only so many spots in a in a champion program. What are you doing as a champion? Unless, like, your champion program is just you're a champion. Here's some stickers. Like, if you want a really involved champion program, it's super important that you're working with your community.

And also having leniency and grace when it comes to your community members. Say they don't deliver one one quarter. Like, talk to them. Be like, hey. Like, you didn't do this.

What's wrong? Is everything okay? How can our team support you? Yeah. You didn't get this one deliverable done but done, but, like, is there something wrong?

Like, is this is there like, we're very lenient and understanding. Say there's, a family crisis. Like, fine. Like, that's a very lenient and understanding of reasonable thing to not have a thing. But if it's just like, I didn't feel like doing it, then it's like, hey.

Like, do you wanna continue being in this champion program? If not, like, we're happy to part ways with you. Like, we'd love to continue to have you be a part of our community. Like, things like that.

Speaker 2: I think it's a bring up this idea of, like, seasonality. Right? Like, where you do, like I I don't like the word cohorts, but, like, it's kind of almost like a cohort. Like, it's like, here's a cohort of, you know, people in this year or your season or semester, like, fall twenty twenty. Mhmm.

But it's kind of this idea of, like, having them in and like, allowing for the opt out if you want that. And I think that's such an important thing of, like, hey. If you're over this and you no longer wanna be here, how do you get the heck out of the champions program?

Speaker 3: But Just leave the Discord. I'm out. Bye. Yeah. Bye.

Irish goodbye to Discord.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Donate your donate the shirts to Goodwill. Like, that's the that's like a wow. We're really done in tech for just donating their t shirts to Goodwill. That's I on that note, Pachi, I know you're starting a new program up right now, and it's like, I'm very excited to, like, watch you build this.

This is, like, very dirty. I'm gonna fangirl here for a second because I'm very excited about the bilingual nature of, like, building programs globally. And, like, how can we better be more inclusive? Or this is, like, opening it up to, like, getting into inclusivity inclusivity in your champion program. Like, how do we make sure that we're creating a fair playing field, an equitable playing field?

Speaker 1: It's hard. Like, you had to have people local. That's not all the way around. Like, for GitHub, it's a global you can see the numbers right now for people that speaking English versus Portuguese and Spanish. It's huge.

Like, I think you have 32 stars, English speakers. We have eight speak Portuguese and two that speak Spanish. And but why? Because we want quality people. Right?

So if you don't know the Brazilian community, how do you know that this person is gonna be a really good fit and they wouldn't rely much for that? So you can do just so much if you don't have somebody that's local. And I mean, that's why I got hired, and that's what I'm working on. So they have the base of the program here already. So what I'm gonna be doing is to take you to the next level.

Like, person that is nominated, I'm gonna go down and say, hey, this person's cool, but why? Does it make did it make sense? There are people there, like, they may be, like, super cool and, like, even famous in the program in the community. But are they a good fit? Right?

Because, you know, people on Twitter, they are great, but the the message, the things that they say are really cool. Like, you know, what is the chance of this person in six months say something not awesome on Twitter? And if they do and they are a star, how are gonna react to that? So last last year last year, we had somebody that was very famous in the international community, and she was actually a very toxic person. And that and she was a MVP.

She was I think she was a d a GDE. So she had that loss of literal trophies. So and that was really nice to see how quickly every doctor. Hey, would you know that she was like that? And she was actually no.

She she's just, like, really lots of

Speaker 3: people I remember that happening on Twitter. I remember that.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Coming out and how fast communities were to react. That was really big.

Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah. And so it's really I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: Oh, go ahead. Go ahead.

Speaker 1: No. I'm just going to finish that. And also we have have somebody local. You cannot that that is not gonna sound awesome, but you know the local gossip that is important when you bring people onto your brand and to your community.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Be honest. Be transparent with your brand. Know what you stand for and know what your brand stands for. I'm a big I'm a big, big fan of y'all, for those of you who are new or meeting me for the first time, I have a journalism background.

I have an ethics journalism background. So it's very did not did not come through a champions program. I kinda fell into the community world. But, you know, from the journalism world, I'm a big believer in publishing, like, this is what we're doing. This is what you as an individual are doing.

But it's okay to, like, run a reference check. If you are looking for a very like, a speaker, you know, if those larger opportunities, it's okay to ask around. That's totally normal. And it is also okay give the benefit of the doubt, especially when we're thinking global and we're thinking, you never know. Different cultures act different ways.

And, you know, I always take the the attitude of you if someone saw you on your worst day, would you want that to be a judge of your character? Like, give a warning, slide in the DMs, give a obviously, there's some things like you gotta be real. Like, there's some no tolerance stuff. But Mhmm. Ask a question and just kinda do the, yo.

You good? And then we can we can we can deescalate of, like, the after we've gone, you good? We can deescalate to the, yeah. That can't fly here, and we're not doing that. And if you do this, again, consequences.

But, and, Patria, like, one of things I love you mentioned is that locality, especially in Brazil because you do have Spanish and Portuguese speaking. You know, you it's really important to making sure, like, the local area is represented. And it, like, it doesn't help to like, if I were to fly to Brazil and be like, I would be a terrible champions program for Brazil because they'd be like, what? No. Like, it doesn't make sense to transplant someone in, hire, like, locally from the community.

I

Speaker 3: think also something special about community champions programs is the fact that you can do sort of local. Like, not all companies have the opportunity to do what GitHub is doing with Pachi, which is, like, so massive, especially Brazil being such an up and coming country in in in with Pachi there now. I think that Pachi is really gonna flip the switch. I'm so excited for her. But, like, even the smaller countries, like, if you find one champion there and you can give them the proper support that they need, they can, like, almost operate on their own in a way, and you can support them to host events and really find local developers who can even represent.

And, like, you know, that might turn into what it like, some sort of part time employment, giving them money in order to help run a more effective local Mhmm. Community program, giving them like, flying out and giving them support to help run local events for your product, which is super cool. I think a lot of people like, I've heard, like, there's a lot of companies who do that. And just being, like, super inclusive because having like, there is more to the developer community beyond the English speaking communities. And Yeah.

I think that's super important that, like, a lot of companies don't think about. And so, like, whenever like, I I think what was super cool back when I was at New Relic was, like, I literally went to the to the the Barcelona office, and I was, like, speaking to everyone there because I just wanted to, like, talk to developers who were there and, like, meet the the teams in different countries because, like, you don't really think about that a lot. And so community programs are really great ways to effectively globalize your product and also get them involved.

Speaker 1: Yes.

Speaker 2: I yes. I I love that. And internal companies, like, encourage native language speaking in the workplace. Like, I we have a a a large number of folks at Orbit who speak French. And we actually have a if you need help in English as your second language and you need help learning English, we have a learn English channel.

And then we have a learn French channel. So I've been trying to learn French, and it's been kind of cool to even just, like, see that and embrace that. But the world's global, y'all. Like, the Internet is no bounds. We need to embrace multiple languages.

And this kind of, like, brings up to a thing that I see as a kind of a personal pet peeve of mine is, like, when you always see the same five people at a program, and you're, like, cool. Great. Ask and, like, my the tip that I got from someone else, but I'm also curious to hear if you all have any tips, is ask someone new to the community who they look up to. It's like the it's like how do you bring someone new to the community, see who they look up to, and like ask them like what blogs do they read? What newsletters do they subscribe to.

What's a funny even what funny Twitter accounts do you follow? Because then you can get to know their sense of humor. And so love, what are your Tiz's tips?

Speaker 3: So I don't know if this is my toxic trait or whatever, but if I'm starting a new job, I literally won't look at anything. Like, I will not look at anything until my first day. Like, I'll do enough to, like, be able to get the job, but then I won't do anything until I get there. And then the second I get there, I'm like, what can I do as a new user to make this even better? And I feel like like talking to your new community members is a great way to do that.

Ask them. Because, like, more diverse people are joining every day. And And if you're going to the same five people, of course, it's gonna be the same five people. Like, oh, I have so many feelings about this. I'm not gonna go into my rant.

I'm not gonna because my rant is not about communities about venture capital. I'm not gonna rant about it. But please please just talk to your new community members. I promise they're there, and they wanna talk to you, and they'll make them feel like honestly, something as simple as, like, hey. Welcome to the community.

I saw that you're new here. I saw that you're new to the product. I would love to ask you some questions, like, as a new user because that is the most valuable feedback that you can get. Because your company is consistently trying to onboard new people onto your product. Why are you not talking to them trying to make that aspect better?

You can curate and define your deep like, your deeper use cases more and more later down the line, but, like, you should consistently be talking to your New Year's. Sorry.

Speaker 1: Deprived. I forgot what's the question.

Speaker 2: How do we make sure we're not adding, like, the same five people in champions program? I say five, like, very, like that's a very general number I threw up there.

Speaker 1: I mean, I gotta tell those stories that we are very Twitter people. So how how you're following Twitter? Like, just really look at the speech book. Okay. They're all white men.

So I go to the people that are not white men, and I see who they are following and why they follow them. So, like, I have a great example. So I am co founder of a community of women and women in tech. And the number of trans women in the community is growing so much because of the first trans person that was there, and she just felt welcome, and she's at home, and she just keep picking on people. So I guess, like, right now, 30% of the women in community are trans.

And because you just watch out. Say, hey, who are following? Why are they following these people? Who who are they listening to? So every time that it goes to the person of minority diversity group, and they tend to follow people from their groups.

And they tend to follow good content. So it's just really check out your follower list on Twitter. Really go to that. Once a month, we had to see who you're following, where you're following them, because everything that you consult on Twitter is I know you spend a lot of time there. Okay?

So if you're following good people, you're gonna consult great content. If you're following, like, questionable people, the things that go to your brain are not awesome.

Speaker 2: Also, I love that. I love that so much. And, like, even just, like, that emphasis on making your early users feel welcome and included and, like, that's why you have a diverse champions program so you're always meeting someone new. I always love like, on my list of questions, it's like, like, who do you like? What do you do?

Who inspires you? It's always another one that I love to ask. And instead of, like, relying on the Twitter natural, like, algorithm, I use TweetDeck a lot to, like, find new people, or we'll have people share. Is, like, the other tip that I, like, love to use. But I think these are all really great.

Making people feel welcome from the start, making feel people feel included. How do you get buy in internally for a champions program? I think this is another problem. Like, all of us here and many of the folks listening in at the developerrelations.com event in DebraCon, it's great. But, like, when you're turning around and you gotta go report those numbers and I'm very fortunate now.

I work at a community company who gets it. But if I had to flash back to older jobs, I'm like, oh, here's some here's some horror stories in my past. I gotta think about reporting numbers.

Speaker 3: That's a little different difficult. I mean, I think most important is understanding, like, what is your company looking to do right now? Is your company looking to, like, bring on more high quality engineers using your product? Then a champions program is a great way to do that. But if that's not, like, obviously, growth in different ways growth companies have growth measured in different ways and what they're looking for.

But, like, it might not be the time. Like, honestly, you might wanna start a a champions program. But, like, especially with Deborah, what's most important is that you're consistently aligning what you're working on with what the company is going towards instead of operating solo. Because if you're because if you go off and do your own thing, the company's not gonna understand what value you're adding to the current metrics to the current goals. So figuring out what is that part of your current goals.

Mhmm.

Speaker 1: Yes. And if we're gonna start the program without the full support, it's gonna fail, and then we're gonna try that again. So, like, that's why the program that we start playing around, like, we didn't really ship that because that wasn't the right time. So I could have shipped that, and then it'll be dead, and I could be dead. School on my closet that I'll be shamed up.

So it's better to hold off until people are really understanding the value of that, and they can really show that. Then it starts something that gonna, one, not be great or second, like, die in six months.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think that's a really good point. I'm a big fan, like, you know, to both of those points. Like, a, touching on Ali what you said, like, if, like, that those regular check-in cadences of, like, are we aligned? Are we doing the right thing?

And the that goes both ways. I think in community endeavor, we have weird roles because not only do we have to be our external community managers sometimes because of the way that our roles are, you have to be the internal community manager as well just because community kind of sits at the intersection of, like, the rest of the company. And so you're you kind of are the person who knows everything that's going on internally as well. So it's a lot of juggling a lot of messages, I think. I I was messaging Ali earlier, and it was like, what one of the 17,000 platforms am I messaging you on?

And we're just replying to a different platform. Like and I think I've done the same with you, Patio. I'm like, I'm just gonna send it on a different platform and just excuse the platforms. But I think, like, the the next one is, like, from a metrics perspective. I the one an interesting one that I have been using, and I'm, like, curious of, like, if you have any, like, numbers metrics, is number of content pieces that have been created by a, like, member of, like, a champions program over a period of time or number of mentions.

So you can do mentions. And then the other one is the number of people, like, what percentage of my champions program are paid at the start of one period, like, are paying for a product at the start of one period and at the end of a period? So if it was, a four month period, at the start, not all of them are paid, but, like, what if can you show that you possibly helped contribute to that upgrading to a paid account or reduce the number of support tickets? And I think those are kind of some interesting I'm like a fan of, like, the the goofy metrics of kind of trying to figure out so what. But

Speaker 1: yeah.

Speaker 3: What's the question?

Speaker 2: I do you have any numbers metrics? Sorry. I was, like, getting excited about my goofy metrics. I'm thinking about that through. Apologies.

Metrics. I like my numbers.

Speaker 3: I mean, I love numbers too. And I'll say there's something that you said earlier is, like, checking in on on your community members when they're having bad days or they're not doing something right is, like, I follow a very scientific method. If something happens once, that's not a that's not a that's not a valid scientific experiment. But if it happens multiple times, then that's a valid repeatable experiment. So maybe so, obviously, Pachi has more experience this with this.

So maybe that's something that Pachi could talk more about, though.

Speaker 1: I inaugurated numbers. The the great thing is, like, I have people to do the numbers for me and, like, that. I'm a very chilling person. Like, I get the feel for things and has a really good good community. You can't do that.

You can feel the vibe of people, especially especially with, like I say, with the program. Like, I'm doing this thing. Is this person great for your program or they're not? Why? Why not?

Sometimes person's awesome. They just know your vibe, and that's important. So Sorry to have big numbers for you all.

Speaker 2: That's okay.

Speaker 3: You should

Speaker 1: you should like numbers as well. But Yeah.

Speaker 2: And I think it takes all types. Right? Like, I'm a I my my community confession is always the I am not an ops person. Ops is not my strength. Ops is is not my jam.

Do not make me do ops, especially of, like, event planning ops. I'm like, oh, this is not my no. I but the very much, like, product feedback and is a very big, like, exciting thing about champions programs and, like, getting that stuff. So moving forward, where do we see the evolution of champions programs? And I'm going to say some potentially controversial things because I heard, I was prepping for this talk.

I had folks curious about NFTs and providing value to champions programs. I I saw the reaction happening. I figured I'd throw it out there. And the other question I have is if you're listening in right now, feel free to drop a question in the Discord, and we will raise it up here. But Web three, this a thing?

Is this not a thing? How much do we need to pay attention to it?

Speaker 1: Not everything. Said another thing.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Not yeah. I was the one who on at at back at New Relic, and now even I'm still the one that's talking about web three. I'm very deeply ingrained in the community by accident. I am part of the web three diaspora on Twitter.

But I think that not everything needs to be an NFT. Not everything needs to have Ethereum behind it. Not everything needs to have Solana behind it. Not everything needs to have some sort of tokenization behind it. You could do something like pope pope, however you pronounce it, p o a p, like proving that you were at, like, events and things like that.

Just like but is it necessary? Like, ask yourself, is that really necessary? Maybe, like, for you could use collab land to to gate your Discords with people who have the NFTs. But, again, like, is that necessary? Do you need that?

Mhmm. Like, if your company is fully based off of Discord, having an NFT to to to token gate some of your channels might be a good idea for your for your edit for your for your champion holders. But my question is, what happens when someone leaves? What do

Speaker 1: you do?

Speaker 3: You can't take that NFT back.

Speaker 2: My my take my conclusion is

Speaker 3: Is it you don't need Don't stress

Speaker 2: Don't. Don't stress about

Speaker 3: It's not needed. A It's gimmick at some point. Sorry. I just, like I don't know. Like, if if you're a web three company, using something like collab land to token gate certain channels for a champion program would make a lot of sense.

But, like, if you're a Web two company, like, is it really necessary?

Speaker 2: Probably not. I don't even think, like, some of the things that I don't even know if it's relevant for a Web three. I'm not a Web three person, so I probably shouldn't. But the the core, like, message of it is, like, no. TLDR, people come first.

Highlight the important trying to recap this all in a sentence. We've got about five minutes left here. TLDR, the too long didn't read is champions programs are gonna be happening. We'll be seeing them in the future. They're not going anywhere.

You know, make sure that it's optional. Make sure that you're treating people with kindness and building inclusive environments. Anything I miss for the future of the world of champions programs?

Speaker 1: Hire people local.

Speaker 2: Hire hire local people. Don't, like

Speaker 3: Or pay local talent.

Speaker 2: Pay local talent. The other one is don't imp like, don't import talent in is another big one. What else did we go over? I'm like, wow. We went over a lot of stuff today.

I hope this was helpful for y'all listening in.

Speaker 3: Also, championship programs makes friends for life. Straight up. Some of my best friends are from are from Cassidy's championship program. Like and I still talk to them on a regular basis. So just know that, like, what you're doing is more like is community building to a tee.

Speaker 2: It really is. I mean, Pachi and I originally crossed paths on the Internet, like, years ago in the e comm world, which is so great. Yeah. Like, I really started to yeah. And then, like, totally different industries.

So and there's people that I've been very fortunate to be in champions programs or beta programs. They also follow you too, which is cool. So if you're building a successful champions program, there are folks that I've known for years from different roles or careers. So make like, champions programs, let's rename them to rename them to friendship programs. Friendship programs.

Like, maybe not friends. Priorities.

Speaker 3: No. I'm kidding.

Speaker 1: Yeah. No.

Speaker 2: But Like, any other I see a speaker question in the little Discord chat. We got I'm like I'm like, obvious. Yeah. Kat, all the the the the the crowd has spoken. Leave the NFTs to not this.

I I think I would tend to agree to, like, all of that. You don't need an

Speaker 3: If you're gonna do something web three related, make sure that you have community buy in because there it is a highly divisive piece of technology. And so you need to be sure that what you're doing isn't going to estrange a lot of your community. So just be careful with that. And and so as as Caitlin says in in the chat, web three is for web three. Web two, stick to web two.

Speaker 2: Well, I also think that and this goes beyond web two, web three, web 1,000,000. Understand why you're doing something. Yes. Understand your intention. And do not feel pressured to go to the trend.

So if you do not have the resources at your internal company to start this is my pet peeve in the community space in demo space. Gas. Like yeah. It's like, do you need a community? And then it's like, my first response is, are you prepared to support a community?

Oh, if you're not, then we probably like, let's go back to the drawing board. Probably not not worth having at this current moment. But, again, understand why you're working on something. Understand what you're doing. Higher level, higher level of on it.

Speaker 3: Set it and forget it. It is a consistent investment that you and your team must be ready to make. And you it's shutting down a community is a big deal. So you need to be prepared to invest in that from day one and continue to invest in it on a daily basis.

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 2: And the champions program is work on top of the community. On, like, extra work. It's both it's it's extra stuff. So

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Again, be kind, be inclusive, don't be afraid of doing the work. It does have a lot of really great results and can have a lot of great results. But if you don't do it right, it's gonna bite you in the butt more than just a regular program. But k. Three minutes three minutes left on here.

Where can we find you if people are, like, wanting to hang out and learn more about what you're up to and stay in touch with y'all?

Speaker 1: Twitter. I'm always on Twitter. I have too often on Twitter.

Speaker 3: I am addicted to social media. I am at ending with Allie on everything including Minecraft. So if you wanna play Minecraft with me. But I livestream on a regular basis, live.allie.dev. That's live.ali.dev.

And then you can find me everywhere at endingwithali. Short and simple to the point and consistent across all her.

Speaker 1: And she's really awesome Minecraft. Let me tell you. She really plays the hardcore role.

Speaker 3: Yeah. I'd say every time we played Minecraft at New Relic, I was the only one who was like, there are zombies. Like, I got this.

Speaker 1: Yeah. She was like

Speaker 2: I now wanna play Minecraft two.

Speaker 3: Please. Like I would love to.

Speaker 2: Pachi, where can we find you out online and plug all those cool things here?

Speaker 1: Yeah. So Pachi Codes, I cannot spell, like, Ali, like, seriously. I would I would get lost.

Speaker 3: C h I c o d e s. Pachi Codes.

Speaker 1: Yeah. What I should say? So yeah. Like, I am of whoever, but Twitter is the place where he can transfer because if I see a notification on Twitter, I have to click on it. So, yes, DM me.

I gotta answer super fast, clearly.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes? No. Pachi is great about answering DMs. I am actually terrible at my Twitter DMs.

So someone invent a better tool for that or Twitter. Please listen into that.

Speaker 1: But thank you so much. Anxiety.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Let me know if anybody has any questions, and it was so good. Thank you both for joining today. This was super fun, and I'm glad we got this, like, stream together.

So

Speaker 1: Yeah. Gone deep dives. Yar.