Episode

Open Communities With Andrew Zigler

Podcast: Arrested DevOps
Published: Feb 1, 2024
Duration seconds: 2099
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Canonical source: https://www.arresteddevops.com/open-communities/
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Summary

Building an 'open-first' developer community requires balancing enterprise roadmap priorities with transparent communication. Andrew Zigler explains how to maintain community trust even when certain product decisions must remain private.

Topics

Open Source
Developer Relations
Community Management
DevOps
Product Roadmap
Enterprise Software
Developer Advocacy
Transparency

Highlights

Main idea: 'Default open' does not mean total transparency; it means communicating clearly when certain decisions must stay behind closed doors
Failure mode: Treating Developer Relations as a siloed side project rather than embedding community engagement into the company's DNA
Practical takeaway: Actively bridge the visibility gap by bringing internal discussions from private channels like Slack or Discord into the public eye
Main idea: Successful enterprise growth should reciprocate community value by celebrating and supporting the contributors who drove product adoption
Practical takeaway: Combat community 'imposter syndrome' by actively recognizing and validating even small-scale community contributions

Chapters

3:30 Introduction to Open Source Advocacy: Andrew Zigler introduces his role as a developer advocate at Mattermost and the intersection of DevOps and open source.
6:00 The DevRel Counterbalance: Discussing how DevRel acts as a bridge between internal company alignment and external community perception.
13:40 Embedding Community in Company DNA: Why community engagement must extend beyond the DevRel team to include engineering, sales, and product stakeholders.
16:20 Navigating Enterprise Roadmaps: The tension between pursuing enterprise revenue and maintaining an open, predictable product roadmap.
18:50 The Ethics of Transparency: How to handle confidential enterprise requirements without losing the trust of the open-source community.
26:55 Solving the Visibility Gap: Addressing the problem of critical technical conversations happening in private silos away from community eyes.
32:15 Empowering Contributors: Strategies for encouraging community members to share their work and overcoming the feeling that their contributions don't matter.