We all have an opinion on what community means. To some, it will conjure up images of local towns, white picket fences, a neighborhood store, a place where everybody knows everybody, all looking out for each other. To many in devrel and developer marketing, it means something entirely different: individuals connected through the web who may have never met IRL, working together with the same technologies, often on different projects and in entirely different countries. However, proximity may be where the differences between communities end.
These two versions of a community share the same principles. A group of people who are looking out for each other and ensuring the ongoing development and progression of the group as a whole while sharing the same goals, interests, and attitudes. In a true community, it’s impossible to separate the pieces from the whole as each is symbiotic to the other.
In our developer community roles today amid the ongoing global pandemic, we will certainly be doing less face to face events and direct community engagement, but that doesn’t mean the work stops or the community goes away. Instead, it evolves. The community and all of its pieces have a continued responsibility to look out for each other. Whether your role is a devrel leader, an advocate, influencer, community manager, or an individual contributor, your community will need you over the coming weeks.
Catchy has always stayed on the developer marketing side of the fence. We appreciate and support the work our devrel friends do, but we also understand that what we do is different. However, in a way, we’re also a small community after the same ultimate goals: happy developers, building great things, and using fantastic tools for the good of everyone. It’s unlikely developer marketing could survive without devrel and we believe the reverse is true as well. We all depend on each other, like a community.
Challenging times lay ahead for all of us. We hope to be part of helping our little bit of the world get through it. Any friends of Catchy, old or new, that need to talk through their situation, even just for a chat, feel free to get in touch. We’re in this together.