The document outlines seven guiding principles for developer engagement and four tips for getting started. The seven principles are: 1) Participation 2) Transparency and authenticity 3) Accessibility 4) Inclusion 5) Coordination 6) Understanding 7) Incorporation. The four tips for getting started are: 1) Build a team 2) Prioritize initial offerings 3) Listen to the community to set direction 4) Measure engagement metrics. The overall goal is to use these principles and tips to bootstrap a developer program and enable a self-sustaining ecosystem.

1. The Seven Guiding Principles
for Developer Engagement
(+ 4 tips for getting started)
Open Source Summit
September 28, 2021
Barton George
@barton808

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Abstract
The Seven Guiding Principles for
Developer Engagement
(+ 4 tips for getting started)
In 2013, Stephen O’Grady published his treatise “The New
Kingmakers, How Developers Conquered the World.” After
laying out the rise of the developer, O’Grady ended with the
warning: “Businesses needed to build and execute a strategy
for attracting and engaging developers.”
The rise of developer influence didn’t plateau in 2013 and in
fact the pace has only quickened in the last 8 years. If this is
the case, how do businesses who have had little to no
developer experience engage this powerful constituency?
Barton will walk you through a set of seven principles that will
serve as a compass to guide organizations with limited
community experience. These principles will provide a
framework to attract and engage developers and ultimately
provide the foundation for a broader developer strategy.
To conclude his presentation Barton will present 4 tips to get
your program started via a guerilla-style approach.
Bio: Barton George
Barton is leading the creation of Dell Technologies’ first coordinated
developer program. At Dell, Barton has worked in a variety of
positions focused on Open Source and developers. He is also the
founder of Project Sputnik, a line of Ubuntu-powered developer
laptops and workstations. With the help of the community Sputnik,
which began as an exploratory project, evolved from project to
product, to portfolio.
Prior to Dell Barton was a member of Sun Microsystem’s Open
Source program office where he managed the relationships with
the Linux distributions as well as with Linux and Free Software
foundations. While not a developer (he failed at Fortran in high
school) he did do all his business school essays using the vi editor
Originally from Honolulu, Hawaii, Barton is a single father of three
teenagers. He and his children happily reside in Austin, Texas

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Agenda
– Why this matters
▪ The new kingmakers are here
▪ Post-2013
– What to do
▪ 7 Guiding principles
▪ (+ 4 tips for getting started)
– What are these based on
▪ Developer program research
▪ A love of Venn diagrams
▪ Project Sputnik
@barton808
The Enterprise
Developer
community
internal
outbound
inbound
7 guiding principles
Community-driven
XPS13 developer edition, 11th gen
+ 4x Precision mobile
developer workstations

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Stephen O’Grady sends a wake-up call
2013
“Businesses that will be successful over the next decade
will be those that understand and appreciate [the]
importance of developers…vital for companies to have
smart strategies for engaging”
@barton808

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How developers became kingmakers
Public cloud
Open Source SW
</>
2013
• Circumvention -> Innovation -> recognition
• Shadow -> sanctioned
• Seeds sewn for Modern IT
@barton808

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Things have accelerated post Kingmakers
DevOps
Infrastructure as Code
Kubernetes
@barton808
Companies w/top Developer Productivity drive:
• 60% higher shareholder returns
• 4 to 5x faster revenue growth
[2] McKinsey – Developer Velocity: How software excellence fuels business performance; April 20,
2020
The Power to Sink Deals
34% of opportunities are lost as the direct result
of developer influence
- Nutanix developer
survey[2]
Influence
Business advantage
Application developers
Operations/ Infrastructure developers
Cloud native developers
Containers
Impact
Players
2013+

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7 guiding principles

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7 guiding principles
A touchstone for developer engagement
The Enterprise
6. Understanding
1. Participation
7. Incorporation
5. Coordination
2. Transparency &
authenticity
3. Accessibility
Developer
community
4. Inclusion
internal
inbound
outbound
@barton808

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1. Participation -- Developer engagement isn’t a spectator sport
• Don’t need to code to contribute
• Docs, promotion, events, social media
• Questions are as good as answers
• If you take, give back
@barton808
Guiding Principles: outbound
2. Transparency & authenticity -- Authenticity trumps budget,
transparency builds trust
• Open dialog + plain speak
• Don’t overpromise or take on too much
• Agile communication vs the “big reveal”
• Begin communicating early, add details as they become available
The Enterprise
1. Participation
2. Transparency &
authenticity
Developer
community
outbound

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3. Accessibility
@barton808
Guiding Principles: inbound
4. Inclusion
The Enterprise
Developer
community
inbound
-- Gated material – missing the forest for the trees
-- Builds trust, drives awareness and a better product
• Community input to help set the direction for products, projects and strategy
• When getting into the game start with listening
• Solicit input publicly via social media, not under NDA
• Gated material can be a deal breaker
• Developers expect unfettered access to code early on
• Expect self-service material:
– APIs, SDKs, thought-leadership assets, papers, and
getting-started guides.
3. Accessibility
4. Inclusion

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5. Coordination --The sum is greater than the whole of the parts, misaligned parts will damage your engine
• Loosely coupled-highly aligned
• Like coins in the couch you’ll be surprised how rich you are
@barton808
The Enterprise
6. Understanding
7. Incorporation
5. Coordination
Developer
community
internal
Guiding Principles: internal
6. Understanding
• Introductory overview to the world of developers, open source,
Modern IT
• Developer norms
• Why should I care?
-- foundation to move beyond the enlightened
• Integrate requirements into your business processes
• Include in the efforts of individual teams
– product development, marketing strategy, sales material, targeted offerings and more
7. Incorporation -- To go beyond head nodding, developer requirements must be brought in-process

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Getting started

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Building developer trust is easy, follow the 7 principles
and away you go!
Time
Trust
@barton808

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Want to go faster? Just add money!
Time
Trust
+$$ =
$
@barton808

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@barton808
Just kidding, it takes time (and throwing $$ at it wont help)
Time
Trust

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@barton808
1) Build a team (ASAP)
• Assemble a coalition of the passionate
• Show value/need -> hire -> repeat..
2) What to put out
• Flush out hidden “assets”
• Prioritize by ability to execute
• Set up pilots, deliver MVPs, proceed iteratively
3) Setting direction and focus
• Listen to the community
• Stay analysis-light (MVA)
4) Metrics
• Near impossible to connect dev programs to $$ or units
• One way = measure engagement: page views, comments, links…
• Determine and refine metrics as you learn
The 7 principles are your north star, but…
to kick off your program…you need to bootstrap!

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In summary
@barton808
4 Tips for getting started
1. Team: Start w/volunteers)
2. Offerings: Executable MVPs
3. Direction: Listen/analysis-light
4. Metrics: engagement and refine
5. Get out of the middle, enable the network effect
1. Participation
2. Transparency & authenticity
3. Accessibility
4. Inclusion
5. Coordination
6. Understanding
7. Incorporation
internal
outbound
inbound
7 Guiding Principles

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Start small
@barton808
And remember…
Start now
Keep at it!

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The goal is to get out of the middle and enable a platform
hub and spoke network ecosystem
• When the community begins sharing and communicating with each other,
the network effect kicks in and your community begins to grow exponentially.
• The ultimate goal is to enable the community to turn your platform into an
ecosystem extending and accelerating your innovation and market presence