The new OSS community: Enabling for advocates not customers
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:07
Hello. Welcome. Welcome. My name is Andrea Griffiths. I'm super excited to be here today. I had the pleasure to visit Berlin during GitHub satellite back in 2019. It truly was
00:25
a fantastic experience. I fell in love with the culture, the tech, the sites. I very much look forward to going back one day. To me, it's really a great privilege to be here today
00:40
with all of you. I know you had a long day of talks, so I hope that you hang in there with me and I'm going to make this as fun and interactive as possible for all of us. All right. Just a bit about myself. As mentioned, I am a senior product manager.
01:01
I actually just recently switched teams a couple of months ago and I am now in product, which I absolutely adore. A couple of fun facts out of this beautiful slide that has a ton of fun facts. I am from Colombia, South America, born and raised. I am a US Army veteran.
01:22
I'm absolutely super fan of open source software, super fan of experimentation, of testing things, figuring out what works, what doesn't. Experimentation is 100% my jam. I'm excited to talk to you about some ideas I've been, I suppose, noodling and applying
01:45
to my own practices. This matters to me why. Well, I am 100% the product of community. If it wasn't for open source software, if it wasn't for the opportunities that being part of
02:00
vibrant open source software communities have provided me, I wouldn't have the pleasure of being here today with you. It is important to me and I'm super excited to talk to you about two things that I'm super passionate about, two specific topics. One, of course, the power of
02:20
open source and open source communities, which fuel everything, the global economy, the way we work, companies like this one. So that's one. And second, of course, the undeniable value that a very well-structured, well thought out, nurturing community program
02:43
and how it can exponentially improve not only the quality of your product, but also your user experience. But before we get started into this little journey, I want to share something with you. I hope my German there is okay. This is important. I want to share with
03:03
you a realization that has truly changed the way that I work. It took me many, many years. I won't age myself, but I want to share it with you and all of you in the audience. So perhaps you don't have to wait as long as I did to figure this out. So just keep in mind throughout
03:22
this conversation and throughout the days ahead that every single person in the audience watching this or watching a replay, you have the power. You are empowered at your company regardless of your role, whether you work on sales or design or data science or analytics, whatever you do,
03:46
you have the power to create meaningful interactions with your users to create spaces for them to share their experiences with you. This is not a solo job. This is not only a
04:01
function of DevRel or user researches or support community teams. This is a function that affects every single one of you. So regardless of your role, keep in mind you can too be a disruptor. Disruptors are people just like you and me, and we can all provide an opportunity to empower
04:23
our users to advocate for them, to listen, to learn from them, and of course to give back to the open source community for the better. So if you take nothing else today, please remember that you are a disruptor, so embrace that. All right, so let's get started. In Colombia there is a saying
04:45
it's, El que tiene tienda que la tienda, and roughly translates to basically if you open up a shop, if there is a humongous misconception out there that all it takes for you to create, nurture, grow a
05:04
community that's going to be productive and enhance your product and your users experience is doing just that. Creating a space, slapping on a slack channel, this score, this course instance, whatever it is, and people will just flock to it. They will just come, and that's not necessarily
05:24
the case. We're going back to the tienda analogy. You have to tend to it, you have to nurture it, you have to engage with empathy. Building a community is as much about driving the success of your business and the bottom line of your company, of course, as much as it is promoting
05:46
and enabling your customers to be successful at using your product, at accomplishing what they're trying to do when they decided that your product, your feature, your research paper, that's what they wanted to invest their time in. So keep that in mind. This is both for users of products
06:05
as well as members of the open source community, and whether it be maintainers or contributors, you have to tend to your garden. So if you tiene tienda, que la tienda. And how do we do that?
06:21
So the reality of it is that in the advent of COVID, we've been forced to work a bit differently now. The way that we engage our communities, be it open source communities or our communities of customers, is not the same, and it shouldn't be. We can count on in-person events.
06:43
We can't count on those hotel-lovia conference interactions that sometimes spark the best ideas. No. We have to adapt. We have to adapt to the now, and we have to adapt to the fact that now, more than ever, every company has been forced to become a software company. So regardless of
07:03
what business you are in, to survive this pandemic and the constraints of it, you must have engaged into software, either creating a website or the way that you engage your customers, et cetera, even something as simple as selling your goods through a marketplace online. This
07:24
means you are now a software company. It doesn't matter if you sell popsicles or if you are creating the next big software tool for developers. So what can we do? We can embrace this opportunity now. With this challenge comes the opportunity that we can now reach a global
07:41
audience and provide spaces for collaboration exponentially. We are now more connected than ever. We are now seeing folks that maybe did not have the access and the know-how into technology learning, right? I am equally shocked and pleased and surprised and also horrified
08:01
at the fact that my mother is now in every single social media site, and she actually knows how to use them. So that did not happen before COVID. So we need to adapt to it now and meet our users and our customers, meet our community where they are. To do this, no better tools than open source. There's a million projects full of very nice and
08:24
knowledgeable collaborators and maintainers that can empower you to do these things, whether it be collaboration tools, whether it be streaming tools like OBS, there is a tool, an open source that you can lean into to enhance the experience of your users and your communities.
08:42
And I understand that this is not for everyone. Not all companies are supportive of embracing open source practices. We're slowly catching on, but it's not a perfect scenario. So you don't have to dig in full on. You can just kind of dip your toes in the water. So
09:00
I want to share with you this little link here where it says github.co. It's a really interesting article published by GitHub. This research was done a couple years ago,
09:20
and it actually explains to you and hopefully your decision makers the beauty that it is adopting open source practices or starting with InnerSource to work better, to engage community, to grow, to scale, to make your product better. So keep these things in mind. We're going to adapt to the now. And adapting to the now, of course, includes
09:47
harnessing that community power. Your business now, you as a individual contributor, as a freelancer, as an engineer, you have an incredible opportunity to deliver
10:02
human authenticity, even through a medium like this, a conference online. You can bring that human touch to your product, and you can help create that loyalty and goodwill that is so very easy to lose and so hard to really attain. So, of course, this is not something
10:22
that happens overnight. You can't just, again, open a shop and expect people to flock to it. So I'm going to share with you a few things that I've done in the past that I've been able to empower communities to lean to harness that power and to help improve the way that they
10:40
interact, grow, scale their products. So let's take a look at what we can do to get there. So let's focus, first of all, in scaling and retention. If you are in any kind of business, regardless of what it is, you know that it costs a lot more to acquire a new customer, user,
11:00
community member, contributor, however you want to call them. A new human that comes to use your product or that wants to bet on you, it's harder to acquire than it is to retain. So in order to retain our users, to keep our community members engaged, to keep those people who downloaded your product using it, we have to build a strong culture.
11:23
And you very much can begin today to start doing this shift in culture. You can do that, and all of these things are going to lead into enabling for advocacy and not so much for customers. Eventually, of course, silver lining, they will become your customers.
11:41
But some of the ways that you can do this include, of course, listening. It's so important. Talk to maintainers. Talk to contributors. Talk to the person that just installed your application or just visited your website or subscribed to your newsletter. Talk to them, reach out, and then be quiet. Simply listen to their experience. Sometimes we are looking or
12:04
working on a product for so long that we tend to lose sight about that user experience for a first-time user or someone who is maybe not as technical as you are or doesn't understand the concepts because they're not as together in it as you have been. In order to do that
12:21
and do it effectively, we need to do it with empathy. So don't make assumptions. Go into these conversations with an open mind and keeping in mind that you're doing this because you want to listen and learn. Another thing that we can do, whether you are an individual or a company, is investing in research. And that doesn't mean hiring a contractor, which,
12:43
anyways, if you are a contractor in this business, fantastic. We need you. But it doesn't necessarily mean you have to spend thousands of dollars and resources into doing user research. Something like sending out a tweet, asking a question about your product, that's user research. Answering a question on a community forum,
13:03
like you have that community or Stack Overflow or Reddit or your own forum if you have it, that's user research. So lean into these practices and encourage everyone in your organization to also adopt them. Sometimes it's a bit of a hard sell to get folks to get excited about
13:24
doing this type of extra. But I promise you, when you give that white glove treatment to your users, when you focus on those customer stories, when you inspire, you build those relationships, you're going to be on the right track to create some fierce, fierce loyal users. And so what happens when we apply all of these things? Well,
13:46
it's really exciting because we are now at the level of authenticity at a scale. And what does that mean? Of course, if I answer a question to you via a personal message, that might have answered your question, you now have the answer you needed. If I answer your question in a public
14:05
forum, now I've helped countless individuals who might have the same question. So keep that in mind. That is a good way to scale practices when it comes to either updates to your product or just user research, figuring out what's working, what's not. When you do these things,
14:24
you focus on nurturing your users, it's authentic, you earn their loyalty. And so you and this user obsessed culture helps us create user advocates. So what happens then? You have your users, and they love everything you're doing. They love how responsive you are,
14:43
they become your fans, they become your advocates. And then ultimately, the true North, they become your user advocates, they become the folks that are talking about your product, they're sharing it on their social channels, they're advocating to the decision makers of
15:01
their company to purchase your goods, to purchase your platforms, because that is the product where they feel they've been treated the most authentically, and they're the most invested. And this is also true to open source projects, right? So if there is an open source project that you think, wow, this could really improve our product, or maybe we should try and utilize it,
15:22
or I don't know, scaling our applications, invest in it with an authentic entry level, and I guarantee eventually you will gain that user advocacy and that user obsessed culture.
15:41
Here comes my heart one more time. So we remember. And of course, doing all these things sounds fantastic. Andrea, I love that. Yeah, let's let's go for it. Let's become community people. Again, this is everyone's job, not just your dev rel team or your support team. But it's a hard sell, right? So I want to share a few pointers for you to enhance the messaging
16:09
of value proposition for folks in your companies, or for your partners who might not be so much into sold into this extra efforts that come with community building and nurturing. So remember,
16:22
you have an unique opportunity to harness your users' talents. What does that mean? That means in your community, there are people that maybe they are not equally expert on your product, maybe they are even more expert in your product than you are yourself. And they have infinite talent and potential. And when you nurture those relationships, you're going to enhance
16:45
overall customer experience. So what does that bring to a value point of view for your organization? It brings a higher engagement, it brings better feedback, better actionable
17:01
feedback that you can then apply to your products. That higher quality engagement is going to help your product grow, improve the overall customer experience. So creating the spaces, nurturing this community is going to be a fantastic way to, you know, support your users, and not just lean onto the traditional support paths. And there are many, many
17:25
across organizations that you have a value at by being a community-minded person, open-source-minded person. And what do I mean by that? This is the job of everyone. And the value proposition affects everyone from sales, because again, that can be a huge
17:44
business differentiator. If I am looking for a product, whether I'm a gigantic company or a startup, and I find a product, of course, this is a personal take, that has a really strong community support, or leans into an open-source project that has a fantastic welcoming community,
18:03
I probably lean more towards using that versus one that is entirely business to business. Why? Because I know if there is an issue, there will be more eyes than those of the developers who are developing the product. So I know I can reach them directly and provide feedback
18:20
from my particular use cases. So for sales, you will sell more. For user success, of course, less attrition. Sometimes we lose customers and users of our products to things that are so just elemental. In a simple email, a simple message on a forum could help us retain our customers. So again, it costs a lot more to get a new one. So let's invest in retaining
18:43
the ones that we have. Let's reduce that churn. And then for product and product people like myself, what an incredible opportunity you have to listen to your users, gather that feedback, and actually put it to action. Actually, do the things that your users are asking for.
19:04
That doesn't mean you're going to take every single suggestion from the community and apply it to your product, of course, but this will really enhance the scope in which you're looking at your roadmap and the decision-making process and when you are prioritizing. So product,
19:21
teams, you're also winning with your community and open-source minded. And finally, for marketing, I mean, this is doing the job of a thousand marketers, right? Word of mouth is the best advertisement. You know, when you have a recommendation from a peer, you take it maybe a bit more too hard than you would if it's something that you just found in a random
19:43
Google search. So I want to talk to you a little bit more from the product perspective about adoption. And this is a very oldie but goodie, and it's called the Pirate Metric Theory. It's called that because if you spell it phonetically, it sounds R. Well, this was created
20:04
by a gentleman who's much smarter than I am, Dave McClure, and basically he wanted to focus the way that young companies and startups were just prioritizing their efforts, figuring out what metrics to look at when it came to engagement, when it came to adoption, when it came to revenue
20:23
and product. I very much appreciate this as a product person myself, because it leans heavily on data. And when you lean on data, the numbers don't lie. You're able to take a look at your metrics for awareness, acquisition, activation, retention, referrals, revenue, and then you can
20:42
all of this quantitative data and apply it to a way that would enhance the experience of your users or would increase your awareness or will help you retain folks using your platform, etc. So please take a look at that. Even if you are not a product person, this is a really,
21:01
really good way to take a look at what metrics matter and what you should be looking at when you're having these interactions. It helps you lean into those community opportunities very well. So there's a short link there, github.co forward slash pirate. Actually, the folks at Headway did a really cool YouTube video explaining these principles. They are pirate metrics, and I
21:27
recommend you watch it so that you can learn a bit more about how to and what measuring matters when it comes to community. Okay, and let's see. Again, cross-organizational proposition. I think I went forward. Let's go back. We can also not forget about open source.
21:47
Let's not forget about fostering that obsession, giving back to the open source community, and I like to think about it with something that is called the servant mind, the servant
22:02
mindset. You know, a lot of companies talked about continuing to open source or sustainability of open source or helping open source projects, and it's very talked about, it's very promoted, lots of buzzwords, right? But you need to really take a moment to stop and conscientiously
22:25
examine exactly what you as an individual or your company, what are you doing to ensure the supportability of the projects that your product is using or the ones that you're using yourself? What are you doing? Are you contributing? If you're not, what's keeping you from doing it?
22:44
Let's look at it from the servant's point of view, and I love this definition because it's full of humility. It's full of empowerment, uplifting. Servant leadership means that my motivations was important to me. Yes, it matters, but it's really not as important as the
23:04
scale, right? So not just helping one person, but helping thousands, and the beauty of open sources that we can all contribute, we can all be part of these wonderful communities, and we can all help each other get where we need to go. So take a moment to reflect on what
23:21
you're doing, and I encourage everyone to get started if they are not. And once we do a few of the things that I've mentioned, we're going to hit a point where we start thinking, well, am I doing this right? Does that mean now that I have a successful community? Does that mean now that I am in a modern community? And one of the ways that you
23:46
can really evaluate this, of course, the adoption of metrics, fantastic. You can take a look at the ARP theories and pick the evaluation metrics that matter to you, that matter to your organization. But at a more high level, really, the simplest way is to take a look at your user
24:05
success currency. And what does that mean? You know, the currency of your users that you have, that you can gain is their trust. When someone downloads your platform, your app, when someone contributes to your project, they are setting up their trust in you, in your
24:25
abilities, in your product. And that trust is absolutely priceless currency. If you have increased engagement, if you have loss of adoption, that means you have trust. So hey, success currency. User love, of course, yes. I am telling all my friends, I'm telling my colleagues,
24:45
hey, come check out this product. This is great. The community is friendly. There are many ways that I can provide feedback. They are actually engaging in authentic ways. It isn't a one-way street. They're listening. They're giving back. And all of this is going to lead to the
25:03
fierce loyalty that we all want. I think anyone that takes pride in the work really finds it rewarding when they feel like their product is beloved and that you have people who really depend on it because they, they understand that it is the best solution for them, right? So
25:22
keep in mind this currencies, which might not be tied to metrics. There might be a bit more high level altruistic, but I think that they can work for you as well. So let's go ahead and start wrapping it up. And I apologize. I went a bit over time here
25:40
to get to the point of the new community, just some key points to remember. I want you to be a little bit like that fella in the graphic who was kind of holding up the open source or logo and just, this is where a bit of the heavy lifting happens, right? This is when you need to really reflect on the things that matter, what's important. So remember, each person
26:04
you're watching, you have the power to nurture. You have the power to engage your community in a positive way. You have the power to listen. You have the power to surprise and delight your users. I constantly tell folks when I either attend the meetup or I'm invited to
26:22
a speaking event or engagement that whether there is one person showing up or a thousand, if you invite me, I'm going to come. I'm going to show up and I'm going to answer and I'm going to be there for you. It's my personality, but I think it's so important. You have an opportunity to really delight users, to really have those personal connections. And it's not
26:45
a one-way street. It's not for them only. I also gain so much knowledge and just so many incredible experiences from the times that I really lean into community. Of course, open source community, incredibly important. Again, take a moment to examine what are you
27:03
doing to give back? What can you do as a company if you were thinking of, hey, I don't necessarily know how to or what can I do to get started? I'm always open to a chat and I'll pass my social phone in a moment. Of course, scaling engagement is going to help us scale
27:21
your product. Your product is going to be better. Ultimately, it's going to optimize it and bring that business value and hopefully the dollar, pounds, whatever currency sign beyond that user loyalty, which I think is even more valuable in my opinion. All right. Again, quick tip. Don't forget, you are a disruptor. Disruptors are people just like
27:50
you and me. Don't be afraid to engage with your users. Don't be afraid to answer questions. Don't be afraid to listen. I just really, really want you to remember that. That's why
28:02
it's there once again. I am available on Twitter. I'm at Columbia on Twitter. Please feel free to DM me. My DMs are open. I might not answer right away, but I will answer. Happy to talk to you about anything open source, anything open source sustainability,
28:23
about the sponsors program, about the GitHub stars program, about GitHub's efforts in community building and the community forum, and what we do at DevRel. Don't be shy. Reach out. I'll be happy to connect with everyone. Of course, I will be remiss if I didn't mention
28:41
the very talented Carlo Guimar, who is my partner in crime and just helps transform these ideas into the beautiful illustrations that you've seen. I think that is about it for my talk.