I presented this deck at the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference on March 25th, 2014. I talk about what evangelism is, what makes it great, and I review a number of the things we did at BlackBerry to increase the developer ecosystem for BlackBerry 10 devices. What worked, and why
Swan(sea) Song – personal research during my six years at Swansea ... and bey...
Developer Evangelism in a World of Non-Believers
1. 125 March 2014
Evans Data, Developer Relations Conference
March 24th, 2014
EVANGELISM IN A WORLD
of Non-Believers
Larry McDonough, Principal Evangelist
@LMCDUNNA
2. 225 March 2014
CONTENTS
• What is Developer Evangelism?
• The “Non-Believer”
• Identify the Goal
• Formulate the Strategy
• Implement the Activities
• Measure, Tune, Rinse & Repeat…
• Q & A
3. 325 March 2014
What is Developer Evangelism?
Role of the Developer Evangelist (definition)
“The over all mission […] is to secure platform adoption
and revenue growth through evangelism, community
engagement, relationship marketing and a vibrant
solutions ecosystem”
[source: Microsoft’s career site link]
4. 425 March 2014
Developer Evangelism
1. Evangelize the Developers
2. Evangelize the Influencers
• Anyone that influences developers: VC’s, Accelerators &
Incubators, Industry Execs & Decision makers, Tech
bloggers & writers, etc.
3. Evangelize the Channel (if possible)
• Anyone that influences a sale.
For us, this was Carrier store regional managers and
Market Star, our channel marketing partner
5. 525 March 2014
BlackBerry Dev Evangelists
• Evangelism at BlackBerry
• Asia Pac
• EMEA
• Americas
• Evangelism in Silicon Valley
• Me: 22 session talks, 30+ events, 5 dev blogs, 100’s tweets
• Me: Over 100 device seeds
• Me: “BABEs” (Bay Area BlackBerry Evangelists)
• Evangelism Activities
• Conferences, Meetups, Hack-a-thons, Webcasts, “Office
Hours”, Blogs, Social Media, …
6. 625 March 2014
• 15 City Hack-a-thon tour
• Organization, Prizes, Food,
Sponsors, Shirts, Videos, Websites,
Forum Discussions, Follow-up!
• Apps, Apps, Apps, …
• 14 BlackBerry Developer Groups
• Define and set up 4 Tech Centers
• Help drive definition for rest of
company
Extraordinary Evangelism!
http://bit.ly/BBJamLatAM
7. 725 March 2014
CONTENTS
• What is Developer Evangelism?
• The “Non-Believer”
• Identify the Goal
• Formulate the Strategy
• Implement the Activities
• Measure, Tune, Rinse & Repeat…
• Q & A
8. 825 March 2014
The ”Non-Believer”
• It’s always the smiling guy…
• Is this guy your target customer?
• Win them over?
• YES: Converts are zealots!
• No: Contain the damage
• Leverage 3rd party champions (non employee
or partner). Ex. Qirfiraz
• Always, Always, Always, stick to the
indisputable things:
The facts. The numbers. Your strengths.
9. 925 March 2014
CONTENTS
• What is Developer Evangelism?
• The “Non-Believer”
• Identify the Goal
• Formulate the Strategy
• Implement the Activities
• Measure, Tune, Rinse & Repeat…
• Q & A
10. 1025 March 2014
Identify the Goal
• Make sure you know what you want to achieve
• Is it more apps in store?
• Is it more apps downloaded?
• Is it more developers?
• Is it higher revenue / app?
• Is it higher quality apps?
• More consumer apps?
• More enterprise apps?
• Etc…
11. 1125 March 2014
CONTENTS
• What is Developer Evangelism?
• The “Non-Believer”
• Identify the Goal
• Formulate the Strategy
• Implement the Activities
• Measure, Tune, Rinse & Repeat…
• Q & A
12. 1225 March 2014
Formulate the Strategy
1. Know where you are
2. Know your goal
3. Identify how to get there –These are the
activities that will get you to your goal
13. 1325 March 2014
CONTENTS
• What is Developer Evangelism?
• The “Non-Believer”
• Identify the Goal
• Formulate the Strategy
• Implement the Activities
• Measure, Tune, Rinse & Repeat…
• Q & A
14. 1425 March 2014
Implement the Activities
• “It takes a village”
• Partner Activities
• Evangelist Activities
• Marketing Activities
15. 1525 March 2014
Partner: Marmalade
Free Marmalade Indie
License & BlackBerry Dev
Alpha B device for an
approved app
16. 1625 March 2014
Partner: Sencha (2)
• Lighthouse Program – Free Sencha
Architect, Z10 & Extra Swag. Top 5 apps
received all expense paid trip to
SenchaCon 2013
• Free Sencha Architect & BlackBerry
Dev Alpha B device for an approved
app
17. 1725 March 2014
Partner: Unity
Free Unity Pro Add-on for
BlackBerry & BlackBerry Z10
for an approved app
18. 1825 March 2014
Evangelist Led Activities
“Built for BlackBerry” -- Free
Limited Edition BlackBerry Z10 for
an approved B4B app, Four
Regional Grand Prizes of 75,000
credit for App Marketing
“Android Offer” – Free device for
an approved app made to quality
app developers
19. 1925 March 2014
Upgrades &
New Apps
All developers with an Android App in
BlackBerry World are encouraged to
upgrade their apps to latest version
and submit any Jelly Bean 4.2 apps
(direct email from global marketing.
Any developer submitting an app
between Dec 5 and Jan 28 are
eligible.
Upon approval the developer receives
500 Jam Rewards Points
Onboarding &
Office Hours
At all events, Evangelists (and
ADCs), developers are told about
hour bi-weekly Onboarding/Office
Hour Webcasts
Developers that attend will get 500
Jam Rewards Points (limit one
award)
Evangelists can choose from this
pool to offer free device offer
Free Device
Evangelists choose the best quality
apps on Google Play
Email sent to developer from
Evangelist
Developer registers for the offer and
gets invited to Onboarding/Office
Hours for help
Upon approval the developer gets a
device
Evangelist Led Activities
20. 2025 March 2014
Two free GamePads when including
gamepad support
Marketing Led Activities - Gaming
21. 2125 March 2014
Android – 500 BlackBerry JamZone
points for an approved app
Android – 500 BlackBerry JamZone
when attending an Android
Onboarding Webcast
Marketing Led Activities - Android
33. 3325 March 2014
ProTactics Con Comments
• Catalyst that drives activity
• High awareness
• Huge app numbers
• Low cost per app
Port-a-thons
• Expensive overall
• Difficult to administer
• Low quality apps
• Need to solid administration
process before attempting again
• Need to focus on quality
• Easy access to thousands of
developers
• Straight forward to administer
Direct Offers
• Cost Per App is high
• Difficult to get apps in store
• Must ship devices before getting apps
• This tactic doesn’t drive acquisition
unless done through partners
• Able to vet attendees to ensure
quality
• We set the rules
Physical BlackBerry
Events
• Expensive and labor intensive
• Limited to BlackBerry Enthusiasts
• Find a way to leverage Tech
Centers and integrate with Virtual
Events to drive down cost
• Key to developer acquisition
• Face to face provides best
opportunity to acquire
Physical Event
Sponsorship
• Labor intensive
• Expensive to get noticed
• Difficult to follow up
• SenchaCon as part of an integrated
marketing plan provided a great
vehicle to acquire new developers.
Developer Offer Tactic Analysis
34. 3425 March 2014
CONTENTS
• What is Developer Evangelism?
• The “Non-Believer”
• Identify the Goal
• Formulate the Strategy
• Implement the Activities
• Measure, Tune, Rinse & Repeat…
• Q & A
35. 3525 March 2014
• Measure the effectiveness of your activities
• Are you getting what you wanted?
(e.g., Our Global App “Port-a-thons”)
• Make changes based on your results
• Too much of type “A”? Get more type “B”.
• Run subsequent programs taking into account
previous results
Best results obtained when we included
Software, Hardware, and Support together.
Measure, Tune, Rinse & Repeat
36. 3625 March 2014
Thank You
@Lmcdunna
Linkedin.com/in/lmcdunna
lmcdonough@blackberry.com