Eric (0:14) Hey there, and welcome to the IT guy show. (0:16) I'm your host, Eric, the IT guy Hendrix, and this is episode 15. (0:20) Today, we're going to be talking about, what it means to be a developer and, and by extension, what is this developer relations, this this DevRel thing we keep hearing about? (0:31) So today, my guest is actually a coworker of mine. (0:34) He and I met a few months ago. Eric (0:36) And it's funny just how small the IT community is because while Chris and I had never met, we actually know a lot of the same people who have attended some of the same conferences even once, I think, at the same time and just never met, until, until Chris and I started at the same company. (0:52) So it was, it's it's been great to work with Chris, and he and I bounce ideas off of each other all the time. (0:57) So it's a lot of fun. (0:58) So I wanted to get his take because, I mean, we've we've talked about my story. (1:02) We've talked about my buddy Nate's story as a systems administrator. Eric (1:06) You know? (1:06) Nate and I were both on the ops side. (1:08) So I wanted to get the other side of that coin. (1:10) What what is it like to be a developer? (1:11) What does it mean to to kinda come up as as someone who works in code all day? Eric (1:17) You know, my my my best programming language is YAML, so, you know, there's there's that. (1:23) So without further ado, let me bring on my guest, mister Chris Mars. (1:28) Chris, welcome to the IT guy show. Chris (1:30) Hey, Eric. (1:30) Appreciate it, man. (1:31) Appreciate it. Eric (1:32) Yeah. (1:32) Excited to have you and, you know, glad to glad to be chatting with you. (1:37) And, hopefully, eventually, you and I will end up at the same conference at the same time and actually be able to, you know, share a beer together. Chris (1:43) Yeah. (1:43) Yeah. (1:43) One day. (1:44) Hopefully hopefully soon. (1:45) If not this year, hopefully, we'll we'll we'll shoot for next year. Eric (1:48) There you go. (1:49) Well, why don't you introduce yourself? (1:51) Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and, and definitely share something you enjoy doing for fun. Chris (1:57) Yeah. (1:57) So my name is Chris DeMaris. (1:58) I'm from the Metro Detroit area. (2:01) I am a senior developer advocate at TuxCare. (2:05) I've been a front end developer for, going on thirty years in the in the in the mix of professionally and and not professionally where I wasn't getting paid, and I finally got paid at one point in life. Chris (2:16) I've been a developer advocate for, oh, long time, probably since the early twenty teens, officially and unofficially. (2:24) And what I like to do for fun, I'm a competitive bass angler. (2:27) I play competitive paintball. (2:29) I like to get tattooed when I can. (2:31) That's kind of a that's kind of me in a nutshell. Chris (2:33) Travel around, look for UFOs and cryptids and ghosts and love that love that whole paranormal world. Eric (2:41) So tattoos and paintball. (2:42) So you're you're a fan of of pain? Chris (2:45) Yes. (2:47) Yes. (2:47) I am. (2:48) Physical pain, I can I can handle? Eric (2:52) So why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey? (2:56) You you said you're a front end developer. (2:58) How did how did you get into technology to begin with? Chris (3:00) So that is that is a huge, huge story. (3:03) So I think from my understanding, and this is a long time ago, I got my first computer when I was probably two, three years old. (3:13) And I know it's it was it was a Tandy Tandy 1,000 series from RadioShack. (3:19) All my old school heads know about those old school Tandy's running DOS. (3:23) And Eric (3:24) And RadioShack. Chris (3:25) Yeah. (3:26) And RadioShack. (3:27) That's a that's a throwback to RadioShack. (3:30) And then I just just do whatever on it because, I mean, it had DOS. (3:33) The operating system was cool enough where there there was options to do. Chris (3:36) You could there was a word processor. (3:37) There was games, stuff like that. (3:39) But I didn't know, like, tons and tons about computers. (3:42) But I was always around tech when I was a little kid. (3:44) And then in grade school, we had, like, old school Apple. Chris (3:49) I don't know if that it might have been Apple twos in the back of the back of the class. (3:53) And a buddy of mine was showing how to showing me how to, like, give an input to the to the, like into a prompt and getting an output. (4:03) And you could change colors, and it was pretty cool. (4:05) And he told me it was QBasic. (4:07) He's like, there's there's you know, you can buy some books on QBasic. Chris (4:10) He, like, he he his dad was a programmer, so he he kind of just kinda fell in line with that. (4:15) So this is probably, like, seventh, eighth grade. (4:17) Sixth six, seventh, eighth grade. (4:19) And I bought a book I got a book on QBasic for Christmas or my birthday. (4:24) And I started a little bit learning a little bit more about QBasic and never finished it because they started teaching HTML in seventh and eighth grade. Chris (4:33) So I went from QBasic directly to HTML. (4:35) So this was, like, '96, '95, 9697. (4:39) And then that's when I I say I started writing code. (4:41) I mean, I know I didn't do it professionally, but when you start writing when you write your first line of code, you you you're writing code. (4:46) So that is when I started, and I've been doing it ever since my whole entire life and then got into the developer advocacy stuff in the meetup scene here in Detroit in the early twenty tens. Chris (5:00) Like, 2010, 2011, I think I got started in the meetup scene. (5:04) And we didn't have a lot of meetups back in the day in Detroit. (5:09) And I checked meetup. (5:11) I I I would say I checked meetup in, like, 02/2008, and I think we had a Drupal meetup. (5:15) We had a Joomla meetup at a Jug. Chris (5:17) I'm like, well, I don't I don't care about any of those. (5:20) Like, I I write front end code. (5:21) I'm not a back end person. (5:22) Fast forward a few years later, then they had things like Girl Develop It Detroit was was on the scene. (5:28) Refresh Detroit was on the scene. Chris (5:30) I think mobile Ann Arbor, Southeast JavaScript, which is in Ann Arbor. (5:35) So all these other meetups popped up. (5:37) So I started getting heavily involved in them and doing the speaking thing and and helping with workshops and attending and building my own community. (5:45) And then, fast forward years later, and here I am, you know, doing the actual role as a developer advocate. (5:53) So it's a it's been it's been a ride. Chris (5:56) It's been a ride for sure. Eric (5:57) So one of the things that I like to do on the show is I I like to take the the jargon and boil it down into its bare essentials. (6:08) You know, those dead gum marketing guys disclaimer, I am one of those marketing guys. (6:13) Like to throw terms around and not really define what they are and then Yeah. (6:16) Social media takes those terms and just destroys them and overuses them. (6:21) So you you've mentioned developer relations, this this DevRel movement. Eric (6:26) And it's it's gotten so popular over the last decade or so that it's actually a position now. (6:31) Like, you mentioned, you're a senior developer advocate at the company we work for. (6:36) So in in your own words, you know, def let's define our terms. (6:39) What is DevRel? Chris (6:41) That is a great question. (6:43) And it all depends on who you talk to. (6:44) Right? (6:44) Like, the age old saying in DevRel, it depends. (6:47) It depends on who it depends on who you talk to. Chris (6:49) Every every person is gonna have a different definition for DevRel. (6:52) Every person's gonna have a different definition for developer advocacy. (6:56) To me, DevRel is not a team. (6:58) Although, I do refer refer like, when I talk in circles, I'll refer to, like, oh, wait. (7:03) Who's on your DevRel team? Chris (7:04) Right? (7:05) Or, or, like, how big is your DevRel team? (7:09) So I'll refer to it in circles and stuff like that in general conversation as a team. (7:13) But to me, DevRel is a mission, and part of that is developer advocacy. (7:19) There's a bunch of different roles that fall underneath DevRel. Chris (7:21) But DevRel, we're in the business of building relationships. (7:25) And I'm gonna quote a buddy of mine. (7:26) I quote him all the time. (7:27) His his name is Shar. (7:30) He's he's a very, big person in the DevRel space, especially the Java community. Chris (7:35) He said a long time ago, he said, we are in the business of building relationships. (7:41) That is what DevRel is. (7:42) And I'm paraphrasing this. (7:44) Once you start caring too much about the technology, now you are in DevTech, and that's not the sole mission of what we do. (7:53) We are here to build trust and build a reputation and be authentic to people and authentic with ourselves in the community, and then you break that out into developer advocacy. Chris (8:05) I have taken bits and pieces from friends of mine, my buddy Guy Royce, my friend, Heather Downing. (8:14) These are all amazing developer advocates in the community, and I've taken pieces from them on how to define developer advocacy, which is under the DevRel role, the DevRel mission, the DevRel team. (8:26) I am the bridge between the community and the product or the community and the organization to help mentor, teach, and also learn So everybody has a a good understanding of of how things are working, and I can help eliminate any pain points and bottlenecks and problems within their developer journey. (8:48) That is what a developer advocate is to me. (8:50) I'm an ambassador to the community, but I'm also an ambassador to the product. Eric (8:55) I love that. (8:57) You know, you're the way you describe DevRel sounds a lot like what I set out to do when I started the pseudo show and this show is but on on the upside, I've often thought that there needs to be somebody out there just kind of setting a tone. (9:14) You know, I'm I'm not the best sis admin by any stretch of the imagination. (9:18) In fact, probably one of the which is why I'd, you know, teach now instead of do. (9:23) But that's that's often how I've seen myself is just a connector of people. Eric (9:29) You know, I've I've often described my position as a translator, someone who takes the technical jargon and the tools and translates it to something that people can understand. (9:37) People that are in the space, people that wanna get in the space, people that are trying to understand the space like my spouse. (9:44) And it's it's a lot of connection. (9:46) It's a lot of talking, a lot of conversations. (9:49) So it's it's nice to see such a focus on DevRel because very few people are expected to put in as much work and learn as many tasks as possible like a developer does. Eric (10:03) I mean, the average developer, I think, knows four to five different languages to varying levels of of efficiency. (10:09) And if some job descriptions are to be believed, they're they should know, like, eight to 10. (10:14) Right. (10:14) It's just like, I don't think you know what kind of a developer you actually want. Chris (10:19) No. (10:20) No. (10:20) They never do. Eric (10:22) So how's oh, and I talked about marketing a little bit, and I talked about traditional systems administration. (10:28) So how is DevRel different from from those those traditional marketing roles? Chris (10:35) Yeah. (10:35) I think the way it's different is that, you know, not that marketing doesn't care about the community. (10:45) I think marketing marketing's purpose is to get the message across. (10:49) Right? (10:50) They need to get the message out there, whether that's through written form, whether that's through video, even billboards. Chris (10:58) I've I when I worked at a company years ago, I was an I was an engineer, and we had billboards. (11:05) The company I worked for had billboards. (11:07) And, you know, you've you've heard me talk about poking the bear. (11:11) And our marketing team would come up with these slogans and these ideas for the for billboards. (11:19) And sometimes it was, you know, poking the bear. Chris (11:22) Sometimes there were undertones of, you know, doing things a better way, etcetera, etcetera. (11:26) They wanna get the message out to bring the people in. (11:30) By getting the message out and bringing the people in, then developer advocates step up to help translate that message to the community that has the questions. (11:38) Right? (11:38) I think that's that's one of the the differences, and there's there's probably tons of them out there. Chris (11:43) But caring about the messaging and getting it out there, intercepting those people that are coming back to help them fully understand what the offerings are from a technical point of view, but also from a a people point of view. (11:58) Right? (11:59) An empathetic point of view. (12:01) I've always been of the mindset that you have to be a developer before you can be a developer advocate. (12:05) Now that doesn't mean you can't work in DevRel because there's other roles in DevRel. Chris (12:10) There's community managers, social media people. (12:13) You you don't have to be a developer to work in DevRel as a whole. (12:18) But I truly believe you have to be a developer first before you're a developer advocate because you have to be able to speak the language. (12:23) You have to be able to have been there on the front lines. (12:26) You have to have the experience of waking up at three in the morning because you're on call to fix something that's two levels above you that you don't even need to be a part of. Chris (12:33) Right? (12:34) Or you you there's a break in your build or, oh, I missed a semicolon or something. (12:40) You know what I mean? (12:40) Like, a marketing person may not understand that, but a developer advocate will because they were a developer in their previous life and probably still are. (12:48) They still write code. Chris (12:49) I mean, I still write code. (12:50) When I get the chance, I can, but there's a lot of, you know, context switching and stuff like that. (12:54) So I don't always get the chance to sit down and just hammer and learn all the time. (12:59) But, you know, we still write code, and, you know, we're still building cool stuff, and you have to know your way around an IDE and a code editor and how do you use package managers and all this other stuff. (13:09) So it's I think that's what what the the big one of the differences is between traditional marketing and and there's also dev marketing. Chris (13:17) Dev marketing also can fall under DevRel, but it's still a bit different than marketing. Eric (13:21) So in your mind, what what are a couple of things that make a great DevRel practitioner, and what are a couple of things that absolutely don't make a good DevRel? Chris (13:32) Oh, I'm gonna catch a lot of heat for this one. (13:36) It's a big debate. (13:38) I'm a huge extrovert. (13:40) Right? (13:41) You have in my mind, you have to be. Chris (13:43) You have to be an extrovert. (13:46) But then you got your DAs who don't like being in public. (13:49) They wanna write, and they wanna be behind a camera at home or in their office, which is totally fine. (13:56) But I think, you know, being able to just be your authentic self is, like, the number one the number one quality. (14:04) You have to be authentic. Chris (14:06) You because community will see through the bull that's just that's just how we are. (14:12) Developers, community. (14:14) That's why you never give a product pitch talk in a conference unless it's like a pay to play sponsorship thing. (14:19) Right? (14:19) You don't wanna start just promoting your stuff. Chris (14:21) You don't wanna show it because developers will eat that. (14:23) They'll they'll walk out. (14:24) I walked out of of conference talks like that because I didn't I didn't wanna hear it. (14:29) So being able to be your authentic self is number one. (14:33) I think being able to to have a knack for writing is number two. Chris (14:38) Being able to conduct yourself on a on camera is three. (14:41) Being able to speak and have a good background of public speaking, I think, is also a really, really good one. (14:49) And then all the stuff that wouldn't make you the best DA is, you know, not having any of that. (14:57) And so you might not. (14:58) Right? Chris (14:58) You might not. (14:59) And maybe DevRel and being a DA isn't for you. (15:03) But I encourage anybody. (15:06) Everybody has something to talk about. (15:09) Everybody has something to write about. Chris (15:12) Everybody has knowledge to share, and I encourage anybody. (15:16) I'm actually I'm currently mentoring a friend of mine right now who's going through a boot camp, and they're thinking about kind of maybe doing you know, being a developer for a while and getting into DevRel or maybe getting through the boot camp and then moving into more of a community focused role in DevRel because they're they're very bubbly. (15:35) They're they're they're they're a talkative person, and you can you can vibe off of them. (15:39) And that's what that's what community needs. (15:41) Right? Chris (15:42) Developers need people like that to kind of take go along on the journey with. (15:48) And I I always welcome everybody with open arms. (15:51) You can ask anybody in the community. (15:54) I don't push anybody aside. (15:57) I bring everybody in. Chris (15:58) And I think being able to to to be, you know, have that deep down empathetic emotional intelligence is big too. (16:09) Emotional intelligence is one of those things I've had to work on for a long, long time. (16:14) And I get better at it every day. (16:17) But being a developer advocate it's like it's like going from high school to college opens your eyes on the world because it did for me. (16:25) Going from being a developer to a developer advocate and being around people and being within the community really opens your eyes to being 20 tie a 100 times more empathetic, a 110 times more empathetic and and personable. Chris (16:40) And then you just you can learn more about yourself too. (16:42) Right? (16:43) Your communication style and and how you present yourself and and stuff like that. (16:48) So I think all of those things are what make and what break, being a a DA or a good or a bad one. Eric (16:56) I can I can relate to a lot of what you're saying? (16:59) Because a decade ago, if you had told me I was going to do this kind of stuff for a living, I would have laughed because I'm I'm actually an introvert. (17:07) Not a lot of people know that, but I'm an outgoing introvert. (17:10) The difference between a true extrovert is extroverts get a lot of energy from being around people. (17:16) An outgoing introvert like myself, I I love going to conferences. Eric (17:21) I love hanging out at the booth. (17:22) I love giving talks. (17:23) I love hosting podcasts, but it's very exhausting for me. (17:27) So Yeah. (17:27) An extrovert gets energy from other people, whereas an introvert loses energy to other people. Eric (17:35) And and so, you know, a decade ago, I would have I would've laughed if you would've told me that I would be looking forward to to to giving talks. (17:42) In fact, just Chris (17:43) Yeah. Eric (17:43) Just a month or so ago, I was up in Vancouver for an AlmaLinux day and and got to give a talk and got to engage with community. (17:51) It was a it was a blast. (17:52) But I I came home and and didn't speak to anyone for, like, two days just to recover. Chris (17:58) Well, you know what? (17:58) I have friends that are introverts that are developer advocates too. (18:01) And they travel and they speak and they're heavily involved in the community, and you would never know that they were introverts. (18:08) But they do need that time away to recharge. (18:11) And I guess a buddy of mine buddy of mine called me out on this couple years ago, and he told me he said he said something about decompressing after talks. Chris (18:21) Because I've lately, past couple years, I've I've found myself after I give a talk, I don't stick around the conference anymore. (18:28) Mhmm. (18:28) I go back to my room, and I chill, or I take a nap or something. (18:33) Mhmm. (18:33) But I never noticed that in the past until someone called it out and they're like, yeah, Demars, we couldn't find you anywhere. Chris (18:39) Like, what what are your I'm like, oh, okay. (18:42) Oh oh, now I see a pattern that I'm doing this now. (18:44) So maybe the older I get, the more I feel like I need that recharge as well. Eric (18:52) So was was there, was was there an moment when you when you went from I'm a developer to I'm more of a community person when when you, like, mentally made that switch from developer to to, to DA? Chris (19:11) Officially or unofficially? Eric (19:13) Yes. Chris (19:15) Yes. (19:15) Oh, I I think it's just yeah. (19:22) It's something I always wanted to do. (19:23) I always wanted to be a DA. (19:24) I had as an as an engineer, I had friends that were developer advocates. Chris (19:27) So I didn't become an official developer advocate until 2020. (19:31) That was when I got an actual title, and I was doing everything prior to that. (19:36) I I was a Google Developer expert in in web technologies. (19:40) I was a, a Microsoft MVP in developer technologies. (19:45) Like, I got all of these accolades and recognitions through my community work. Chris (19:50) So that kind of helped. (19:51) Right? (19:51) Because I knew I was good enough to to move move in a community and do stuff like that. (19:56) You have to be able to do the community things. (19:59) That's what gets you those awards. Chris (20:02) I was an Oracle groundbreaker ambassador, and I didn't even I don't know a thing about Java. (20:08) I know that, like, JAR files are a thing. (20:10) I know they're, like, NetBeans and Eclipse and and JetBrains to make some like an IDE or something. (20:19) I don't know. (20:19) I know that we offer a product, but the the people who are running the program, they said, Chris, we don't we don't even we don't even need you to know about Java or or Oracle. Chris (20:30) We just want you because of your name. (20:32) Like, that was big for me because they're like, we just we know you have a big following. (20:37) I've been an Auth0 ambassador, cloud ordinary media developer expert. (20:40) So, like, I I let all of those accolades lapse. (20:43) So I'm I'm former of all of those. Chris (20:45) The only thing I currently hold is I'm a current progress champion progress teller progress teller champion for through for my community efforts. (20:55) But I think you know, I used to I paid out of pocket for so many things. (21:01) I think it one of the things that kind of really, really pushed it was just the way people would come like, attend some of my talks maybe because I would pack out rooms at some point. (21:15) And just the way people would say, oh, Chris, we, you know, we we love the way you speak and how you conduct yourself in a room and all sorts of stuff. (21:24) So it only makes sense to to go officially into developer advocacy. Chris (21:29) And like I said, it was something I've always wanted to do because I've had friends that did it at companies all over the place, and it was just it was just a natural progression. (21:38) Like, I need to I I care about people and I wanna I wanna teach and I love mentoring and helping others. (21:43) So being able to do this and and being able to command a room only made sense. (21:48) So Mhmm. Eric (21:49) So this question may be as much for me as it is for the audience. (21:53) But how do you balance that that authenticity, the the the the view of yourself with the need to represent a company or a product? (22:03) Because as much as I like to fashion myself as an ops rail, it is kind of the the joke that I use. (22:10) I've I've been a product marketer for the last four or five years. (22:15) So I have to balance my own story, my own experiences with messaging around a company and or a product. Eric (22:22) So how do you how do you strike that balance? Chris (22:25) To be honest, I just I just send it. (22:28) Like, it's just it's a full send for me. (22:31) I I can't be anything other than myself. (22:34) And I I tell people the the way it is. (22:42) I don't beat around the bush. Chris (22:44) And that that's one of the things I've been commended on in the community is that I you know, I'm not a BSer. (22:49) And I'll tell you like it is, and I'm a big, you know, big proponent of, like, if if the company screwed up, let the let the community know. (22:58) Like, hey. (22:58) Yeah. (22:58) We screwed up, but we're fixing it. Chris (23:00) Because you don't wanna start sweeping stuff under the rug. (23:03) Mhmm. (23:03) Because that'll you know, the community will find out. (23:05) Right? (23:06) But, you know, being able to just be your authentic self and, you know, and I there's other ways I can I do that too? Chris (23:12) Like, if we have, like, really dope swag. (23:15) Like, I'll rock swag at conferences and and show off, but people will see that and then they'll they'll get engaged. (23:23) Like, oh, yeah. (23:24) What's what's that? (23:24) What's this? Chris (23:25) What's that? (23:25) Oh, that's cool. (23:26) You know, that's a sweet hat you got on. (23:28) And then you start having those conversations. (23:30) Right? Chris (23:31) And I hopefully think I'm a fun guy to be around. (23:36) I like to make people laugh, and that's that's really where the balance is. (23:39) Like, yeah, is there is there there's always gonna be a balance, but keeping it on the higher end of being authentic than being fake wholeheartedly is is the goal. (23:51) And I think that's how I've I've come to build the network I have and and have have gotten to the place I'm at because I wasn't fake. Eric (24:01) I like that. (24:03) So I've gotten to know you a little bit over the last few months. (24:06) And, I've I've been following you on social, and, I've listened to some of the talks that you've given recently. (24:13) And one of the themes that comes up in your talks almost well, very consistently is empathy and tech. (24:20) And you you talk a lot about emotional intelligence and and empathy. Eric (24:24) So what what does that look like in practice? (24:26) How how have you applied that in your own space? Chris (24:30) Oh, that's another great question. (24:33) No. (24:34) You have to be able to to listen and take what people are saying to heart. (24:41) That's that's how you do it. (24:43) I when I was at one organization I was at prior, you know, I would have people hit me up in DMs saying they're having problems with this this tech or this product for the company, and I would have them break it down for me exactly what they're going through, issues, screenshots, etcetera. Chris (25:01) And because I'm not I'm not a fan of support tickets and support ticket systems and SLAs like that. (25:06) Like, if I can help you sidestep a support ticket and get the information directly to you quickly as possible, I'm going to do that. (25:13) And that's part that's that's that's empathy, to me at least, is understanding and listening and then being able to get them the support and help that they need. (25:21) And I've I've done that. (25:22) I've I've did like I was saying, I did that at an organization I worked at where people would hit me up in DMs or LinkedIn or whatever, Slack, Discord, and I would take their issue. Chris (25:32) And if I didn't understand it or know how to fix it, I would take it back to the team that supported that product. (25:40) Let them know, like, slide in a DM with somebody. (25:42) Let them know, hey. (25:42) This is a community member of ours. (25:44) They're having issues with this, this, and this. Chris (25:47) Here's a breakdown of of what they're going through and what their problem is and a walk through. (25:52) How can we fix it? (25:53) How can we assist them? (25:54) What are they doing wrong? (25:55) What are we doing wrong? Chris (25:56) Get the answer right away, and then go directly back to them in completing that feedback loop. (26:02) That is where the empathy comes in because you can't just brush it off. (26:06) Or you can't just say, oh, okay. (26:08) Yeah. (26:08) Give me give me a day or two. Chris (26:09) Right? (26:11) We are ambassadors of the community. (26:12) We should be helping and supporting the community as much as we can, as often as we can. (26:16) So being able to be empathetic to their needs is is one way that I put it in practice and still use it to practice today. Eric (26:23) I love that. (26:27) So let's let's shift gears a little bit. (26:30) And and I wanna start out by by asking one of the audience's favorite questions. (26:35) So tell do do you have a story or an anecdote of when you've given a talk or a demo that's just completely bombed? (26:43) People seem to love to revel in other people's pain. Eric (26:46) So do you do you have a a good good conference story? Chris (26:50) I do. (26:50) I I do have advice though to always record your when you're don't never live code. (26:57) Never live code because it's always something's gonna break. (27:01) It's just the way it is. (27:02) Like, you could you could do a demo five minutes before you get up on stage, and you do that same exact demo and something happens. Chris (27:09) Your your machine dies. (27:11) If you're on a Windows machine, you might get an upgrade, like, right off the rip. (27:16) Oh, conference Wi Fi sucks. (27:17) Anything. (27:18) Systems could be down. Chris (27:19) It's terrible. (27:20) Servers are down. (27:21) Yeah. (27:21) It sucks. (27:22) So take take a video of it when it works on some type of stable system or network environment. Chris (27:30) But last year, I was speaking at commit your code, which is an awesome code. (27:33) If anybody commit your code is was just happened, and I was there. (27:40) But I spoke there last year too, and I was doing a demo on deploying UFO data to the cloud. (27:49) And I love I love doing this talk too. (27:52) I gotta figure out another way of doing it. Chris (27:53) But I I open up the talk with UFO, like, famous UFO cases, abductions and sightings, like, three of them, I think. (28:03) I talk about it's about Roswell, Betting, and Barney Hill. (28:06) I might talk about the I don't know. (28:08) I know I talk about Roswell and Betting and Barney Hill. (28:11) The Betting and Barney Hill case. Chris (28:12) And then I go into the technology that I'm gonna be using or that we are gonna be using in the talk. (28:19) And it was just just a forty five minute. (28:21) It wasn't a workshop or anything. (28:23) And I go through all the technology we're gonna be using, and I show what we're gonna build or how how I built it and the tooling behind it. (28:30) So I walked through some React components that I built. Chris (28:33) I walked through how to, you know, set up a database, manage database service, and then using Compass to consume that data and pull that in. (28:43) He was using Next in Mongo and then deploying it to the cloud. (28:48) So I showed, like, a final, but I wanted to actually do the deployment. (28:53) But I wanted to change I was adding one entry into the database. (28:59) I think I was adding the aerial school sighting that happened in Zimbabwe, Africa, I think '93 or '94. Chris (29:08) And I was adding that to the database. (29:12) The database would pull that in. (29:14) The the the component would get generated based on how many, you know, how many entries are in the database. (29:21) So I did all that, and I was gonna redeploy it. (29:24) And the deployment broke right on the spot. Chris (29:28) And so I'm standing there, and I'm like, oh, okay. (29:31) And then people were laughing in the audience. (29:32) They're like, oh, you know, the government probably didn't want you to do that. (29:36) All this we were having fun with it. (29:37) We're talking about the men in black and all this other stuff. Chris (29:40) And then, like, in the meantime, like, you gotta be quick with things. (29:44) Right? (29:44) So you gotta find a way to fill the time. (29:46) So I started just asking people while it was trying to run or breaking or I was rerunning it, hey. (29:53) Have you ever had a UFO signing, or have you ever seen a a you know, an unidentified flying object, or do you have a story or anything like that? Chris (29:59) And I people are raising their hands and talking about, excuse me, they saw a UFO here, and we were talking about other sighting, Rendlesham Forest, and it was really fun. (30:09) So if something breaks, make sure you have a way to fill the time, whether that's cracking jokes, walking around the room. (30:16) I don't know. (30:17) I do a bunch of things. (30:18) Like, if something happens or I'm waiting for something, I'll I'll start cracking jokes. Chris (30:21) I'll get off the stage, walk around the room and talk to people and ask questions interactively throughout the room, or you just start asking people about UFO sightings if they've ever seen one. (30:31) So that's that that's what to do. Eric (30:35) So I've, I've I've been in your in your shoes before. (30:39) One of the first sales demos I ever did, I mean, we're talking just a couple of months after leaving IT operations to go into sales. (30:47) I was doing a local demo off a virtual machine on my laptop, shared over Zoom or whatever, And, of course, the build failed. (30:57) So I I Of course. (30:58) I was somewhat smart because, you know, sysadmin, so I had backups. Eric (31:02) So I started running it off of off the cloud. (31:05) So went from using local GitLab, because I I was working for GitLab at the time, to using gitlab.com. (31:12) Well, GitLab's connection to AWS or something goofed at the at the exact same time. (31:21) And so I went through my demo and then my backup and was like, I swear to you, this works and it works great. (31:30) Can you take my word for it this time and we'll try again another day? Chris (31:33) That's funny. Eric (31:34) So ever since then, I I have multi levels of of backups when I do a talk. (31:41) Like, when I went to Alma Linux day just a month or so ago, I had it was I was talking about deploying images, identical images for for VFX. (31:53) So if you're an animator or something, being able to have the same build across multiple different distributions or against multiple different infrastructure. (32:00) So I was using using ImageBuilder, which allows you to design your own, basically, your own installer. (32:07) And so it it takes far too long to try and do that during a talk. Eric (32:12) And and I hate kicking off a demo and then talking and then coming back and then picking the demo up. (32:17) I'd rather walk through it from start to finish. (32:20) So while I could have done it live, sometimes image builder takes five minutes, some takes sometimes it takes twenty minutes. (32:26) I wasn't gonna risk So I took a video right here at my workstation at home and then edited it down. (32:35) And, you know, and I call it out in the talk. Eric (32:37) It's like, now, you know, post editing magic, here you go, and we don't have to wait for all the packages to to download. (32:42) Ta da. (32:43) So fifteen minute demo is now three. (32:46) But because I learned from past mistakes, I also had screenshots of key points in the video demo so that if for some reason my slideshow wouldn't show the video, I at least could go in and grab the screenshots and then talk through what what happened. (33:03) So I've been there. Eric (33:04) It's not fun. (33:05) And if you're a person that gets easily frustrated with technology, probably not a space for you. (33:10) Because like like you, I have to, you know, crack jokes or I mean, people aren't dumb. (33:15) If they're if they're here to see a demo, they they know that it's going to break. (33:19) Right. Eric (33:20) In fact, I frequently make the jokes about have have we made the proper sacrifices to the demo gods, you know, that that kind of thing. (33:26) And so I've I've been there and I know what it's what that's like. (33:31) So you you you you talk all over the place. (33:37) It seems like every other week you're traveling. (33:39) I look at your schedule and just like, I'm exhausted. Eric (33:44) So what's what's what's your what's your secret? (33:46) How how do you deal with the pressure of being always on, and and how do you battle, like, burnouts in in that type of situation? Chris (33:56) How do I maintain? (33:59) That's a great question too. (34:03) It's I I and I it's it's community. (34:07) Like, that that's that's how I I do it. (34:09) It's community. Chris (34:10) I have a whole slide dedicated in my talk about community. (34:14) And, yeah, you follow yeah. (34:15) I know you you follow me. (34:16) We follow each other on Twitter. (34:17) I'm always using the hashtag developer community. Chris (34:20) I stole that from my buddy David Pine. (34:22) David works at Microsoft. (34:24) He's he works on the docs team over there, dot net docs, I believe, still. (34:29) And I took that from him because he would always go through a spiel about developer community and how important developer community is in his conference talks. (34:36) And this was years ago. Chris (34:38) So I took it from him, and it's it's the community. (34:42) And I always talk about, you know, how developer community is extremely important to me, and I bring up the point that, you know, I you're you, the people in my audience, are the reason I live out of suitcases and hotels. (34:58) You know, I'm not doing this for myself. (35:00) I'm doing it to for you. (35:02) I'm doing it so we can learn. Chris (35:06) I'm doing it to help you and mentor and teach, and I talk about how, you know, I feel we almost lost the developer community back in 2020 with COVID. (35:16) And, yeah, we're still going through COVID. (35:18) I don't think we're we're ever it's never gonna go away. (35:21) But, I mean, you know as well as I do, everything went virtual. (35:26) And conferences shut down and meetups shut down and no there there was no community. Chris (35:32) Like, there was no community. (35:33) We we we had no way to to get with people doing virtual events, conferences. (35:40) Like, webinars are different, but doing virtual talks was not my bag. (35:43) Like, I didn't I'm not here to look at a camera and not have that interaction with my audience. (35:49) I could crack a joke. Chris (35:50) I don't know if someone's laughing. (35:52) I don't know if someone's sleeping, right, behind behind the other side of the camera. Eric (35:56) Right. Chris (35:57) So I think I think we almost lost it. (35:59) And when 2021 rolled around, 2022 rolled around, and some conferences started to bring it back with restrictions, I think that started to rebuild that community again and rebuild the community again. (36:14) But I don't think we've ever recovered. (36:16) We've never we haven't. (36:18) There's a lot of meetups that are still that are gone, that are not gonna come back. Chris (36:22) I run a meetup in Detroit, Detroit JS, and I there's just so much happening and so little free space anymore because places won't won't give you their space for free anymore. (36:35) Yep. (36:35) Everybody's charging. (36:36) And when you don't have sponsors, you can't just always front that out of pocket. (36:40) So but even conferences. Chris (36:41) Some conferences, they're they're struggling or they they're they're still struggling. (36:46) Some didn't make it back from that. (36:48) Apparently, though, in Europe, the conferences are back have been back, like, a 110%. Eric (36:53) Like, Chris (36:54) amazing. (36:55) Like, that's I've heard from everybody. (36:57) Just European conferences, They're they're they're flourishing. (37:01) I don't know why. (37:04) But that's what that's what makes me always on is community. Chris (37:07) It's it's always community. (37:09) Burnout is another situation. (37:11) There was there was one year where I did 30 events all over the world. (37:16) Yeah. (37:16) Not including meetups either. Chris (37:17) I was doing I did 30 events. (37:19) So I was on the road every other week or probably every week or half of the year. (37:23) Let's say half of year I was on the road. (37:25) And it did get to a point like, I thought I wasn't gonna get burned out, and it just got to a point where I'm like, I I can't do this. (37:32) Like, I need to chill. Chris (37:34) And then I was like, I'll I'll go back. (37:36) So I got burned out. (37:37) I took a break for, I think, a little while, and then I went back out back out of road and did it again. (37:43) But I also said last year or the year before that I there's too many other interests and things that I wanna do outside of work, and I don't ever get the opportunity to do them because I'm traveling to speak at conferences. (37:59) So I said a couple of years ago I was gonna scale back, and I did. Chris (38:02) I scaled back. (38:02) I've been scaling back the past couple years. (38:04) Mhmm. (38:05) But try to try to get back on the road as much as I can. (38:08) I hope that we're gonna be doing stuff on the road, and and there's there's more support to to buy, like, 10 tickets to an event and then disperse them out. Chris (38:18) And it it'll be fun. (38:21) Like, I'd like to get back to reinvent. (38:23) As much as I don't like Vegas, I do like reinvent. (38:27) And there's two reasons I don't like Vegas. (38:29) One, it's too much walking. Chris (38:30) I'm not a walker. (38:32) My girlfriend loves to walk. (38:33) She loves walking. (38:34) I can't stand walking. (38:36) And two, it's too dry. Chris (38:38) I did a paintball tournament. (38:40) I played a paintball tournament in Vegas last year, I think last year. (38:43) Yeah. (38:44) It was the opener last last January or February. (38:47) And it was windy, and it was kicking up the dust. Chris (38:51) And Eric (38:52) Mhmm. Chris (38:52) Oh, it was miserable. (38:54) It was and it was hot. (38:55) I mean, it's hot in Vegas, but it was just dry and dusty. (38:58) And Mhmm. (38:59) My sinuses and my head were just destroyed. Chris (39:02) The whole week I was there, when I got home, it it's skin's cracking because it's it's just ugh. (39:09) But reinvent is reinvent is cool. (39:11) The experiences are cool. (39:13) It's just Vegas is I'm just not a fan. (39:15) Just not a fan. Chris (39:16) Yep. (39:17) But hopefully, we get to do re:Invent or something like that. Eric (39:20) It it I've been to re:Invent three times, I think, and it's it's brutal. (39:24) It's about a mile walk from your hotel room to to the Expo Floor, and and that's that's if you're lucky. (39:32) Yeah. Chris (39:34) But, I mean, if you can get if you can get a hotel close to it, it's cool. (39:39) Mhmm. (39:39) But, yeah, the just the walk and then having to walk through casinos and people are smoking, and it's or going upstairs and then downstairs and then across from it's you gotta have walking Eric (39:52) through finding a place to eat unless you have an invite. Chris (39:56) That too. (39:57) That too. (39:59) It's, yeah, it's it's hectic, but it can be fun. (40:02) You gotta make it fun. Eric (40:04) So I've got a I've got a crown favorite section for you. (40:07) Now this is these are gonna be rapid fire questions. (40:09) So don't think, just answer. (40:12) So I I got a couple of them for you. (40:14) Okay. Eric (40:15) Rapid fire question number one. (40:16) What's your favorite tech stack or language to play with? Chris (40:19) CSS. Eric (40:21) Go to conference speaker fuel. (40:23) So what what do you what do you like to drink when you're when you're at a conference? Chris (40:27) Beer. (40:29) Coffee. (40:30) Coffee in the morning. (40:30) Coffee in the morning. (40:31) KCDC, yeah, KCDC would be number one conference and coffee. Eric (40:37) Most overhyped trend in DevRel? (40:39) AI. (40:41) And then, what do you wish more companies understood about developer audiences? Chris (40:46) That they come from all walks of life and not everybody's a senior. Eric (40:51) I I I haven't been keeping score, but I think you might have won. (40:56) Those those are really good. Chris (40:58) Appreciate you. Eric (41:00) So, where can, where can people follow your work, talks, or or just reach out to and connect? Chris (41:06) Yeah. (41:07) Twitter is the best place to to get at me. (41:09) Sultan Burnham on Twitter. (41:11) If you are a Supernatural fan, you'll understand the reference with Sultan Burnham. (41:16) You can get at me blue sky, krista mars dot at krista mars dot net on blue sky. Chris (41:22) Krista mars on LinkedIn. (41:25) Those those are the three main places I'm at. (41:27) Most likely, it'll be on Twitter. (41:29) You wanna catch any of my talks, just go on YouTube and you can just search my name and I should come up. (41:35) You could kristamars.com. Chris (41:36) I have a blog or no. (41:37) Kristamars.net. (41:38) I don't even know. (41:39) Let me see. Eric (41:40) No worries. (41:41) We'll definitely have links to all that in the show notes. (41:44) But so closing thoughts. (41:48) What what is one piece of advice to someone moving into Chris (41:51) DevRel? (41:53) One piece of advice moving into DevRel I'm gonna my my buddy, Gant, told me this a couple years ago because I was nervous before a talk, and he said you're not nervous. (42:05) You're excited. (42:06) So don't go into developer advocacy and DevRel being nervous. (42:12) Go into it being excited. Chris (42:14) And I'm I'm quoting him. (42:15) I'm quoting him. (42:16) Gantleboard, amazing buddy of mine, works at InfiniteRed. (42:19) Don't go into it nervous. (42:22) That nervous is excitement and treat it as such. Eric (42:25) I like that. (42:26) And I've I've found that to be true. (42:27) I I might steal that. Chris (42:29) Go for it. Eric (42:30) Awesome. (42:31) Well, Chris, thank you so much for joining me. (42:32) I really appreciated kinda getting to know you over the last few months and and Same. (42:37) Sharing stories. (42:38) And we definitely need to to meet up at some points, and and I'm sure we have a lot of fun conference stories to share over for an an adult beverage. Chris (42:47) Yeah. (42:47) No. (42:48) I appreciate it, Eric. (42:49) Thanks so much, bud. Eric (42:50) Yeah. (42:50) Well, thank you all for joining us. (42:52) This has been episode 15 talking about DevRel with Chris DeMarz. (42:56) As always, make sure you hit, hit the like button. (42:58) That way we know that, that you actually listen and and do as you're told. Eric (43:04) Also, hit subscribe so you hear any anytime we go live. (43:07) I've been recording been recording episodes every other week, so glad to have that cadence going. (43:12) And I look forward to this every time I get to meet some amazing people. (43:15) So make sure you hit subscribe. (43:17) That way you get get notified anytime new content is published. Eric (43:20) Coming up next, I've got a couple of episodes kind of doing story arcs right now, it feels like. (43:25) Next episode, we're gonna be talking about layoffs and not if they come, but when they come. (43:31) So we'll I'll talk a little bit about my my personal story and what's what what happened in in my my 2025, followed up by going to have a couple of conversations with folks talking about how to avoid layoff burnout, how to prepare yourself for job hunting. (43:48) So got got a great guest lined up for that. (43:50) So you definitely wanna stay tuned because layoffs are a reality in our industry and not just for not just on the product side, but also on the on the developer and industry side as well. Eric (44:01) So definitely wanna catch those episodes. (44:03) Meantime, you can join us on our Discord or our matrix room. (44:07) Those links are also in the show notes. (44:09) So I really appreciate you tuning in. (44:11) Really appreciate you all engaging in the community, and we'll look forward to seeing you all next time. Eric (44:17) Thank you very much.