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In this episode of Community Pulse, the hosts explore why storytelling is one of the most valuable skills in Developer Relations. Through examples from conference talks and internal product meetings, they show how relatable stories capture attention and make ideas more memorable than lists of facts alone. The episode shares practical insights on using storytelling to better engage audiences, advocate for developers, and communicate customer feedback effectively, while also discussing when a simple, fact-based approach is appropriate. Checkouts Wesley Faulkner Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad... and How Great Companies Stay Great by Eric Ries, The Lean Startup PJ Hagerty Monk & Robot book series by Becky Chambers Ohwell.net - a comic on life in the 90s Mary Thengvall The Magic & Chaos Ink Club Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village. Artwork phto by Nong on Unsplash

In this After Pulse the hosts get into what it's actually like to be the odd one out in the room, the person who can see the bigger picture when everyone else is heads down on their own slice of the problem. They share personal anecdoates about trying to get stakeholders to zoom out, see who a decision actually impacts, and what's worked and what hasn't when you're the one connecting dots nobody else is putting together yet. Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village.

In this episode of Community Pulse, we discuss the challenge DevRel teams face when raising concerns internally. Because they’re closely connected to the developer community, they often spot issues before anyone else. Speaking up too often can make them seem overly negative or resistant to change. We explore how to communicate concerns effectively, maintain credibility with stakeholders, and continue advocating for the community without becoming “the person who always pumps the brakes.” Checkouts Wesley Faulkner Work’s Not Working - A community for those struggling in the workplace to get real help instead of platitudes. Get suggestions from other people that are dealing with the same struggles that you are facing to get real support. Against Empathy - The book draws on the distinctions between empathy, compassion, and moral decision making. Jason Hand High Agency In 30 Minutes Datadog Community YouTube The State of AI Engineering Report Mary Thengvall Monte Williams - ALEU Leadership Development Project Hail Mary - book is amazing; audiobook narrator (Ray Porter) is phenomenal; and the movie holds up to the book - triple threat! Melissa Appel Re-reading Designing your Life - it uses design thinking, and especially prototyping / experimentation to help you figure out what’s next in your professional or personal life Jonan Scheffler Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - Shinryu Suzuki Drive, Dan Pink: Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose DM me if you're in Berlin, I'll buy you a beer. Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village. Artwork photo by Nick Nice on Unsplash Special Guests: Jonan Scheffler and Melissa Appel.

Prompted by some content on “How to Succeed in DevRel” that was clearly AI produced, Jason, PJ, and Wesley go down the rabbit hole of how developers are affected by AI generated content, what the real value of AI content is to developers, and a few points on what exactly the value is of creating content for AI instead of human developers. Checkouts Wesley Faulkner Twilight Zone episode PJ Hagerty Asimov’s I, Robot (not the movie) Jason Hand J’s hackathon project Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village. Artwork by Nahrizul Kadri on Unsplash

In this year-end episode, we’re reflecting on our 2025 DevRel conversations and the themes that defined the year. We revisit key insights from our guests, look at how the DevRel landscape continued to evolve, and call out the lessons that showed up again and again across our episodes. It’s also a moment to thank our guests and listeners who made the show possible. Whether you joined us for one episode or all of them, this wrap-up looks back on where DevRel has been in 2025 and ahead to what’s coming next. Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village. Artwork by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash.

Our lived experiences often inform our work. This is true in the world of DevRel as well. Whether you have organized a church group, been in a band, or put together a big party - some of those experiences will leak over into how you see community and how you work in the Developer Relations world. Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village.

We’re reflecting on how the show has evolved, from adding Pulse and tightening our structure to getting comfortable recording without guests. We also look back at the biggest shifts in DevRel over the past decade (no, you can’t say AI), share thoughts on where the industry is headed, and dig into highlights from the Decade of DevRel report. Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village.

It’s been 10 years since the start of Community Pulse and, appropriately enough, we’ve reached the milestone of 100 episodes. To celebrate, we invited Jono Bacon -- our very first guest on the show -- and SJ Morris -- a former host of the show -- to join us and reminisce about changes in the DevRel industry as well as how we’ve changed personally and professionally over the last 10 years. We’ll laugh a little… cry a little… and as always, learn a lot along the way. Checkouts Jason Bono Primalbranding by Patrick Hanlon and Hooked by Nir Eyal - awesome books, very relevant Attio / OpusClip / Anam - awesome tools Stateshift MobLand on Paramount+ SJ Morris Developers, Reinvented Design from the Margins Wesley Faulkner Kitten TTS Add Bluesky comments and likes to your blog PJ Hagerty The AI Con - How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M Bender and Alex Hanna Tyler the Creator - Don’t Tap the Glass Jason Hand Anyone can Play Music by Josh Turknett ai-tools-lab.com LLM Observability Learning Course (FREE) Mary Thengvall Upcoming book that I had a preview of and am very excited about (coming from Apress in early 2026)! Developer Relations Activity Patterns: A Unified Approach to Devrel, DX and Community Management by Scott McAllister, David Neal, Ted Neward, and Chris Woodruff Fun (random) things have made me smile lately: Miniature Cheese Graters Lapel Pins Special Guests: Jono Bacon and SJ Morris.

In this episode, Jason, Wesley, and Mary share some of our favorite tools of the trade—from live streaming setups and demo-building tricks to the software and hardware we rely on for recording videos and tracking metrics. Join us for a practical, behind-the-scenes look at the gear and workflows that help us connect with developers and communities every day. Categories Building & Managing Websites Hugo Astro Form Bricks Local Recall SquareSpace Eleventy Data, metrics, and knowledge sharing Airtable Common Room Metabase Scheduling meetings Cal.com Fantastical LiveStreaming & video recording and editing Streamyard Riverside.fm OBS OpenShot Audacity VLC Descript Otter Meeting Agent - AI Notetaker, Transcription, Insights Automation tools n8n Zapier IFTTT Forums Slack Discourse Podcast hosting Fireside Building demos Claude Code Lovable Cursor LocalAI Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village. Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash.

Sometimes work stretches beyond “normal” hours, and while we might welcome that when we’re energized by the project, other times it’s a real struggle. In this episode, Jason, PJ, and Mary unpack the difference between working late because we love the job versus doing it just to meet a deadline. They also explore how to recognize when those long hours are a sign of a toxic environment or poor prioritization—and what we can do to push back. Photo by Mohammad Alizade on Unsplash. Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village.

"Vibe coding" is gaining traction as a new way to approach software development—but what does it actually mean? In this episode, we unpack the term, explore how it's shaping the developer experience, and examine its potential to transform developer relations. We'll break down the pros and cons, from faster workflows to new challenges in communication and code quality, and discuss what this shift means for DevRel professionals today and in the future. Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village.

There has been a lot of chat about the decline of the tech influencer. Where have they all gone? Is tech influence too heavy or too light? PJ, Mary, Wesley, and Jason share their opinions about “capital I” Influencers and where DevRel falls into all of this. Checkouts PJ Hagerty Take vacations. Fyre Festival 2 is real and can hurt you. Jason Hand Stitched video Original video AI “slop” article AI Tools Lab Mary Thengvall awesome (fictional) books that have stuck with me lately: When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill The Midnight Library by Matt Haig Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel Cover art photo by Diggity Marketing on Unsplash. Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village.

Communicating the message is only part of the job of a DevRel practitioner - there’s also the method. Ensuring you share the same alignment and you are seen as a member of the community is even more important than being able to educate a community. In this episode we’ll look at the importance of keeping yourself humble and keeping the message sincere in order to find success within the tech world. "Sit down. Be Humble” - Kendrick Lamar Checkouts Chris DeMars Off the Hook Wesley Faulkner Wear Extra Fingers - Life Hack PJ Hagerty Shoalin - the WuTang board game WuTang Final Tour with Run the Jewels Artwork photo by Merve Sehirli Nasir on Unsplash. Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village. Special Guest: Chris DeMars.

The team takes a look back at 2024 and ahead to 2025. Enjoy the podcast? Please take a few moments to leave us a review on iTunes and follow us on Spotify, or leave a review on one of the other many podcasting sites that we’re on! Your support means a lot to us and helps us continue to produce episodes every month. Like all things Community, this too takes a village. Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash.

In this episode, Wesley, PJ, and Jason take the opportunity to talk about a new phenomenon - The DevRel Foundation from the Linux Foundation. Learn how folks have gotten involved, what the Foundation intends to do, and how you can share your voice. Topics Discussed: Introduction to the DevRel Foundation: The episode explores the new DevRel Foundation, an initiative under the Linux Foundation, created to address challenges in Developer Relations (DevRel). Wesley Faulkner introduces the foundation, noting that its purpose is to be a nonpartisan hub for discussions about DevRel and to provide resources for defining the profession and its practices. Foundational Goals: The DevRel Foundation aims to address key challenges within DevRel, including defining the role, measuring its impact, and rolling out successful DevRel programs. It seeks to aggregate existing knowledge and create a space for new insights. Wesley discusses his role in the steering committee and mentions the ongoing process of recruiting champions for various topics within DevRel to drive these discussions forward. Open Participation and Community Engagement: The foundation is described as a participative effort, where everyone from managers to community members can contribute. This is highlighted as an important distinction from more passive feedback mechanisms (like town halls). Wesley outlines the process, emphasizing that the foundation is open to diverse perspectives, and all contributions will be available for collaboration through platforms like GitHub and Discord. Challenges of Defining DevRel: A major challenge discussed is the diversity of how DevRel is implemented across different organizations (e.g., startups, enterprises, nonprofits). Wesley talks about the need for an inclusive approach that doesn’t exclude any perspectives while ensuring practical outcomes. Jason Hand asks about how the foundation plans to handle these varied implementations, suggesting that a “one-size-fits-all” approach may not work. The Role of the Linux Foundation: The Linux Foundation’s role is explained as crucial in providing structure, governance, and logistical support for the foundation. The Linux Foundation's history with supporting open-source projects and fostering community-driven initiatives is seen as a key advantage. Real-World Impact and Job Descriptions: Jason Hand discusses the problem of inconsistent DevRel job descriptions in the industry, which often blur the lines between roles like developer advocate, customer success, and sales engineering. The foundation’s work could help standardize expectations for DevRel roles across organizations. The episode touches on how a clearer definition of DevRel could assist job seekers and hiring managers in aligning roles more effectively. Future of the DevRel Foundation: The foundation is still in its early stages, and Wesley emphasizes that while there’s hope for the project, it will take time to make significant progress. They encourage participation in calls, Discord, and GitHub to stay updated and contribute. Key Takeaways: The DevRel Foundation seeks to unify and provide structure to the diverse, evolving field of Developer Relations. Inclusive participation is at the core of the foundation's mission, aiming to gather input from all sectors of the community. The foundation is driven by volunteer work and community passion, with the support of the Linux Foundation's structure and resources. GitHub and Discord are key platforms for collaboration, ensuring that community voices are heard and that contributions are open for review and iteration. The foundation’s work will eventually help provide clarity in DevRel role definitions, benefiting both organizations and professionals in the field. Action Items: Join the DevRel Foundation: Individuals can join calls, participate in discussions, or contribute to the work via GitHub and Discord. Become a Champion: The foundation is actively seeking managers to lead specific topics within DevRel. Stay Informed: Engage with the monthly updates and open calls to follow the foundation’s progress. Key Words and Themes: DevRel Foundation Developer Relations (DevRel) Linux Foundation Open Participation Inclusive Governance Community-Driven Initiatives Job Descriptions in DevRel GitHub and Discord Collaboration Nonprofit Organization Volunteer-Driven Transcript [00:00:00] PJ Haggerty: Hey everybody. And welcome to another episode of Community Pulse. We're super excited to have you. [00:00:04] PJ Haggerty: This week we decided we would take a look at a new phenomenon, the DevRel Foundation, the Developer Relations Foundation from our friends at the Linux Foundation. [00:00:12] PJ Haggerty: Some of you are probably already aware of it. Some of you are probably in the discord chat. Some people might not know about it at all. So we want to take this opportunity to share some information about it and see what we could find out and how we felt about it. So with that, I am joined by, of course, Jason Hand and Wesley Faulkner. Wesley, you've been doing a lot of work with the DevRel foundation as far as like looking at, working models and how people can actually get things done within the foundation. [00:00:37] PJ Haggerty: So do you want to kick us off and give us a description of what's going on? [00:00:41] Wesley Faulkner: Yes. Let me lay a little bit of the groundwork to understand my involvement and how. So I'm part of the steering committee. There's five of us in total. And I am the newest member of that five person steering committee. [00:00:55] Wesley Faulkner: I've been part of the DevRel foundation since June of this year. [00:01:00] And the foundations, the start of it had, I think, started way before that even before the beginning of the year. And the involvement with the Linux foundation happens like I think in around the February timeframe. And so the thought is that there are Certain types of challenges that are unique to people in dev rel defining what we do is one of them that I think is something that people are familiar with, but others that have been lingering around about how do you measure dev rel and like adequately, like, how do you plan for the future and how do you roll out a developer relations program? [00:01:35] Wesley Faulkner: Those are like the broad strokes of it. So the thought of the Dev Rel foundation is to be a nonpartisan home for these types of discussions. And we are currently set up as the steering committee, as people who are trying to facilitate those conversations, give structure and processing of what timeline we should have these conversations and be helped, like [00:02:00] with the being a home to people to find this, Information once we have it all created and to be a repository for a lot of existing knowledge, but also allow the connection tissue to create new knowledge that is not there right now. [00:02:16] Wesley Faulkner: So that's like the whole arc of it. Depending on when you're listening to this podcast, we are currently enrolling people to take on and champion these specific areas of topics. Here are the lists that we've aggregated from the community of the challenges. [00:02:33] Wesley Faulkner: And we're looking for managers to say I want to champion that and run it to ground to make sure that we actually have things defined to help us all as dev or all practitioners. [00:02:43] PJ Haggerty: And I want to zero in because I think that some people I was in the initial meeting kickoff thing that happened back in June and there was a concern and it was oh, this is a town hall, not really a feedback thing, but more of a town hall where we'll come and tell you what we think is [00:03:00] good and you can come and tell us if you don't think it's good. [00:03:03] PJ Haggerty: But what it really is is a participative activity. Not everybody wants to, and that's okay. But the idea is really behind let's put together a compendium of knowledge about what we do and put that so that when people reference it, they can easily say, this is the way it works. [00:03:22] PJ Haggerty: It's a constantly moving organic body. It's similar to software. There is nothing done on this. Would that, do you think that's accurate? Great. [00:03:31] Wesley Faulkner: Yeah, I think that initially I was on that initial feedback preview call as well. And that session, I think, raised a lot of awareness about how developed the thought was of where things were going to go and how open to input. [00:03:47] Wesley Faulkner: The foundation was to the community and letting the community shape the direction and the focus of the foundation. And I think to its credit, the foundation has taken a lot of that into heart. [00:04:00] And I think that's when I joined actually because of that call or after that call. A lot of the work that I've done, at least on the initial side, was finding a way to make sure that the community's voice is heard. [00:04:12] Wesley Faulkner: And then once we get all of this feedback, how do we actually act on it? Because it feels like if you think about the possibilities, the developer relations, there's just so much out there. How do we choose which ones that we're going to help move forward? And I devised or helped with the rest of the people in the steering committee and other feedback. [00:04:31] Wesley Faulkner: From people like you, PJ, about how we address the needs of the community in a way that doesn't feel exclusionary. [00:04:39] PJ Haggerty: Think exclusionary is the word you're looking for. Yeah. [00:04:40] Wesley Faulkner: And also how do we actually be productive to actually move forward instead of having constant discussions all the time and where do we actually make sure that it was the right time to do action? [00:04:52] Jason Hand: Wesley, I got a question. I feel like a lot of our episodes, we generally take a stance on [00:05:00] when