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September 14, 2021 | Episode 176

How to Build a Strong Developer Community with Global Engagement ft. Robin Moffatt and Ale Murray

  • Transcript
  • Notes

Tim Berglund:

Technology communities consist of, at minimum, a group of people who help each other. A lot of that help comes through the form of asking and answering the questions.

Tim Berglund:

I've got Ale Murray and Robin Moffatt back on the show today. Both returning guests and co-workers. To talk about community building and in particular effective Q&A. How to make that work in Slack and forums and trolls and all that kind of stuff. Listen in to two great experts to hear from on today's episode of Streaming Audio, a podcast about Kafka, Confluent, and the cloud.

Tim Berglund:

Hello and welcome to another episode of Streaming Audio. I am very happy today to be joined by my friends and co-workers, Robin Moffatt and Ale Murray. Robin and Ale, welcome to the show.

Robin Moffatt:

It's great to be here. Thanks for having us.

Ale Murray:

Thank you for having us.

Tim Berglund:

We're going to be talking about how to engage a community today. So this is one of those episodes that are less let's tear into how Kafka works or how the cloud works or something like that. And more, a little bit, I think a peek under the hood of how a developer relations engine and team functions. And that's why you guys are here because you work on this team.

Tim Berglund:

So for anybody who's new to the show, I mean, I know you're both returning guests. As I like to say on your part, that's the triumph of hope over experience. But for anybody who's new to the show, doesn't know who you are, Ale, tell us about yourself. What do you do?

Ale Murray:

Yes. So, I manage the community globally at Confluent. Basically, That means that I run the strategies that help us to create platforms to engage with the community. So that's why I'm here.

Tim Berglund:

Excellent. Robin.

Robin Moffatt:

I'm a Developer Advocate here at Confluent. So a bunch of stuff, working with developers directly. And I've also done a ton of stuff in the backend, on like our community platforms working closely with Ale on that.

Tim Berglund:

Yes. So you might know if you've ever been to a meetup or used Slack or any of these things, you've touched the work of Ale's team. So there are a lot of the human beings on planet earth who do things with Kafka who would care about this show have intersected with Ale's team's work.

Tim Berglund:

And again, many of you, if you're listening to this show, you probably know Robin's name. You've probably watched videos of him on YouTube explaining how things in ksqlDB or Kafka Connect work or something like that. He is certainly the guy I ask when I'm trying to get Kafka Connect to do something and trying to get ksqlDB to do something slightly more interesting than sort of the basics. So you should not all be surprised if you have heard of these folks. But if you haven't, now you have. And I'm glad that we're here.

Tim Berglund:

So, Ale, we've talked in a previous episode, which we'll link in the show notes. In fact, I'll try to link all your previous appearances in the show notes. But we talked in a previous episode about what community is. But just as a reminder, what do you mean when you say community, and what are the basic elements of a program like the one that you run?

Ale Murray:

Yeah, sure. So when we say community, what we mean is pretty much everyone that touches the technology in any way that is related to technology. So whether you are a customer or whether you are an open source user, or just like a person who is in university, or just someone who's interested in the technology, everyone who touches the technology is part of the community.

Ale Murray:

But what we really mean about that is a group of people who are interested in the same software. And in this case, Apache Kafka. And we would love for them to come together, to learn together, to discuss their use cases, about their problems or the things that they're solving with the technology and help each other. So really, even though by the community, we mean everyone who is engaged in with the technology, we really mean people who are coming together because they have these common interests.

Ale Murray:

And for the second part of your question, what are these programs... Basically, the components that form the community strategy. I like having them explained in five different pillars.

Ale Murray:

So I have the meetups pillar, which is what you might know as, as a meetup, is just an event that is purely educational, sales-free, where people go to learn, to network, to talk about the technology with other people. But mainly just learn how to do things with the technology.

Ale Murray:

We have the conferences pillar, which also comprises the speakers component. And basically what that is, is we like building up speakers that go to speak at conferences. Or, they go to speak at meetups and so on. But also obviously we like knowing which conferences we're good to go to speak at, and which are going to be the most benefit for the community, where are we going to find the most community members for that conference to be successful.

Ale Murray:

And then we also have MVPs who we call the catalysts. And we have the hackathons pillar. And the digital platforms one. This is pretty much right now, everything like all the community-owned channels, like GitHub and Stack Overflow and all these places, Reddit, Twitter. But we own digital platforms like the Confluent Community's Slack and we own the Confluent Community Forum. So those are our two community platforms. So that's pretty much all the components in the strategy.

Tim Berglund:

There you go. By the way, this being a kind of a theory of DevRel episode, if you're a person who is building a DevRel team or a founder at a new company, and you're thinking about that, just go ahead and rewind and play that part back and take some notes. Because it's what you want to do. It's sort of a growth industry. What we do and this way of helping businesses grow. And services become more widely adopted.

Tim Berglund:

You know, these are things that developers use. And so helping other people like ourselves succeed at using them is a key thing. So that was great stuff. Thank you Ale for summarizing that. And I think we went over a lot of that more detail on one of your previous episodes.

Tim Berglund:

So, a community, if I could summarize in my words, what you said, I think it's a group of people that are a technology community, centered around some technology, in this case, it's Kafka. And you know, we as Confluent care a lot about Kafka and the people just being good at it. And of course, we've got other things like are our fully managed Kafka offering Confluent Cloud that we care about. But the community isn't defined by people who use Confluent Cloud or people who are customers.

Tim Berglund:

It's centered around this notion of all the people who build things with Kafka, in some sense. And it's this mutually, self-supporting, helping a group of people who know each other. That's what makes it a community. Otherwise, it's a statistical property of a group of people. For it to be a community, they have to help each other. And those last two that you talked about, digital platforms in your final pillar. And the last two things you mentioned, Slack and Confluent are one way for people to do that helping. Frankly, to ask questions, right? And get answers.

Tim Berglund:

And particularly in the last year with in-person interaction, being a little bit of a problem during the pandemic, those have been key. Those happened to be areas where Robin is super active and that's one of the big reasons you're here, Robin. The idea of getting questions answered.

Tim Berglund:

So you do a lot of that question answering. You've done a lot of it in Slack. You do a lot of it in the Forum now. There might be folks listening who don't even know we have a forum, probably a lot of people know we have a Slack workspace. Because if you're listening to this, you're probably in it. Obviously, there will be links in the show notes to both, if you don't.

Tim Berglund:

But asking questions, getting answers, you do it a lot, Robin. So just kind of riff on that. What's a good question? What's a good answer? How does that work well? How does it work poorly?

Robin Moffatt:

Yeah. So, that's a good question as well. The best kind of...

Tim Berglund:

I am after all [crosstalk 00:09:38].

Robin Moffatt:

[crosstalk 00:09:38]. So I get the big bucks. I think the difference between like a vibrant community is one where people are respectful in their questions that they ask and the answers that they give. Versus people saying it is just a free resource for like I've got this project, I've been chucked onto, I'm going to chuck out a question. I've not put much thought into it. And I'll put for an answer. I might even demand it. And so I say, "It's urgent." And then someone chucks an answer and they go, and...

Robin Moffatt:

That's not like a great way for things to go. Because people probably aren't going to help answer the question if it's not particularly well formed. So the kind of things that make a good question, the way they actually take the time to explain what you're doing.

Robin Moffatt:

And ironically enough, if you take the time to do that, a lot of the time you actually solve your problem. It's called the rubber duck idea. And I do it all the time. I like to [crosstalk 00:10:33] go to kind of our internal Slack and go ask someone something. As I'm typing it out, it's like, "Ah, yeah. I didn't check that thing."

Robin Moffatt:

So writing a great question can actually help you get the answer yourself. But doing things like explaining why you're trying to do it. So a bad way would be like, "How do I set this?" Or, "How do I get this to here?" A good way would be like, "I'm trying to build this thing. I want to get some data from here to do this so I can do this." Whether it's, "How can I do that?" Or, "I've tried this. And I've got this particular error message."

Robin Moffatt:

Because then people may be able to say, "You kept these things through together like this. But you don't actually want to do it that way. Because what you're trying to do is do this with this. So actually what you'll do is a different way." So people sometimes fast-forward through what they assume. And if particularly people are new to these things, they may only see one way of doing it. So they'll ask actually the wrong question. So the backgrounds helped them off a lot.

Tim Berglund:

It's like if you come in and you say, "Where's the honey? I need the honey." And I'm like, "We don't have any honey." This goes to a nursery rhyme-type poem from when I was a boy. It was, "I eat my piece with honey. I've done it all my life. It may sound kind of funny, but it keeps them on the knife." And okay, so that's, that's known-

Robin Moffatt:

It is.

Tim Berglund:

... in the UK. Nobody else in the US seems to know this. But you know, well maybe if you used a spoon... And real quick, I want to stop on rubber duck because there might be people who don't know. And Ale, you may be wondering why we're talking about our bath toys.

Tim Berglund:

The point Robin was making is that in the process of asking a good question, whether to another person in spoken words or typing it out well and formulating it well. That forces you to think through things in a systematic way. And so you might as well have a rubber duck on your monitor and just ask the rubber duck the question. Because it's your own cognitive process of forming the question that brings the insight. It's not an answer. And so you don't know that [crosstalk 00:12:31].

Robin Moffatt:

It [crosstalk 00:12:31] actually verbalize it and actually articulating it, whether in written form or verbally. It's actually going through what is it I'm trying to do? Or, what have I done? That if you have any sense, [crosstalk 00:12:40] screen flight for hours, it's like, "I'm sure I've tried everything. I've sure I've tried these things." But actually writing it out or speaking it out is what helps.

Tim Berglund:

Yeah. Or, going to the next cubicle and saying, hey this. And by the time you're done on the question, "Oh, never mind. I got it." It always happens, right? So, help, this is broken is a terrible question.

Tim Berglund:

But putting yourself through the work... And I put terrible expectations on myself when I go to ask questions in forums. I'm like, "No. This has to be all bulletproof." And so I make it more costly than it needs to be. But the good thing about that is I run myself through the ringer and I do that thinking. So...

Robin Moffatt:

And it's also respectful as well. [crosstalk 00:13:17] If you're going to a community and you're hoping for people to help you for free, then the least you can do is be respectful of their time and make it easy to understand what it is you're actually trying to do. So rocking out to a community and pasting a screenshot of an error with no context around it and saying, "It's broken. What's the problem?" It's like, you're not even trying here. You're asking for these people to help you? And so it's a matter of respect as well.

Robin Moffatt:

There's a link, and make sure we get it in the show notes. When I go to Chrome, I just type in catb, I can't remember the full URL. But, it's called how to ask questions the smart way. And it's actually from many years ago, but the advice just stands.

Robin Moffatt:

It's things like don't guess at what the problem is. Explain what you're trying to do. Show what the versions are. How you've installed it. All this kind of stuff. Because computers are only getting more and more complicated and they're distributed and all the rest of it. So those kinds of things matter. Are you running in Docker? Is it a local thing? Is it up in the cloud somewhere? All these kinds of things form part of a good question and let people give you kind of more helpful answers.

Tim Berglund:

Nice. I want to ask about answering questions. But a question has occurred to me, I kind of want to bounce something back to Ale. So Robin, I'll come back to you in a second. How about the kindness of a community? Because this is a thing that some people are afraid to come.

Tim Berglund:

Number one, there's the poorly thought out question where you haven't done the work yourself. That probably would have been rewarding in your own problem solving process to formulate a good question. And you just kind of dump up, "Oh, this is broken, the stack trace." And that's disrespectful of the people that are offering you free expertise. And it short-circuits your own process.

Tim Berglund:

But then there are communities that don't make it safe to ask questions. And where if it's too simple of a question, you could get some abuse for that. Or there could just be trolling in the community. So Ale, where do we stand there? And, do you have a lot of practice handling trolls? And how do we do that?

Ale Murray:

Yes, that's a great question. So we part from the principle that we have a global community. And there are a lot of cultures and a lot of languages. And everyone's making an effort to communicate in one language, in this case, it's English.

Ale Murray:

So we're part of the principle of understanding that there might be a lot of things lost in translation and that we need to be content empathetic towards people that are making an effort to speak a different language and communicate to a different culture or to many different cultures. Because we are a global community, as I just mentioned.

Ale Murray:

So that's one thing that I like keeping in mind. Just in this call, we are from three completely different cultures and different countries. So on different languages, at least one, one different language. So...

Tim Berglund:

Are you really one and a half?

Ale Murray:

One and a half, yeah. So I think that's something that's very important to keep in mind. And another thing that we like and by the way, not only keeping in mind, but every opportunity we have to remind people of that, we take it. And another thing that we like reminding people about is what Robin just mentioned if you're waiting or expecting for someone to help you, or the least you can ask from someone is to be kind and to be respectful of the way they ask. And also the time that person is taking in answering your question.

Ale Murray:

This is completely free, accessible to everyone. And most people understand that. And then there are the times where you find a troll or the other person that doesn't understand that, or that expects everything. But at those times, we also like to remember that they are human beings behind a screen. And people forget that a lot, particularly when we're behind the screen all day, every day and all of us are, and particularly after this last year.

Ale Murray:

So it's also a good reminder to people to remember that behind the screen, we're all human beings. And one way we like doing that as well is that when someone is not being very nice or very kind, we tend to DM them. So direct message them and ask them kindly. And then suddenly the response is unbelievable.

Ale Murray:

Once you start trolling someone back on a public forum, it's a never-ending process. And that creates more trolling from other people. Other people start getting involved. So, it only starts to escalate to never ending proportions.

Ale Murray:

But when you understand that they are human beings and go and direct message them and say, "Hey, I know you were trying your best. But would you mind being a little bit kinder? These people are trying to help you." Or, "That's not really great. Would you mind not posting that again? That's a little bit spammy. Everyone here is trying to get something done."

Ale Murray:

99% of the time, I've gotten a good response from that. And I think it's because of that. Because people suddenly realize, "Oh, they remember, I'm a human being." When we don't remember they're human beings, it's super easy to escalate. So that's one of the things.

Tim Berglund:

Every time you DM me, I stop. [inaudible 00:19:16]

Ale Murray:

It's funny enough. We don't really have many repeated trolls. Once they do, by these methods, they suddenly just don't do it again. I am totally against blocking people straight away because I like giving them the chance. Because they are just going to open a new account with a different username and they just keep trolling. But when you actually acknowledge them as human beings, there, you have way better chance for them to stop.

Ale Murray:

And then the other 1% that doesn't respond to that then obviously, you have no option and you block them. But I always repeat this, that I consider myself, I am very lucky for working with such a lovely community and such a healthy community where we barely have to block people. We barely have any trolls and the ones we have really understand, that really feel seen as human beings and turn around.

Ale Murray:

And it's been really lovely to work with communities like this because it hasn't been like that everywhere I've worked. But also from the other people in DevRel that I hear, it's not that usual.

Ale Murray:

And I think that also comes from people like Robin who's here with us, that set an example. And people like you, who set an example. And people like Jay and Gwen, like all the people that work and have worked with the community from the very beginning, they have been an example that they have set. And communities grow towards the people they see growing the community.

Ale Murray:

So, if we have a toxic community leader, it's going to end up being a toxic community. And thankfully we haven't. So it is a lovely community.

Robin Moffatt:

To emphasize what Ale said about the empathy and the cultural side of things, because understanding where people are coming from both and why are they asking this kind of question? So, at the time, hours spent in the past, not in the Confluent, the Kafka Community, but in a previous life. I'll have quite often replied to questions with the let me Google that for you link. And it wasn't as good a community.

Robin Moffatt:

People were literally just like drive by, can you do my job for me? Like, "I haven't made the [inaudible 00:21:37] for efforts." But it sinks to the lowest common denominator, kind of they ask rubbish questions where you give snarky answers. And no one kind of benefits from that. And so I've followed on from what Ale says, the examples from Gwen and Tim and everyone else in the community that you help people.

Robin Moffatt:

And if you've got nothing nice to say, don't say it. If you don't want to help someone, don't help them. But lots of people, they're just starting out. They're just learning this thing. And what seems obvious to people who've been using it for a while, or even just like a little bit. It's like, "God, couldn't they go look at this in the dark? So it's the first thing on Google." It's like, "That's great." Give them that link.

Robin Moffatt:

And then that welcomed them into the community. And if they keep on, like they just want their job done in five minutes, that's actually a very, very small minority of people. Most people, they're just dipping their toe in the water from the community. So welcome them in with not being snarky and rude to them is a really big thing.

Tim Berglund:

It is. So I think you just answered this question, Robin. I was going to ask you to coach the question answerer. Because you, you gave us a good how to ask a question. But what other advice do you have for people like you who are there and you have knowledge, and you want to make the community healthier, and you want to get people going on whatever it is they're stuck on? What would be your advice to the person who's trying to be good at that? Besides what you just said.

Robin Moffatt:

I think don't be a smart ass. And again, a 100% guilty of this in the past. And people on there, they don't want to see how clever you are. They want to get help with what they're doing. And it's going to foster a nicer community of people, aren't there to go like outsmart each other and like a series of threads where the answer is like, "Actually, it's this." Or nitpicking a previous answer or something.

Robin Moffatt:

It's again, if you've got nothing nice to say, don't say it. If you've got something that's kind of correct, or you see something's different or could be more precise, there are tons of nice ways to say that.

Robin Moffatt:

And again, I think the cultural thing comes into it. Because of different cultures, use that language in different ways. And I only speak English, I'm embarrassed I don't know any other language. And I've got so much respect for everyone else who's speaking English as a second or third language. And all this technical stuff, it's like, I can't even like [inaudible 00:23:59] in another language. I could probably manage that.

Robin Moffatt:

But, sometimes when people answer things, they'll be very, very blunt. And maybe that's because they're just being rude, but all the time, it's actually they're writing in another language. So it's just that empathy. Again, it comes back to the empathy and understanding and just giving people the benefit of the doubt.

Robin Moffatt:

But I think answering the question that people are asking, maybe say like, "Are you actually trying to do that?" I'm going back to my point about asking a good question and the context for what you're trying to do and what you're trying to achieve. So you can answer a question directly and then say, "But by the way, if you're trying to do this, and like maybe second guess a little bit, but politely, have you thought about doing it this way?" Or, just go back and say like, you've not got enough information to go on politely and kindly ask for like, "let us help you. We need a bit more information and we need to know this kind of stuff. But maybe chuck in a few links. You've not really given us what should go on here. Can you give us this information? And by the way, check out these few references here. Because sometimes this is what needs to get unblock to us."

Tim Berglund:

Yeah. So not only helping them with the problem. In some cases helping them with the question. Because not everybody is... That's a skill that you have to learn, asking a good question. [crosstalk 00:25:11] You're helping them...

Robin Moffatt:

People don't always ask a question badly because they're just being awkward and can't be bothered. Sometimes they literally don't know how to ask a good question. They think that the area code is all that's necessary. So actually I suppose that applies maybe broadly to more junior people who have just started out, kind of writing stuff on computers.

Robin Moffatt:

But understanding how the talent, the broads, kind of the soft skills of being a software engineer, communicating and being able to articulate what is the problem. What am I trying to do? And so how we coach people through us as well.

Tim Berglund:

You've both mentioned language as a thing in online and in in-person interactions. And when there's a multilanguage situation and you're dealing with a second language speaker, if you detect bluntness, number one, you're probably a fluent or native speaker of the language like do to get to that level of, that was a blunt way to ask that question. Then you've got mastery of things in the language that a fluent speaker uses to soften and avoid that kind of thing. And this is not a podcast about language, but as an encouragement to go easy on that bluntness evaluation.

Tim Berglund:

There are actually some really interesting linguistic explanations of why certain kinds of things sound blunt. And even why in spoken language, certain kinds of grammars from the person's original language will cause them to speak in a way that sounds blunt in English.

Tim Berglund:

They have nothing to do with the person's emotional state or their thought about you or themselves or anything. It's the phonology and the grammar of their language, cause them when they're new at English to do these things. And you think you're a jerk. But they're not. They're like good linguistic explanations of that.

Tim Berglund:

So you really want to go easy on that. And realize if you're detecting bluntness, good for you because you're really good at the language you're speaking right now. And maybe they're not so go easy.

Robin Moffatt:

Also stuff like emoji's come in, they seem sometimes people say, "They're childish or whatever." But emojis were invented for this reason. Just like the colon and the brackets was out 50 years ago or however long ago it was. That kind of stuff helps convey meaning. And you can use a sentence without it. And it sounds potentially [inaudible 00:27:26]. But if you put that on and it's dead clear exactly what you mean.

Tim Berglund:

Smile with tongue sticking out in a breeze like, "Oh, wow, he's nice."

Ale Murray:

Yeah. Like the tone, right? Like there's nothing that can just tell you what the tone of voice the person is using to write the language. And that saves them all. I have an example of that. What you just said, Tim. So in Spanish you say a lot, tienes que and that translates to you have to. And when I say it in English, everyone's like, I don't have to do anything. But it's kind of like a way of explaining.

Ale Murray:

So if you ask me, how do I work this water bottle? Then you say, "You have to open it like this." And it just kind of, [crosstalk 00:28:13] it's like you have to do it.

Tim Berglund:

I'm an American. I'll do what I want.

Ale Murray:

Yeah. It's funny but... It's something actually that you mentioned at the beginning about what's the definition of community. I think is very linked to these. Because another thing that we need to keep in mind is that everyone in the community was a starter, a beginner once.

Ale Murray:

So these people who are coming into your community to ask newbie questions, you were one of them before. And a lot of people might say, "Yeah, but then I went and figured it out myself." That's great. Now that means that you paved the way for other people to not have to figure it out themselves. Now you can help them.

Ale Murray:

And that's the very definition of community, is paving the way for others to not have to go through the difficult process that you had to go through to say the same. So the fact that you had a hard time learning that, doesn't mean that the person behind you does. It actually means that the person behind you doesn't have to because you already did. So you were making it easier.

Ale Murray:

And then that actually opens the door for other people to create better solutions with the technology that will end up helping you in return. So it's like you also were a beginner, but also the beginner today might be the person who helps you with your project in the future. So it's just keeping in mind that as well. And that I think is what makes it a community, just realizing that.

Tim Berglund:

Those would great words to end on. And we're kind of at time. But I want to ask one more thing. Slack versus Forum. This is a debate we've had here in the last six months. And it's a debate that other people have. Everybody's got a Slack Workspace, not already has a Forum right now. We have a Forum. What are your thoughts on the use of those two things? Jump ball, either one of you.

Robin Moffatt:

[crosstalk 00:30:08] I have some opinion. You go first because I'm the one who is... I was always being asked about this, [inaudible 00:30:15] we should have a Forum. We should have a forum. And now we have a Forum, so I made Ale's life difficult.

Ale Murray:

Not at all. No.

Robin Moffatt:

All right. I think Slack's great. But for me, it's got some limitations. Kind of like the transient nature of it and the way that stuff gets lost in threads, it's not indexed by Google. So you can't find stuff so easily. And it's also just like, and it shows my age, I grew up on Usenets and MTP...

Tim Berglund:

Usenet, Usenet. Say it.

Robin Moffatt:

Yeah. And I grew up on IRC as well. Kind of the way those certain chat thing works. But they're different things for different purposes. And I don't think either one on its own is sufficient. I think you need both because different types of developers want different things. And also different types of conversation lend themselves better to different things.

Robin Moffatt:

So if you've got two people online trying to debug some failure, like, "Have you tried this? Have you tried that? And you tried that." That's perfect for something like Slack. Whereas maybe a more long form things are kind of considered discussions or just like, "Here's my problem. And then here's my answer." That tends to work better in a forum.

Robin Moffatt:

For me, the specific reason is that it's not lost. One of the big reasons I was pushing to get the forum was that in the Slack, you would have the same kind of questions coming up again and again, and there is search and stuff like that. But with a forum, it's much easier to say, "Here's the question, here's the answer." You can mark it as a solution. So it shows up as like, "This is the actual answer that the person asking the question said, this answered my question."

Robin Moffatt:

And then you can redirect people to it. And you can say, here is the answer and it'll pop up on Google. And it helps scale the community in terms of people answering and solving questions for others. Instead of people ending up see now, this is the 100th time I've seen this question. This time I'm not going to answer it. So that was for me the real drive between the need for a forum.

Ale Murray:

Yes.

Tim Berglund:

[crosstalk 00:32:21].

Ale Murray:

And to add to that, at the beginning the intention that we had was to build cross-community collaboration. And build relationships to really strengthen the community. And build that structure for the community to stand on. And we found that possible in Slack.

Ale Murray:

But I think as the community reaches a level of maturity, both from a relationship standpoint, but also from a technical standpoint, then that need for that historical technical platform increases. And I think that's what ended up driving the decision to, "Okay. Yeah. This is the right moment to do that."

Ale Murray:

If we had done this three years ago, we wouldn't have probably built either or. So, we needed to have that strong base for the communities to stand on. So that now the technical maturity of the community is there for us to be able to have a very vibrant forum as well.

Tim Berglund:

My guests today have been Ale Murray and Robin Moffatt. Ale and Robin, thanks for being a part of Streaming Audio.

Ale Murray:

Thank you for having us.

Robin Moffatt:

It's been a pleasure. Thanks very much.

Tim Berglund:

And there you have it. Thanks for listening to this episode. Now, some important details before you go. Streaming Audio is brought to you by Confluent Developer, that's developer.confluent.io. A website dedicated to helping you learn Kafka, Confluent and everything in the broader event streaming ecosystem. We've got free video courses, a library of event driven architecture design patterns, executable tutorials, covering ksqIDB Kafka Streams, and core Kafka APIs. There's even an index of episodes of this podcast. So if you take a course on Confluent Developer, you'll have the chance to use Confluent Cloud. When you sign up, use the code PODCAST100 to get an extra a hundred dollars of free Confluent Cloud usage.

Tim Berglund:

Anyway, as always, I hope this podcast was helpful to you. If you want to discuss it or ask a question, you can always reach out to me @tlberglund on Twitter. That's T-L-B-E-R-G-L-U-N-D. Or you can leave a comment on the YouTube video if you're watching and not just listening or reach out in our Community Slack or Forum, both are linked in the show notes. And while you're at it, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And to this podcast, wherever fine podcasts are sold. And if you subscribe through Apple Podcast, be sure to leave us a review there. That helps other people discover us, which we think is a good thing. So thanks for your support and we'll see you next time.

A developer community brings people with shared interests and purpose together. The fundamental elements of a community are to gather, learn, support, and create opportunities for collaboration. A developer community is also an effective and efficient instrument for exploring and solving problems together. 

The power of a community is its endless advantages, from knowledge sharing to support, interesting discussions, and much more. Tim Berglund invites Ale Murray (Global Community Manager, Confluent) and Robin Moffatt (Staff Developer Advocate, Confluent) on the show to discuss the art of Q&A in a global community, share tips for building a vibrant developer community, and highlight the five strategic pillars for running a successful global community:

  1. Meetups
  2. Conferences
  3. MVP program (e.g., Confluent Community Catalysts)
  4. Community hackathons
  5. Digital platforms 

Digital platforms, such as a community Slack and forum, often consist of members who are well versed on topics of interest. As a leader in the Apache Kafka® and Confluent communities, Robin expresses the importance of being respectful when asking questions and providing details to the problem at hand. A well-formulated and focused question will more likely lead to a helpful answer. Oftentimes, the cognitive process of composing the question actually helps iron out the problem and draw out a solution. This process is also known as the rubber duck debugging theory

In a global community with diverse cultures and languages, being kind and having empathy is crucial. The tone and meaning of words can sometimes get lost in translation. Using emojis can help transcend language barriers by adding another layer of tone to plain text. 

Ale and Robin also discuss the pros and cons of a community forum vs. a Slack group. Tune in to find out more tips and best practices on building and engaging a developer community.

Continue Listening

Episode 177September 21, 2021 | 15 min

Apache Kafka 3.0 - Improving KRaft and an Overview of New Features

Apache Kafka 3.0 is out! To spotlight major enhancements in this release, Tim Berglund (Apache Kafka Developer Advocate) provides a summary of what’s new in the Kafka 3.0 release from Krakow, Poland, including API changes and improvements to the early-access Kafka Raft (KRaft).

Episode 178September 23, 2021 | 30 min

Designing a Cluster Rollout Management System for Apache Kafka ft. Twesha Modi

As one of the top coders of her Java coding class in high school, Twesha Modi is continuing to follow her passion for computer science as a senior at Cornell University, where she has proven to be one of the top programmers. During Twesha's summer internship at Confluent, she contributed to designing a new service to automate Apache Kafka cluster rollout management—a process that releases the latest Kafka versions to customer’s clusters in Confluent Cloud.

Episode 179September 28, 2021 | 31 min

Intro to Kafka Connect: Core Components and Architecture ft. Robin Moffatt

Kafka Connect is a streaming integration framework between Apache Kafka and external systems, such as databases and cloud services. With expertise in ksqlDB and Kafka Connect, Robin Moffatt (Staff Developer Advocate, Confluent) helps and supports the developer community in understanding Kafka and its ecosystem. Recently, Robin authored a Kafka Connect 101 course that will help you understand the basic concepts of Kafka Connect, its key features, and how it works.

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