San Francisco DevRel meetup presentation on what to expect in DevRel as the COVID-19 situation impacts your area, While every area is unique, this acts as a reference point from the situation in one of the earlier affected countries, Singapore

1. Community management
in a crisis
COVID-19 DevRel Learnings
Sarah Thiam
Sr. DevRel Program Manager
Microsoft, Asia Pacific
@truckerfling

2. Timeline
expectations
Date COVID-19 situation DevRel community activity
• 23 Jan 1 confirmed case Community unaffected
• 30 Jan – 2 Feb 18 confirmed cases Community chatter but largely unaffected
• 3 – 7 Feb 33 confirmed cases Community chatter, concern and debate
over continuing activity
• 7 Feb DORSCON Orange Community starts to cancel, postpone
activity
• 14 Feb 67 confirmed cases Microsoft’s 2000-people conference is
cancelled.
Start planning for online workarounds
• 20 Feb 85 confirmed cases Online meetups
• 7 Mar 131 confirmed cases Online conference

3. Community
sentiment
“How bad is the situation getting?“
“Do we cancel or postpone? What is
everyone else doing?”
“Do we have time to go virtual? Is our
community responsive to virtual?“
“How do we go virtual quickly?“
“If I still want to do in-person, can you support me?“

4. Psychological safety is as important and
valid as physical safety

5. What DevRel
folks can do
1. Ask your community what is comfortable for them
https://github.com/SingaporeJS/talk.js/issues/32

6. What DevRel
folks can do
2. Take the lead
https://www.meetup.com/mssgug/events/269149218/

7. What DevRel
folks can do
3. Enable your community
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
365/blog/2020/03/05/our-commitment-to-customers-during-covid-
19/

8. What DevRel
folks can do
4. Share your learnings
https://twitter.com/ThePracticalDev/status/1237304441050730496
https://twitter.com/ThePracticalDev/status/1235928491515879425

9. If you and your company are considering
taking it online, here are some DevRel tips

10. Organizing
online
meetups
• Choose the right platform (https://cda.ms/1dM)
• Recreate a meetup/conference user experience online
(https://cda.ms/1dN)
• Accessibility, privacy, inclusion
• Communications
• Have an on-demand plan

11. Organizing
online
meetups
https://www.engineers.sg/
Microsoft Tech Community APAC Online

12. Online
events in the
long term
• Choose the right platform (https://cda.ms/1dM)
• Recreate a meetup user experience online
• Accessibility, privacy, inclusion
• Communications
• Have an on-demand plan
• Measure the right things
• Create internal online events guidance
• Share best practices
• Talk longer term strategy

13. Thank you
Sarah Thiam
Sr. DevRel Program Manager
Microsoft, Asia Pacific
@truckerfling