? Hi, I’m Peter, and this is my first blog post on my journey of Discovery. This is a blog post not about me finding myself in the philosophical sense, but rather why I found myself setting about building Discovery.
What is Discovery you ask? Well, it’s a site dedicated to my views on the things that I discover along my way. To be accurate, it’s not just one site, but rather a series of sites focusing on different subjects. And it all started because I felt I needed to share more about the things I’ve learnt.
About 6 months ago, I made the move to the Developer Relations team at Okta, becoming a Principal Developer Advocate for all things Auth0. For those of you who’ve not come across the realm of Developer Releations – a.k.a DevRel – there’s a pretty good primer here. In fact, that site has a number of interesting articles and resources for anyone looking to get into DevRel and/or becoming a Developer Advocate.
At the time, I’d been at Okta (and previously Auth0, before it got acquired) for about 5 years and I was looking for a change. I’d been working as a Solutions Architect, making my way up from a senior level to a staff-level position. I’ve held above senior level roles for most of the last 20 years of my career, and as they’ve always been technical-oriented ones, I knew I very much wanted it to be into a technical role for any move I was going to make.
In my spare time (or should I say as a hobby; spare time being somewhat of a premium) I can usually be found doing something at my local theatre: Acting, Directing, working backstage – anything that feels like I’m putting on a show is where you’ll usually find me. So I thought it might be nice if I could find something that incorporated that particular passion too.
As a Solutions Architect my job was to help customers integrate with Auth0; as a Developer Advocate, my job’s become about educating developers on all things CIAM, and how Auth0 can help. Developer Advocacy can sometime also be like putting on a show.
Being Authentic
DevRel – or more specifically being a Developer Advocate – is a motion which works best when you turn up as your most “authentic self”. Mary Thengvall has written a great book (which I have my current Manager to thank for introducing me to) called The Business Value of Developer Relations. It goes into far more detail than I can here, so I’d recommend it as a great read for anyone interested in the world of DevRel!.
For most, turning up as your “authentic self” means being honest, ethical, transparent, and trying not to bullshit….at least trying not to bullshit too much ? Developers, especially, are good at seeing through bullshit. And you can easily lose any sort of respect if you over-do it (with the bullshit that is). With over 5 years experience using Auth0, and over 25 years developing and designing software, I felt pretty comfortable on the bullshit front: Identity and Access Management (a.k.a IAM) has been my bread-and-butter for quite a while now, and I am – and always will be – a Developer at heart!
“Patois” is defined as the jargon or informal speech used by a particular social group. Having the right patois, and knowing how to use it in a meaningful way, is pretty crucial when it comes to being a Developer Advocate. As they often say in theatre: it’s all about the delivery; timing is everything! With my experience on stage having taught me how to engage with and hold an audience, my love of all technical stuff – and being good at the technical stuff too – what could be a better fit for me than Developer Advocacy! Right? ?
It hasn’t all been plain sailing! In more ways than one! But those are stories for another time. For the moment, let me just say that a better “being authentic” has taken a degree of work.
For example, Developers are folks who are typically adverse to all things “salesy”. And they’re very wary of too much “marketing speak” too! As a Solutions Architect, talking product for most of the time was something that came as a matter of course; pushing product at any opportunity is not really going to work so well when you’re being a Developer Advocate. This was something I discovered early on and something I’ve had to address. It’s taken a little while to make the necessary shifts in my patois – mostly to be more topic focused – but I’m getting there.
Being Topical
As a Developer Advocate, one of the things I do – and actually one of the things I love doing the most – is turning up at events. At Okta, we often sponsor events, and as part of this we often get the opportunity to deliver a talk and run a booth. Both of which are pretty topic oriented affairs. It’s probably fair to say I love running a booth the most – I guess it resonates with the “theatrical” in me ?
Auth0 – or to use it’s official title Auth0 by Okta – is an awsome SaaS platform for Customer Identity and Access Management (a.k.a CIAM). Even if I do say so myself ?. So talking about it and what it can do comes fairly naturally. If it wasn’t a great product – or if I didn’t think it was – I wouldn’t be able to advocate for it. I’m very bad at pushing something I don’t believe in; probably one of the biggest reasons I’ve never tried to make a career in sales!
Staying Topical
By early October I’d already attended a few major conferences and been part of a large scale Developer Relations delivery at Oktane – our flagship company event. Those experiences told me something: I wanted to build a thing that would help me leverage a lot of the work I’d done during my 5 year tenure at Okta. Something that could expand and grow as I did. As a Solutions Architect, I’d been involved in a number of different initiatives to develop content and programs to better serve our customers. And that really gave me quite a unique perspective on Auth0, and I wanted to be able to leverage as many of the various facets of that as I could.
Which brings me here, to Discovery. And specifically my first subject specific Discovery site: Discover CIAM – focusing on all things Customer Identity & Access Management, and the benefits of integrating with the Auth0 platform. It’s taken me a little over a month to put together…with 5 years and 6 months in the planning ?
The Topical Road Ahead
I’ve very much taken my first steps on my road of Discovery. Or perhaps I should say I’ve taken my first leap? Certainly from your perspective as a reader, it probably looks that way. Stay tuned for more to come, as Discovery itself continues to unfold. I’ve more to add to the CIAM domain, that’s for sure, and I’m certainly going to use what I learn – and write about – to support me in becoming a better Developer Advocate ?
But there’s always more. I’m currently thinking there’s a Discovery site somewhere in the wings that’ll be focused on the world of Theatre. And as my partner runs a little bookshop in the town near where we live, I’m certain it won’t be long before there’ll be a Discovery site on that too!
Safe travels, and happy Discovery! ?
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