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Did you get purple first?

Have you seen Connections, the word game from The New York Times? Every day, the game posts 16 new words. The challenge is to group them into four categories. It looks something like this: (That’s one that I made myself—I’ll show the answer below, in case you want to pause and solve it ) Some…

My sons Donatello and Michelangelo

Did you know people named Dennis are more likely to become dentists? I first heard about this in a Malcolm Gladwell or Stephen Dubner book. One of those PopSci titles that I probably didn’t finish. There was a real study that looked at the names of dentists. Its data seemed to suggest that, because of…

Why I balk at soccer

Like many people, I watched a lot of World Cup games during the recent tournament. Unlike many people, I'm not really a soccer fan, which had me frequently confused. They'd pass the ball from player to player, never really gaining any ground... it's a whole lot of activity for not much payoff. Most of the…

Swedish army knives?

My dad whipped out a pocket knife to cut his pasta. Our host gasped. We were traveling to Sweden for the Nordic APIs conference. I brought my dad because we have Swedish heritage and he’d never been. Plus, who doesn’t want to see their son talk about APIs? Ok, so maybe the talk wasn’t the…

Turn around… every now and then

Whenever my yoga teacher says “turn around,” instructing us to face the bar attached to the wall, I think of the song. You know the one: Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart is iconic. Though we’ve lost the singer, we’ll still have the refrain: (Turn around, bright eyes) Every now and then, I fall apart (Turn around,…

Impressions that last 100+ years

I’ve never met Elwood Wiles, but his name is all over my neighborhood. His work is undeniably good, because I can still see it after more than a century. In fact, I can walk on it. As Portland expanded in the early 1900s, settlers built the area I now stroll through when I need a…

IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY

When there’s a cake in the break room fridge, you know it’s time for the office birthday party! It’s time to decorate the conference room. Put up a sign on the wall, and bring in the balloons and streamers. But what about The Office birthday party? The U.S. television series had one of the worst onscreen parties.…

My weird collection of email hooks

There’s a small pile of things on my desk that probably wouldn’t mean much to most people. A pen. A decoder badge. A pencil. A stack of narrow notepads. Knowing something exists doesn’t mean I have to own it. And yet there I am, trolling eBay at odd hours for a small object that means…

Real-life pixel art

Sometimes you see somebody do something and you think: I have to try that. But that was not how I felt the first time I saw a Rubik’s Cube. I figured you either had the knack for it or you didn’t. Magic fingers, spatial reasoning I didn’t have, something like that. I kept that belief…

“That’s an expensive pencil!”

Just under eight inches long and shaped to a sharp point, the Blackwing 602 might be the most heralded pencil in the world. Incense cedar surrounds a firm graphite center. A flat metal cap clamps down over a thin pink eraser. It was a favorite of animators until it was discontinued. In 1998! That’s when…

The 387th time I saw the Golden Gate Bridge

I took a quick trip to San Francisco for Stripe’s conference. It was just one night. All I really needed was a bed, a shower, and electricity for all my devices. I booked a hotel at Lombard and Van Ness, surrounded by the characteristic hills that make The City feel like nowhere else. When I…

French toast in France

Sweaty and breathless, I often find myself cursing Romania. And sometimes Bulgaria. Frequently, they’ll stay on my naughty list for several days, until the soreness has subsided. Yes, Romanian deadlifts and Bulgarian squats are some of the toughest exercises for my legs. Throw in Russian twists and Turkish get-ups, and my core will join to…

Are they made from real Girl Scouts?

Christina Ricci has nearly 100 credits to her name. Yet, one of her first roles crowns the “known for” section of her IMDB page. Ricci played Wednesday Addams (no relation) in the 1991 Addams Family movie. She was given the best line, delivered beautifully, when she clapped back at the sassy Girl Scout. While my…

A crummy commercial

My grandma was way too nice. I’d pal around with her to the grocery store, then beg for some sugary box of cereal. She’d give in, buy the Fruity Pebbles, but that wouldn’t be the end of it. When we get back to her house, she’d help me pour the entire contents into her largest…

Why developers hate open source

Almost 25 years ago, Steve Ballmer called Linux a cancer. Then CEO of Microsoft, the guy was ahead of his time. Two and a half decades later, we know how developers feel about open source: It’s a pain to install, maintain, and run. Closed source is safer and more scalable. They’d much rather have no…

IKEA is a dev tool

This is not about how IKEA packs their boxes or how they’ve made balls of meat synonymous with an entire country. No, it’s about the big blue and yellow buildings where you visit the company’s many products. You are greeted with an escalator straight to the showroom when you walk in the doors. It’s like…

Thomas Jefferson, picker and chooser

Just got back from Washington, DC. My first time, and I took my 13-year-old son. Everywhere you look, there’s a well-known monolith, monument, or memorial. Though not towering above the city, the Jefferson Memorial is nevertheless spectacular: It was inspired by the University of Virginia’s rotunda, which Jefferson himself designed. Of course, the third president…

Snail mail from my childhood hero

I’d never heard of “TTM” until a few years ago. But I spent many precious postage stamps on it as a child. Before I tell you what TTM means, here’s one more acronym you’re more likely to recognize: ICYMI (In Case You Missed It): You can have EveryDeveloper analyze how AI helps devs find and…

Table-side sizzle

You know that moment when restaurants march the fajitas to a table, past all the other diners? I swear they take the long way, so everyone hears the loud sizzle of meat and veggies against cast iron. Amidst the crackles and pops, if you pay close attention, you can hear something else: Regret. It emanates…

When good accidents happen

Growing up in the country, a purebred Miniature Schnauzer was a strange choice for a dog. The classic fur pattern includes a bushy beard and fluffy leg hair. (That’s not my dog, but ​Kenji Joy on Instagram​ is worth a follow for other Schnauzer lovers) Going for walks, my pup would run through the brambles…

You probably should not copy Stripe

Do you want to be the “Stripe of” your category? It’s often given as an example of great DX, straightforward docs, and frictionless adoption. But my recommendation is: you don’t want to copy Stripe. If you copied Stripe, it would assume: There are plenty of ​reasons not to use Stripe as a measuring stick​. So,…

Found in Craigslist “free”

Out with the old, in with the new. It’s the season to clean house. A quick look on Craigslist shows plenty available in my area for free. I have a choice of threadbare, “cozy” couches if I make the trek to the poster’s corner of the metro area. Live plants, dead plants, and live animals…

The pause

We plugged in the Wii last week. Family tournaments followed: tennis in Wii Sports, archery in Sports Resort. It’s full of both fun and nostalgia, especially when Wii gives us this frequent reminder: Naturally, all players simultaneously smash the “A” button to dismiss the suggestion! But I appreciate that the game tries. Can you imagine…

Your all-time desert island top five

You’ve likely seen an inbox-ful of “best of” lists. They’re especially popular at the end of the year: best songs, movies, books. Maybe you’ve written something like this yourself. I sure have. There’s a great book and movie, High Fidelity, that makes liberal use of the “top 5” format. The main character, Rob, owns a…

What’s your Wordle start word?

Do you try to find the vowels or eliminate the most common letters? Wordle has been giving us five-letter words to guess since early 2022. There are many ways to play the game. To start, some go with ADIEU because it captures AEI and U (but not O). I’ve seen stat nerds reference SLATE and…

Apply bracketology to your technical content

Every March, basketball fans fill in brackets to guess college basketball winners. Every October, my family fills in our brackets to see if our favorite candy has changed. Technically, we could do this at any time of the year. But it’s Halloween season here, which means plenty of candy to try. It was a long…

My daughter’s college bike

My second child was born three minutes after my first. Boy and girl twins. When I took them for their one-week checkup, I carried a car seat in each arm like bodybuilder’s dumbbells. I did a few curls while the receptionist checked me in. Then I was shocked when they charged me twice the copay.…

Skip the execs, talk to housekeeping

I swear I’m not a thief! But I do sometimes take those tiny soaps from hotels. When I started attending conferences, I was just a young dev who needed a bed for a few hours of zzzs. The other amenities didn’t matter to me then. But I’ve come to appreciate the little things, like those…

Robert Redford’s best dev marketing movie

Many are rewatching great Redford movies after the actor passed away at age 89. But only one flick is being covered by this Developer Trust Memo. And it’s the same one included in my book ​Technical Content Strategy Decoded​: Sneakers. The film came out in 1992 and has the best of analog-era hacking. Think telephone…

You don’t create a developer community. Here’s what you do instead.

There’s a weird little hot dog stand that’s been in Portland as long as I have. It sits in a parking lot, with a drive-through and a walk-up window. Somehow it’s remained in business all this time. Here it was, busy as ever, when the StreetView car went by: Surely people know about Franks A…

A five-minute exercise to build developer trust

You ever have somebody look at something you made and see if in a whole new way? That’s what happened to me recently. I’d written another blog post for developer marketers. Something to help them understand their many audiences. But what really made me proud was the graphic I created to communicate the main idea.…

When developers see you coming

“Ohhh no,” said my daughter as I called my kids into the kitchen. It was Saturday morning and I’d just returned from a business trip the night before. Her pattern matching suggested that I was going to dole out chores to them. She was bracing for a list of tasks. She was pleasantly surprised when…

Donkeyman marketing

I was 12 years old, walking down a dusty back road with a guy we called the Donkeyman. He had 16 donkeys, two mules, a few goats, and a whole bunch of chickens. All riding, trailing, or pulling his two wagons. Cars would slow down. Then stop. People would get out and start asking questions.…

⚾️ Immaculate Grid 777 9/9

When I open my phone in the morning, one of the first things I look at is empty space. I wish I could say it was some zen practice to put me in the right mindset. But it’s a 3×3 grid that sometimes makes my brain hurt. And yes, I think you could use a…

Marketing that overwhelms support

Would you rather a channel send you 100 or 1,000 new users? Most marketers would choose the larger number. That’s my instinct, too! To answer the question accurately requires more information. Are those 100 or 1,000 of the right users? In our research for a client, we once enthusiastically recommended content around a partner’s integration.…

Getting started mistakes

A late-night trip to the grocery store revealed a mistake I often see developer marketers make. When I lived in a small town, a grand opening was a big deal. And this one was only our second grocery store, which would have longer hours than the first. To celebrate, the grand opening was scheduled for……

The one-armed man at baggage claim

A blast from the past was waiting for me at the airport and offers us all a reminder to use when we engage developers. You may know that I’m a baseball fan. I even made a special trip to see ​the final game in Oakland​. In fact, it was while looking for my friend in…

Sometimes you just want coffee

My coffee order may have embarrassed my friend. He was beyond excited to meet me at a very fancy coffee shop in my neighborhood. This place is internationally known. There’s two in the United States: one in Portland, the other in our hipster sibling city of Austin. They’ve been known to sell $150 cups of…

Don’t get Cush-lash

The most iconic lines from the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire may sound familiar, but they probably won’t help you reach more developers. They entered the zeitgeist and became so overused that they’re now cliché. You may recognize them: Perhaps you’ve seen this scene: “Show me the money” might be the exact opposite of a way…

Do you like my new haircut?

It’s true, I don’t have much hair to cut. So, I won’t be asking you about my recent haircut, but I do have something new to share. If I had asked, there’s really only one way to respond to the haircut question. “Looks good.” It’s meaningless. Yet, we often find ourselves seeking this sort of…

The weird pad of paper

For $2-3, you can purchase the secret weapon of professional storytellers. You’ve seen them before. Those long, narrow pads of paper that journalists pull out during interviews. The reporter’s notebook is instantly recognizable by its unusual dimensions. And the serious look on the face of whoever holds it. You can ​get them by the dozen​…

What happens when developers try marketing

I swear I didn’t take offense to this message from a dev. Many developers have read my books and made similar comments. What might seem negative is actually the biggest compliment they could give me. Here’s what a dev sent recently: They’re referring to the recommendations in ​Developer Marketing Does Not Exist​. As this developer…

Afraid of my garbage disposal

Every time I put my hand down a garbage disposal, I keep my eye trained on the switch. I’m constantly afraid someone will flick it on, mistaking it for a light switch. In my worst nightmares, I remove my hand a few fingers short. I’m sure this irrational concern comes from movies. In The Goonies,…

I don’t care about your Oxford comma

After years of removing commas, I’ve changed my tune. As a writer for publications like Wired and other tech outlets, I followed AP style. That means no “Oxford comma.” Instead of “apples, oranges, and bananas,” you must write “apples, oranges and bananas.” The New York Times and Associated Press both avoid the Oxford comma. Those…

When lightning struck us on the nose

I’ve been on enough airplanes that one was bound to be struck by lightning. I used to travel a lot for business, especially to the Bay Area. One thing I learned the hard way is that San Francisco Airport is often closed for fog. Sometimes I’d have a flight delayed for hours and instead talk…

There’s no torpedos in baseball

This caught the attention of physicists and baseball fans alike. The Yankees are using new bats and I promise this sportsball story relates to how you work with developers. It all started on March 29: the New York Yankees bring out a bat with a slightly new shape. And then they hit four home runs.…

Why I’m picking coffee beans up off the floor

My morning coffee routine taught me a valuable lesson about developer tools… and why more isn’t always better. Every day starts the same way. I make coffee first thing, following a precise process that’s become second nature. I keep my beans in a Cuisinart grinder that’s perfectly sized for one bag of coffee. Here’s what…

Yelp for dev blogs

It might not be good, but developers are saying something about your product. Unlike for restaurants, you can’t always read what reviewers think. The stuff diners say on Yelp is more important to my decision to eat there than the overall star rating. Say it’s a Friday evening, and I’m searching for a new teriyaki…

Unbeatable strategy for an empty middle seat

A late-night Southwest Airlines flight taught me a new travel trick… but reminded me of a common content strategy mistake. After several hours of delay, we’re finally boarding. Southwest Airlines has a unique boarding process. Passengers choose their seats based on check-in order. This creates a particular kind of frenzy. I’m very tall, so I…

McDonald’s has coffee

I heard him chime in from the back seat of the minivan, this tiny voice calling to me matter-of-factly. Even though my nephew is grown and a developer himself, it was this message as a youngster still sitting in a car seat that taught me an important lesson in marketing to developers. When my nephews…

Constrain yourself

Three months ago, I started a new project that has nothing to do with developers. But of course, I learned something about working with developers anyway. I’m a baseball fan, and I recently started digging into my old baseball cards. Most are from the 80s and 90s—known as the “junk card era.” Millions of each…

Pig Latin for data scientists

Don’t tell my kids, but they’re still not very good at Pig Latin. Most dev companies get languages wrong, too. Not that Pig Latin is an official language. To speak it, take the first sound, move it to the back of the word, and add an “ay” sound that provides a gibberish quality. Developer becomes…

Landing gear conversations

The frenzy of the flight boarding process has just finished. You have a spot for your bags and a plan for the next couple of hours when… “So, you leaving home or going back?” The person sitting next to you starts a conversation. And now you’re left wondering whether it will last the entirety of…

Alone with a celebrity

This is the sort of story that’s usually apocryphal. There’s a reason these spread and surely it’s worth telling if it improves your work with developers. In the version I saw, a woman from Michigan is vacationing with her family in a small Connecticut town frequented by the rich and famous. She gets out for…

Three second workouts

The subject line sounds like fiction, but it’s from a real scientific study… and can help you reach more developers with less sweat, too. The idea of “three second workouts” might remind you of “Eight Minute Abs,” or any of its lesser-numbered competitors: In a ​classic scene​ (which includes one little swear at the end,…

That’s not how I use Kleenex

Even the sniffles can help you build trust with developers. It’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere. That means cold weather and, sometimes, colds. Both Proctor and Gamble have my number, because we get Puffs with Lotion. It just feels better on my nose and I don’t care if advertising convinced me. But my friend Bill…

FULL SHARE

You probably haven’t been behind the closed doors of a professional locker room. Me neither. Too bad, because I bet we’d learn a lot. Even if you aren’t a sportsball fan, this story of Rickey Henderson is inspiring. And could help you engage more developers. Rickey is best known for the most stolen bases in…

The mirror image problem

Have you seen commercials where cars park themselves? Perhaps you even have a car like this. When my kids learn to drive, I’m not sure they’ll even need to know how to parallel park. They haven’t had to learn cursive writing, so perhaps this will be just another vestigial skill. Here’s how the Oregon Driver…

Enough about me

We’ve all been trapped in a conversation with that person. You know the type. They dominate dinner parties with stories about themselves, then throw in a token “But what about you?” before immediately steering it back to their own drama. There’s a scene in an old Bette Midler movie Beaches that captures this perfectly. Her…

Hot dogs for community

Growing up in the Bay Area, you didn’t even need to like sports to be a fan. The 49ers football team, for example, had a multi-decade dynasty, smoothly handing off from one Hall of Fame quarterback to another. And then there was baseball. We had two teams to choose from and they even met each…

Developer lessons in the hotel basement

It’s ok to take the tiny soaps from hotels, right? When I started attending conferences, I was just a young dev who needed a bed for a few hours of zzzs. The other amenities didn’t matter to me then. But I’ve come to appreciate the little things, like those mini bars of soap. It hadn’t…

Watch one developer

“Let me share my screen” You can get my attention on a group Zoom call with that phrase. Something is about to happen. When conferences went online a few years back, I used to toss little bits like this into presentations to reengage an audience that probably had 100 other tabs open. “You’ll want to…

One startup’s aha moment with devs

Ever had a boss tell you no, but you did it anyway? There are a lot of ways that can go poorly, but this is a story of one that worked out for my friend, Alex. (If it sounds familiar, perhaps you read it in my book, ​Technical Content Strategy Decoded​) 10+ years ago, Alex…

The surprising insides of the original Macintosh

Do you have an Apple device on your wishlist this year? The watches, tablets, and laptops trace their history back to decisions made to put human design at the center of the first Mac. There are many reasons to look in awe at that 1984 announcement, including feature after feature that we now take for…

When should you be open source?

This is really a question about developer trust. Recently I saw someone post about their new developer job on LinkedIn. Here is the job search process they shared: That’s some incredible signal. If a company supports open source or related conferences, they’re a worthy employer. Open source is all about trust. It’s important to developers.…

The -site: trick devs play on you

You probably know this search engine feature. Add site:devproduct.io to your search to find results restricted to a single domain. This is useful to see which of your pages ranks for key terms or—ahem—when your docs are otherwise tough to find or search. But devs may wield it against you. They’ll search about your product,…

The wedding speech didn’t even mention the bride

My friend Mike goes to some amazing weddings. One was surrounded by vineyards at a villa owned by a Very Famous Person (VFP). That VFP was in attendance (!) And gave a toast (!!) Yes, and you guessed it, didn’t mention the bride or groom or even the wedding once. Instead, the VFP welcomed everyone…

Let me Google that for you

I’m standing in a small bathroom with another man, feeling a little foolish. The electrician wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t already found. And yet, it sounded different coming from him. Any idea why? Here’s the rest of the story, and why I think it’ll help you reach more developers: When we moved into our…

Pubic unions

That’s not a typo. It’s not MY typo, anyway. But it’s graced the cover of multiple newspapers: When I was in college, one semester the local newspaper was delivered to every single dorm room. It became an instant sensation on campus the day the “pubic unions” headline graced the front page. Years later, I got…

Aisle 11, halfway down, next to the picture hangers

“This place is magical.” Not the phrase you’d expect of a local hardware store, right? Yet, that’s how I describe the one in my neighborhood. It’s no big-box Home Depot or Lowes kind of place. It’s tiny compared to what it holds. It’s maayyybe 5,000 square feet (450 square meters), yet… every time I go,…

How to play favorites

Are you fully stocked with candy? In many parts of the world, including my little neighborhood in Portland, it is Halloween season. That means lots of candy. My wife and I developed a fun candy game on a long car ride. This is a great time of year to play it—by yourself or while sitting…

The least painful fundraiser ever

Here’s a quick one, courtesy of my kid’s new band teacher: As a parent of three, I can tell you this copy from the band handbook was written just for me. It shows the power of knowing your audience and looking outside your perspective to communicate with them. It’s worth thinking about, or finding yourself…

Don’t bury the lede

Long before Nora Ephron wrote famous romantic comedy movies, she was a journalism student at Beverly Hills High School. It made a huge difference in her career. Mine, as well. The teacher, Mr. Simms, grabbed chalk and wrote six words on the blackboard: Who? What? Where? Why? When? How? He explained that the first line…

Standing outside in my underwear

Your assumptions are sometimes embarrassing. That’s been the case for me many times… but none are as powerful as the ones we learned as children. Family traditions are so strong and as a kid, they seem like the way things are. My parents wouldn’t get me “sugar cereals,” for example. So when I went to…

Why there are manholes on the nature trail

They’re mystery markers to a secret buried beneath. My friend Jesse joined a class field trip to a nature area just outside of Portland. There are hundreds of acres of wooded hills and soggy hiking trails. And several manholes. The industrial emblems seemed out of place, which made him pause and scratch his head. In…

The time I punched Chuck E. Cheese

The older I get, the more I understand my four-year-old self. It was my first trip to the ubiquitous U.S. childhood experience that is Chuck E. Cheese. This restaurant is most known for its arcade, creepy animatronics, and a human-sized rat mascot: You’d think I would have relished the ball pit and carnival-like games. But…

You’ll never see a light switch the same again

A friend sent me this photo and said, “developers be like:” I stared at it for a long time before finally seeing the difference in the two light switch panels. Someone applied a flathead screwdriver, or perhaps a thin coin, to the screws that fasten the cover. Where each fastener had been haphazardly positioned before,…

Mick Jagger your competition

It’s 1965 and the Rolling Stones have joined the Beatles in the “British invasion” of rock groups. The press compared the two frequently. An interviewer in Ireland tried his best to get Stones frontman Mick Jagger to fire a shot. But it seems Mick had the journalist under his thumb. Check out this exchange: Interviewer:…

Beware sneaker waves

I was 12 years old before I experienced warm ocean water. The Northern California coast where I grew up is frigid year round. But on a family vacation to Mazatlan, Mexico, I discovered that nobody else ran away from the oncoming waves. This was standard practice during our chilly trips to the “beach:” While in…

Company You’ve Never Heard Of Releases Product You Don’t Care About

Company You’ve Never Heard Of is excited to share something new. They want to tell you all about Product You Don’t Care About. They might even be “proud to announce” it or its new features. And that’s why these self-congratulatory blog posts look something like this: Worse, they rarely stick around to rank well and…

Why developer marketing is not so hard

Developer marketing is easy like the Rubik’s cube is easy. Ok, this looks hard: That’s Magdalena Pabisz, the women’s world record holder in the standard Rubik’s cube. Magdelena is one of the best in the world at “speedcubing,” where competitors attempt to solve as quickly as possible—her record is 4.24 seconds. The entire top 100…

Do they trust you?

Want to get a coder’s brain churning? Throw in a little game theory. It must be the logic puzzle of it. One of the most famous is the Prisoner’s Dilemma: You and a collaborator are being questioned separately about a crime. Each prisoner must choose whether to rat out the other or stay quiet. If…

How a loser created a winner

Sure, developer best practices are nice. But why doesn’t anybody ever talk about worst practices? Those can be inspiring in their own way, like the story of this guy Michael: Michael didn’t have a happy childhood. He was in and out of foster care. He got expelled from multiple schools. As a teen, he wanted…

The checker spoke my language

Have I told you about the time I stayed up all night watching movies to learn an essential lesson about developer content? This took place a few years ago in my favorite city, but the memory still feels fresh… It’s been a sleepless flight to Amsterdam, making the most of Delta’s entertainment selection. The 10-hour…

Because you watched Married at First Sight

It feels awkward to share this, but here goes… I was staying at an Airbnb with my family and everyone else had gone to bed. The host or a previous guest had signed into the Netflix account, so I started browsing… I’d never watched Married at First Sight, but the premise drew me in. Plus,…

A sucker for blatant marketing

You might be surprised to learn that marketing works on me. Even blatant marketing like commercials. I found myself watching live TV. Likely a baseball game (Go Giants!). The ad was short, about 15 seconds. Possibly this exact ad: The shot of a guy on the floor struggling with his shoes spoke to me. That’s…

Everyone has a Grandpa Jack

When my friend told me this story, I knew I’d need to share it with you. It’s not where I expected to get a lesson applicable to developers, but it leaped out at me. Delyn grew up attending large family gatherings “at the cabin.” The patriarch of these events was Grandpa Jack. “George Burns minus…

My daughter got her ears pierced

Back in my day, you went to the mall and got earrings shot with a tiny gun into your flesh. Things are a little hipper in Portland. Perhaps hipsterer, even. When my daughter got her ears pierced, she went to a specialty shop. They did not use a gun-shaped mechanical device. A very sharp needle…

Get your engineers to write

We’ve all done it. Find the one who knows all the technical details and ask them to write the content we need. Maybe beg them. And then follow up in the nicest way possible. How I thought about this changed early in my time at SendGrid. One of the engineers, who I’d bribed with breakfast…

No substitutions

Certain restaurant menu items might come with these two words: No substitutions It means you either order that as-is or you don’t order it at all. At fancier places, it might mean “We know better than you.” On the other end, it might be “Our cooks only know one way to make it.” Perhaps it’s…

Einstein got a divorce

As you’ll see, you don’t have to be a genius to realize Albert Einstein could have been a better spouse. Yet you might make similar mistakes in your work with developers. Apparently, things started going downhill for the Einsteins sometime after their 10th anniversary. Albert typed up a cringe-worthy list of rules for his first…

Why tutorials aren’t the answer

Look, I know I’m part of the problem. For 10+ years I’ve been telling marketers to see themselves as developer educators. The tutorial is a classic developer education tool. Unfortunately, it rarely does what we want—to attract and convert developers. Most tutorials do neither. They end up looking like this: Without seeing the body of…

As a general rule, be specific

Early Google was struggling to keep up with its growth. They knew their best source for recruiting was current Googlers. But they couldn’t get enough of the right candidates through this referral channel. Until they made one change to their process. In retrospect, it was dead simple. According to Laszlo Bock’s “Work Rules,” Google kept…

At my age, I don’t buy green bananas

George is at least in his 80s, maybe older. He’s long retired, but volunteers for the university we both attended… more than four decades apart. That’s how I got to know him and learn a key piece of wisdom from him. If he’d only said it once, I might have forgotten. But I’ve heard George…

This creepy 80s toy had hidden messages

My kids really want a Nintendo Switch. We’re making them get the most out of our old Wii. Am I a terrible father for depriving them? Neither of those devices might have ever existed if it wasn’t for a bear named Teddy Ruxpin. In the 80s, Teddy was a must-have toy. He looked like a…

I’m allergic to this phrase

Ah-choo! You might think it’s the pollen in the air, but it’s not. It’s all the Q2 announcements that are being prepared. Too many will include this line: We are proud to announce… When I was the editor of ProgrammableWeb, I read that phrase multiple times per day. Another company with another API. 🥱 You…

My dad is reading my book

Does your leg ever get that “buzz” feeling where you think it’s a message but it’s not? Of course, I have to check every time. This one was real, a text from my dad: I’m halfway through your book. I just have one question. What is a developer? First, it’s safe to say my dad…

Just fix it

A Florida man saw a problem in his neighborhood. As a designer, he was bugged by something he saw every day. So he decided to fix it. He grabbed some supplies from his closet, then hopped in his car to do something he’d been wanting to do for a long time. I won’t spoil it…

How I found 100 developers with content

Ever since my daughter started selling Girl Scout cookies, I’ve been noting different ways troops attract buyers. A number of parents post in online community groups on behalf of their children. Others put signs in their windows or in front of their houses. Recently I saw a genius approach: pulling a wagon along a restaurant-laden…

Best of the Beatles and other tricks

Don’t do this to developers. Released at the height of Beatle-mania, Best of the Beatles was a must-have for the not-so-discerning fan. It sure seemed like a compilation album. And with six #1 albums between 1963-1965, there were surely enough Beatles hits to fill the tracks. John, Paul, and George were even on the cover:…

How’ll you spend your extra day?

A 25th birthday in Oklahoma shouldn’t be news. But Mary Forsythe’s celebration will include a century’s worth of family and friends. She was born 100 years ago, on February 29, 1924. Because that’s Leap Day, it means the actual day has only come 25 times. For Mary, it’s an undoubtedly special day. For the rest…

What “Gryaznayavoda” means in Russian

I found the strangest storefront in Portland, a city that likes to “keep it weird.” Ripped from the 80s, it provides VHS tape rentals. And it seems to be intentionally misleading with its name: That’s one letter away from Blockbuster, the movie store that’s down to a single location (also in Oregon). Even stranger, I…

I talked to the puzzle guy

Leave out a piece of information and humans will want to…? It’s been more than a decade since I met Neil Mansilla and you’re still thinking about how I didn’t finish that first sentence, aren’t you? We really like to complete things. And developers are even more that way. Not only are they humans, but…

What if Will Shortz ran developer events?

He’s a highbrow celebrity who has edited the New York Times crossword for over 30 years. I bet he’s a five-letter word for explosion at parties. When the guy went to college, he made up his own major: enigmatology, the study of puzzles. And I think he would be extremely successful at developer events, should the whole crossword…

A SendGrid founder’s worst event

Isaac Saldana doesn’t get out to a lot of conferences and hopefully, I’m not the reason. When I saw him recently, I knew I needed to ask the SendGrid founder an uncomfortable question. After some pleasantries and memories of the good ol’ days—this guy stood on the platform of the New York Stock Exchange while…

Should you write a book?

Many “should” questions can be answered with a technique that’s hundreds of years old. Between inventing bifocals and being the first technical content marketer, Benjamin Franklin is recognized as the creator of the Pro/Con list. Here’s how Franklin described it: Divide half a Sheet of Paper by a Line into two Columns, writing over the one…

The kind you can hold in your hands

“I want to kill a tree.” That’s an actual quote from a would-be buyer who wasn’t into the electronic formats. While most of my “reading” happens with audiobooks, I’d never knock those who prefer the kind of book you can hold in your hands. If that’s you… Technical Content Strategy Decoded is now available in paperback.…

Just get me a book

Long ago, I was hard to shop for… Here’s a quick look at teenage Adam’s wishlist: Those weren’t simple requests. At the time, they came with hefty price tags, too. These days, I keep things much simpler: just get me a book. Something nonfiction, less than 300 pages, and packed with useful knowledge. Sound good?…

The “Schwarzenegger Myth” of developer content

In the future, night vision won’t be a fancy set of goggles purchased at a sporting goods store. The Terminator movies taught us it will be incorporated into our vision: Sure, the movies also warned about an artificial superintelligence, but let’s ignore that part for now. Being able to see in the dark would be pretty cool.…

Don’t “sophomore slump” your devs

Ted Lasso was an immediate hit when it streamed onto the scene in 2020. Our family devoured those first 10 episodes. It made such an impact that on our recent trip to London, we took the jaunt out to Richmond to see it ourselves: We watched the second and third seasons, as well… but it couldn’t…

Your great-grandma’s documentation

I’m getting ready to make a bunch of pies. And, yep, this does have something to do with documentation. In the US, Thanksgiving is coming up in a few weeks. I’ll be getting out Grandma’s old pie crust recipe and rolling my way through the dessert course. The recipe makes a bold promise: “No Fail”…

Where imagination comes from

Have I ever told you about something I heard over and over again when I was at ProgrammableWeb? The first time someone said it, I nodded along… it seemed reasonable enough. But eventually, it became a joke. A company would brief me about its new API… and they’d share exactly zero ideas about how it…

Here’s how to start better

Your first shot is rarely perfect. That’s why airline pilots adjust their routes mid-flight. And the world’s best guitarists practice their opening licks thousands of times. You can similarly look for a small improvement in one of your most important pieces of content: the quick start or getting started guide. I invited a friend to…

When it’s time to clean your room (metaphorically)

Your secret is safe—I can’t see how many books are on your nightstand or the pile of clothes on your floor. On the other hand, your documentation dirty laundry is public. We can all see it. You can probably guess how successful it is when I tell my kids to “clean your room.” You’d be…

Can you open source documentation?

Just over 10 years ago, the SendGrid team did something pretty cool. Spearheaded by Developer Evangelist Brandon West, we open-sourced the SendGrid docs: On the surface, it may seem simple: create a public GitHub repo, copy-paste your docs into it, and give it an open-source license. The effort to build and publish from that repo…

It’s not enough to ask for feedback

It’s one of the hardest things to do… to actually listen to what someone is saying. Recently, I interviewed Colin Nederkoorn from Customer.io in front of an audience of technical business owners. With notecards full of questions, I had to resist the urge to simply go from question to question. Instead, I listened to Colin’s…

Content marketing is as old as the stove

What do you think it would take to bump George Washington and get your face on the dollar bill instead? Or maybe you’d prefer to be the face of the $100—it is rarer and worth way more than the dollar. Chances are, the current guy on that bill wouldn’t mind, because Benjamin Franklin was focused…

A picture’s worth

I’m keeping this short because I thought I’d let an image share the message: There are many ways you can attract more of the right technical audience. But only so many channels with which to do it. We’ve taken our content channels graphic and made it clickable at everydeveloper.com/channels. In addition to the graphic, you’ll find a short…

It’s not just my opinion

A little over 10 years ago, I got a life-changing email. It was an intro to a small database-as-a-service startup founder right in my own hometown. We met up at the Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE) office, now closed. We walked over to Bailey’s Tap Room, also unfortunately no longer operational. But we kicked off a…

Know what you’re good at

Everything in life can be made just a little harder with BOSU. But why would you want to make things harder? Especially with your technical content? Yet when I hired a trainer I was essentially paying them to make things harder on me. And this was guaranteed to do it: BOSU stands for BOth Sides…

There’s nothing on TV

How’s the writer’s strike going for you? When I was growing up, my family was a late adopter of cable TV. We only had broadcast stations and had to stand up and turn a physical knob to select one of 12 channels… and I think a few of them were static. Apparently, now these are…

There’s a fine line between…

Love and hate? Pleasure and pain? Those are both songs, apparently. When it comes to developer messaging, there’s a fine line between hand-wavy and compelling. If you want to pull-in business benefits, it often comes across like a Silicon Valley episode: Yet, your developer audience may help you get clearer here. Even this is better: We find…

Milkshakes in the morning

It’s 7:08 a.m. and Clay Christensen is watching man after man pull into the McDonald’s drive-thru. Each of these guys travels alone and orders one item: a milkshake. McDonald’s already knew the prime demographics for its shakes. With the help of market researchers, the company had focus groups of middle-aged men tell them what they…

The weight of smoke

“You can’t do that! It’s like weighing air.” The first Queen Elizabeth made a bet with Sir Walter Raleigh. The Queen of England learned something from this and I’m betting you’ll have something you can implement with your technical content right away. Raleigh had introduced tobacco to England and she asked him if he could…

Better than the original

Somewhere on a corner of the Internet is audio of me singing Neil Diamond’s hit “Solitary Man.” It’s been covered plenty, including by velvet-voiced Chris Isaak. Decades before even Isaak’s version came a surprising rendition: Within months of Diamond’s 1966 release, Della Reese recorded it as a B-side. Hers was called “Solitary Woman” and… it might…

The ink-stained wretches have it right

Do you remember thumbing through the Sunday newspaper for the comics? On a typical day, “the funnies” are tucked away on a back page. They’re printed in nondescript black and white. But Sunday? They get their own section in full color: As for the other sections I thumbed past to get to the comics? Those…

She just got an EGOT

Viola Davis would be a GREAT developer marketer. But she’s probably all set with acting, given her Oscar, Emmy, and two Tonys… She also dipped her toe into narration with the audiobook of her memoir, Finding Me, for which she just recently won a Grammy. They call winning all four awards an “EGOT,” and Davis is…

That doesn’t mean what you think it does

Don’t worry if you’re not a sports fan, this isn’t about sports. But do try to muster a little empathy for a San Francisco Giants fan… Long before their World Series runs of the last decade, they were a team that couldn’t catch a break. An earthquake interrupted a series that saw them swept by…

Sleeping in a movie theater

The most embarrassing part is the snoring. And the breathing pattern that indicates deep, deep sleep. I’m 10 years old and my dad is getting some really good R.E.M. time. He had piled me and two friends into his truck and made the 20-minute drive into town. He bought four tickets, maybe some popcorn. And…

Avoid “hanging pieces” with your content

You may have learned that I get into little fixations from time to time. Usually, I absorb a bunch of the ideas, then start making connections to technical content. I learned the Rubik’s Cube a while back… then I got bored of that and began to practice magic tricks on my children. Recently, it was chess.…

… — … / . …- . .-. -.– -.. . …- . .-.. — .–. . .-.

A secret passageway had just opened into a second room. We’re halfway through an escape room with a multi-generational party and things are getting intense! Above the bowling alley where I rolled gutter after gutter as a child is a dark, stuffy room full of locks. It’s the 10th birthday for my twins and they…

WTF does standup have to do with technical content?

You think developers are a tough audience? Try being a comedian bombing in a nightclub. Maybe that’s why the comedy I watch is usually Netflix or HBO specials. The comics have polished their bits to the very best stuff. Though I haven’t been a follower of Marc Maron and his WTF podcast, I did watch…

Edible foam and toxic rubber

You may not be very full after eating at one of the most expensive restaurants. Instead, it’s all about the experience. Tiny, beautiful bites placed in the middle of big, white plates. For a while, there was a trend of making foam that could be eaten. You’re paying $300+ per person and the most common…

Your instructions from Amenemhat

A French soldier’s discovery was the key to understanding more about an enigmatic society. It unlocked 4,000-year-old advice that can help you better understand your technical audience—and your responsibility to them. In 1799, during Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt, a soldier found a rock that was far from ordinary. After inspection, it was found to contain…

Why Harvey Mudd students build hammers

Tucked into the far east of Los Angeles County is a small engineering school. Harvey Mudd College is the alma mater of LaunchDarkly co-founder Edith Harbaugh. One project particularly impacted Edith’s view of selling to technical audiences… All students were given a blueprint of a hammer, a block of wood, some metal, and plastic. To…

Dots, dashes, and developers

A painter’s personal tragedy inspired a transformational technology… …and can help you understand the mind of your technical audience. Before he changed the world, Samuel Morse was a painter in Connecticut. In 1825, he was hired to paint a portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of both the American and French revolutions. (And…

A little help from my friends

They were the biggest band in the world at the time. And yet, their drummer was reluctant to take the microphone. Famously, Lennon and McCartney were the driving forces behind The Beatles. All but one song on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band concept album is credited to the duo. They also typically split lead singer…

What happens before the tribe has spoken?

When I mention I’m a fan of this show, the most common response I get is: “Survivor is still on TV?” Currently, I’m watching the 44th season, which started earlier this month. In the show, strangers are stranded on an island and split into tribes. They compete for a chance to stay in the game.…

Your product will never win an Oscar

What’s the worst time to be stuck in traffic? It’s a tie for any time before March 31, 1999. That’s the date that TiVo was released, the first digital video recorder. Until that time, if you were bumper-to-bumper on the Interstate during a show you just… missed it. Here I was, almost exactly a year…

Let a thousand flowers bloom

Confession time: I’m always buying stuff from ads. That might make me the rare developer who doesn’t user an ad blocker. (I think ads are part of how the web works—but that’s a whole other topic) Sometimes I get pulled into purchases I might not have made otherwise. Recently, it was the Tidbyt: Tidbyt is…

The world’s most famous useless map

Imagine a map of the world. There’s a good chance we have a similar picture in our minds: the sort of thing you’d see hanging in a classroom. The world’s most famous useless map doesn’t look like that. And please don’t set sail using it for guidance. This more than 500-year-old map was compiled by…

Face-to-face with a wild elephant

One moment I was observing the ambling movements of an elephant family… The next they crossed my path and the largest of the herd turned toward me. Now it was walking straight at me, its gait a little faster. That’s all my guide needed to see. He put our jeep in reverse and quickly retreated.…

Don’t be an idiom

He’s a one-trick pony One trick is all that horse can do He does one trick only It’s the principal source of his revenue These words from a Paul Simon song echo the apparent origin of the phrase “one trick pony.” Apparently, there’s an O. Henry short story that tells a cautionary tale about this…

Spoiler alert: we’ve been looking for the wrong thing

Solid gold and jewel-encrusted, it’s no wonder it was called “the stuff dreams are made of.” The heavy statue is the object of desire in the 1941 movie named after it, The Maltese Falcon. Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade is a classic private investigator and the movie is quintessential film noir. The statue? A complete fake. Spoiler…

“Please don’t make me download a PDF!”

The icon on my desktop even looked clunky. That’s because I knew behind that 3 MB file was 75 pages of mostly XML. It was an example API documentation that I was supposed to emulate. It was 2019 and I was looking at PDF documentation. Indeed, when I recently asked for examples of bad documentation,…

A star is born (and it’s not you)

There’s an old Hollywood joke about minor roles in movies. Say there’s a scene in a pharmacy. Somebody has to play the pharmacist. Talk to the actor and they’ll tell you it’s a movie about a pharmacist. Even though they’re on screen for one minute and might not even make the credits. We’re all the…

“Just the facts, ma’am”

“This is the city.” That’s how every episode of Dragnet started. The show was admittedly before my time, but I’ve seen enough to know there’s a pattern, as there is for any police procedural. The serious, straight-talking cop, Joe Friday, drags his hapless partner through the city to investigate a crime. Joe breaks out his other catchphrase…

Have you heard the one about…

Got time for a quick joke? A marketer and a developer are stranded together on a remote island. After days of searching, they discover a coconut grove. The developer harvests a fruit, cracks open the husk, drinks its water, and hungrily devours its meat. The marketer? They extract oil from the coconut, rub it on…

More than one way to a fresh start

There’s an embarrassing habit I hope to break this year. For most of 2022, I wrote the year as 2002. Off-by-one errors are common, but off by 20? That’s a little harder to fake. Now that we’ve kicked off 2023, I expect that typo to fade away like Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me.” (That was the…

YOU are an invited guest

In the earliest days of EveryDeveloper, I visited a client in Los Angeles. It didn’t take long to identify a trend that’s not as common where I live in Portland. As I shuffled toward the hotel restaurant for a late dinner, the host greeted me at a velvet rope. You probably know the type: two…

Can you be THE place?

About an hour outside Portland is a small town that is—to my great surprise—a symbol of how you can reach more developers. Clatskanie (CLAT-scan-eye) was founded in 1891 and barely has 2,000 residents. The downtown is cute and only a few blocks long. But that’s where I noticed an interesting pattern… The sign outside the…

Thank you for caring (because they don’t)

Thank you. For reading this. For caring about authentic technical content. It can be tough to write for an audience that doesn’t care about you. You and your team do it, even if it’s not easy. Thank you for your efforts! Because you’re reading this, I know you care about your technical audience. Yes, the same…

Jump to recipe

Imagine the setting: me, sitting at a computer, making an appointment with a pharmacy. Riveting, isn’t it? It should have been a short interaction, but I had needed an answer first. The appointment was for a COVID booster… could I get my flu shot at the same time? The FAQs had my question… and a…

Where everybody knows your name

Gary Portnoy had one goal: have a song so famous that every cab driver would know it. Even though “Gary Portnoy” is not a household name, he achieved his dream. These days, the conversations may be happening in ride shares instead of cabs. But the conversation probably goes something like this: Driver: So, what do…

Your content calendar isn’t enough

When was the last time you looked at a calendar? You have one on your phone, your computer, and maybe even your wall (my accountant and dentist send one every year). But I’m talking about a content calendar. In every organization I’ve worked at, it’s been super helpful. It’s certainly more powerful than the 12 printed stock photos from…

Adam sent you a Wave

It was supposed to be an email killer. But I’m sending you this via email. “Wave is what email would look like if it were invented today,” they said when the communication platform was announced in 2009. It became the talk of my tech community and I got an early invite to check it out.…

The developer head nod

There are perks of being a regular. It’s one of the reasons I return to my local coffee shop day after day. If there’s a long line, the barista will often get my attention and set my usual order aside. When I go elsewhere, it’s a whole different experience… Sometimes there’s no line at all…

Egyptians, cats, and your global nav

Apparently, there’s some controversy around whether ancient Egyptians worshipped cats. Fancy feline likenesses were painted on the walls of tombs. There’s a cat hieroglyph. There were mummified kitties buried with pharaohs, for goodness sake! These were some important pets… What we don’t know is whether these early people believed the cats to be Gods. (From…

October 17, 1989

The pumpkins were stacked on the table next to the portable radio tuned to 680 AM. If you’d asked me the date, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. But now I can: October 17. My friends and I were preparing to sell pumpkins for Halloween. We had planted them months earlier. Now we…

I don’t have dandruff 🙅‍♂️

Ok, so I don’t have much hair now, but that wasn’t always the case. My first lessons in adult friendship came from television. Full House had three single men raising a trio of girls, while Perfect Strangers saw distant cousins standing tall on the wings of their dreams. And in the couple minutes between, commercials might show me…

I can’t believe Mom let you wear that shirt

It’s back-to-school time here in the states. My friends with kids are sharing photos of their offspring. Most are cute, though every now and then you’ll see one that is a little awkward. My own photo when I was 11 fits that description. I won’t subject you to it, but here’s a description: brace-faced and…

Don’t touch the mannequin

We were third in line to check in to our dune buggy tour. The US holiday weekend is a busy time for these sorts of operations. Every hour, all summer long, these bus-length, skeletal vehicles departed with 20 tourists to see the Oregon dunes. Our group, which included my family of five, was going to…

What does your fortune say?

You’ve just finished a meal of Chinese food and it’s time for a storied tradition… Fortune cookies! These folded confections contain a little slip of paper. It’s supposed to be a fortune, but… let’s say some are better than others. My father tells a story about his first fortune cookie, on a school bus trip.…

Your shortcut to the hall of fame

In my teenage years, I practiced free throws for hours. Standing 15 feet from the basket, I’d follow the same routine, take a breath, and release the ball toward the hoop. I was pretty good at that part of the game. My accuracy is still good enough that I can swish an eyes-closed shot more…

What’s my motivation?

Imagine you must pretend you’ve stayed awake for 72 hours straight. What would you do to get that “no sleep in three days” look? If you’re Dustin Hoffman in the mid-1970s, the answer is simple: you skip a few bedtimes. According to legend, the actor partied every night while filming Marathon Man. It was part of…

Run at a sustained pace

You’ve heard of Usain Bolt, right? He may be the fastest person to ever live. Bolt set the world record for the 100m sprint more than 10 years ago. Two months later, he beat it. A year to the day after that, he topped it again. Since 2008, nobody has bested any of these times. Bolt holds…

My favorite developer joke

Pat Programmer opens a web browser and searches “developer jokes.” The top result is a blog post from your dev-focused company. Here’s what happens next: ​Seems reasonable so far. What about this? ​And it all started from your humorous blog post! That journey itself seems like a joke. Even with a huge volume of developers,…

The viral post you should not copy

More than 40,000 views in one day for a blog post written in eight minutes sounds great. But you shouldn’t count on that approach bearing fruit in the long run, if at all… It was 2012 and I was writing a daily roundup of API news for ProgrammableWeb. One tweet stood out to me: This…

This product is super old and you shouldn’t use it

Some data you just don’t want to believe. If you ignore its message, you’ll miss out on the real opportunity. When I worked on the Zapier Platform, we had some really cool developer tools. There were plenty of new apps connecting their APIs, but most used our older version. It turns out, they were trying…

You’re so vain

It’s Warren Beatty, right? Carly Simon had a hit in 1972 with “You’re So Vain.” She also started a cultural curiosity. The chorus repeats: You’re so vain / You probably think this song is about you. Since then, people have wondered who the song is about. And Carly Simon isn’t telling… except for the highest…

A piece of paper tuned my guitar

My kids got me a guitar tuner for Father’s Day and I almost threw it against the wall. A little piece of paper changed my mind. Your developer docs should include an electronic version of the note that came with my tuner. I was excited to get the gift because some mystery force (those with…

What’s missing from your docs?

Functionality is not enough. The bar for most docs should be higher than just providing the information to make something functional. When I bought a Vespa-like motorized scooter off the internet, some guys delivered a heavy box to the curb. They could not take it farther. I opened it on my sidewalk: Inside were handlebars,…

I got my picture in the paper

I know this is a little braggy, but here it goes… When I was 10 years old, my school had a speech contest. We’d all written essays about Martin Luther King, Jr., in advance of the holiday that celebrates the civil rights leader. Some of us were chosen to read them aloud in front of…

Six bananas, please

What would you do if you ended up with 4-5 times the number of bananas you expected? Smoothies for days? Gift banana bread to friends? My friend Amit is a developer. He knows the importance of the commands he sends to a machine. And yet… Amit opened up an app on his phone and “went…

Like a Rubik’s cube in the dark

Have you ever had a mental block on something it seems like other people can do? Maybe it’s public speaking or handstands or writing code. For years, one of mine was Rubik’s cube. I’d watch others solve them. They’d stare at one side… Peak around to another side… Then make a couple of moves and…

This was not part of the plan

Some of the most famous lines in movies became that way by accident. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” was an inside joke on the set of Jaws. Roy Scheider used it periodically to get a chuckle from the crew. One of those takes made the cut. The most famous line from A Few Good Men was not…

The Russian space pencil myth

There’s a clever little anecdote that goes something like this: After sending astronauts to space, the US realized their ballpoint pens were useless. This was the 1960s—the height of the space race—so NASA spent an absurd amount of money to develop a pen that works in zero gravity. Rumored to cost at least $1 million…

I have a couple screws loose

Sometimes I feel like a fun vacuum. Perhaps I enter a new strategy project and need to point out how much content is under-performing. Then, I come back home and find a kid hanging on the open front door. Children can make an amusement park out of anything. And I admit it looks like fun:…

Get to the point!

Nobody likes a lecture. “Get to the point!” said my daughter, exasperated. I’d tell you the full story, but I want to honor her wishes. And I’ve heard similar feedback on people scrolling down these weekly newsletters to find the point. No scrolling needed for this one—I’ll get to the point! In most cases, developers…

The second-biggest dev content problem

Buzz Aldrin. John Landy. Robert Scott. If you even know their names, it’s in connection to their more famous counterpart. Buzz Aldrin was the second person to walk on the moon, after Neil Armstrong. John Landy ran a mile in under four minutes the month after Roger Bannister became the first. And Robert Scott? Well,…

A name is born of sarcasm

Sometimes greatness is not as calculated as you think it is. Sometimes it’s even created out of ridicule. While this story can’t be fully verified (and has a whiff of urban legend to it), one of the most accepted versions goes like this… In 1968, guitarist Jimmy Page formed a band after the breakup of…

Make mistakes on purpose

There is at least one mistake on this page. I put it there intentionally. For some, it will be too subtle to notice. Others, I expect, will want to point it out. A friend recently tweeted about intentional mistakes: University of Oregon and Oregon State are rivals. A fan of either will notice if you…

I already knew what was broken

She pushed down the plunger and coffee went everywhere. Hot brown liquid and gritty grounds were all over the counter. My daughter had tried to make me coffee and failed spectacularly. And it was all my fault. For the last year, my fancy single-cup AeroPress has required a very specific touch. First, the coffee needs to filter down…

Stripe is not your measuring stick

You know that one person you admire? Maybe you met them back in school and you admired their smarts or athleticism. Or you work in the same industry and you’re even a little jealous. Who knows, maybe they’re even a dev-focused company that provides a suite of payment APIs… Psychology Today says “comparisons can be…

Break this habit to increase page views

Take out your phone and scroll through the contacts. Yep, looking at your list of friends will get your posts more page views. I’m not going to ask you to send them your posts (though that can help, too). Instead, think about whether you’d want to have a conversation with each of the people behind…

How I hide my shame from my friends

You may have noticed that I take a lot of screenshots. If it’s funny, intriguing, or otherwise notable, it’s about to get snapped. Then I give it a quick copy-paste to a friend via text, or maybe in a draft of an email to you. It would take me a bit to explain the button…

Call your credit card company

You are right. The big company is wrong. The only thing between you and setting the record straight is a phone call that may take all day. Recently I bought a new TV. In my most consumerist moment, I took them up on a deal that lets me pay over time without any interest. It’s…

Become a community detective 🕵️‍♂️

Very few actors are as versatile as Jonathan Groff. From voicing Kristoff (and, of course, Sven!) in Frozen to King George in Hamilton, Groff’s IMDb page lists a wide variety of projects. But my favorite Groff character might be Holden Ford in the Netflix psychological crime series, Mindhunter—maybe because I watched it on my own time instead of on…

The craziest thing I found in a free book library

I’ve been walking more lately. Rain or shine, I’ll step away from my desk a few times a day for 20 minutes or so. I keep to the same loop through my quiet Portland neighborhood. It takes me past a couple of those little boxes next to the sidewalk where people put their old books.…

The meaning of “work”

After a couple of hours, I wished I’d counted the trees from the beginning. Row after row, trunk after trunk, I’d connect a chain from the tractor to the Gravenstein apple tree. Once back in the seat, I’d lurch forward and pull another one out of the dirt. This was part of life on a…

🏋️‍♂️ Work out your core

One of the first things I do each day (post-caffeine, of course) is check my to-do list. I’m not a piece of paper with checkboxes kind of guy. Instead, I log in to Todoist on my phone or laptop. The app holds my task list, helps me set priorities, and tracks my productivity. There’s also…

A “simple” alternative

At the risk of being self-congratulatory, 3rd-grade homework is easy for me. I’ve already memorized my times tables. When a kid brings me their work, let’s just say I crush it. You might even say it’s EASY for me. But I certainly wouldn’t say that to my child who is struggling with the same problems. Yet,…

A black and white TV strategy that works with developers

It only required a quick search to find the New York Times article from February 19, 1953. That same year RCA released its first color TVs. The article headline tells the story: In the early days of TV, of course, this was how advertising was done. Rather than the 30-second spots, each program had a…

Would you lie to children?

I’m not a marketer, but I am a liar. Mostly I lie to children, as you’ll see in this story. I’ve spent many a weekend on the couch on YouTube. Mostly I watch magic, practice it, then show it to my kids. There’s nothing like the amazement on the face of a child who will…

How do I promote developer content?

I’m not a mean person, really. ☝️You probably shouldn’t believe someone who says that. You be the judge: Long ago (eight years!) in a conference banquet hall far, far away… I gave a talk on API adoption: how to get devs to use your developer product. Early on, I promised to tell the audience the…

I ask dev marketers these questions

Clipboard in hand, you spot them from a block away. Casually, you cross to the other side of the street… But they’ve thought of that! Another of the “clipboarderati” is covering that part of the block. There’s no passing through the intersection without hearing a question like: “Can you spare a minute to save the…

Minor knee surgery is still knee surgery

Here’s a dumb idea: imagine you just had a new baby and the startup where you work was recently acquired, which expanded your content team and gave you 20 new products to learn… now throw in elective knee surgery. It seems crazy in retrospect, but that was me in 2015. The doctor referred to it…

My next DIY project

The first new car I bought had its windshield crack before it hit 1,000 miles. I can still hear the “tick” sound as the pebble made impact. I can still feel the shock as I glimpsed the tiny starburst imperfection. If it was up to me, I’d have replaced the whole windshield right then. I…

The tweet that sticks with me

Sometimes the exact words aren’t as important as the message. That may be a strange thing for a writer to admit. My older sister and her boyfriend took me to a restaurant. I was maybe 10 or 11. When the food came, they gently let me know I had a bad habit. Embarrassing as it…

Bezos was on his phone the whole time

It’s celebration season. Typically, this would mean New Year parties and fancy dinners. That may be less prolific the last couple years. Yet, we’ve found safe methods to observe holidays. I saw some in action a few nights ago. My wife and I had a rare date night, as we were able to leave the…

I threw that gift out the open door

I’m not proud of this story, but I’m telling it so you can avoid making similar mistakes with developers. This time of year, for many children, is all about presents. I was no different. I would count down the days to our extended family celebration. Not because of the family. Because it meant I’d get…

When you assume…

Don’t make the same mistake as I did. I helped launch a CLI interface to a product mostly used by people who don’t write code… and, therefore, spend little to no time on the command line. I won’t repeat the proverb about assumptions, but it holds true here. How you market your “developer product” depends on its…

I wish you wouldn’t write so much

You’ve no doubt received some long emails, scrolling through page after page, looking for the point. Me, too. I may have even sent a few of those. 🙂 If you’d rather listen to me talk than read, here are a few ways to do that: Postman’s Breaking Changes: “Storytelling from the Developer Perspective” — Postman Chief…

My #1 strategy to get in a developer’s head

The woman is insistent they return her car to its previous color. She moved quickly from surprise to indignance. And I can’t blame her. Imagine how you’d feel: your grey car is starting to show some dirt. You hand your keys to a car wash attendant, who talks you into an eco-friendly “green” wash. Then,…

Please put this on your list

About a week before Halloween, I caught my daughter making a list. She had quietly grabbed a stack of paper and made her way to the dining table with a couple of colored pens. You see, her birthday is at the end of November. She was planning more than a month in advance. That sort…

I’m a tool

It’s swear on the couch while wearing underwear season. That’s what I call winter in Portland. Every time I’m ready to cozy up in sweat pants, the drawstring is all knotted up. So, I sit on the couch trying to urge the thread apart with my fingers. That’s usually the moment my family, witnessing my…

Commence the arm tightening

A pharmacy may be the last place you’d think would attract children. But my young cousins and I often ended up at that corner of the shopping center because the pharmacy had the most advanced technology in town. One by one, we would take turns sitting at the wooden desk. After placing a tiny arm…

The stones go where the feet have been

There’s a fun little sign of human nature on the walk from my house to my kids’ school. It’s a mostly straight shot down one street. About a block before we get there, the street stops and there’s a little park we walk through. Right before the park, two sidewalks meet to form a “T.”…

Someone tried to enter my home

Two weeks after buying our first house, we were awakened at 2:00 a.m. as someone tried to bust open our front door. Frightening? Absolutely. Related to developer content? Surprisingly so. A day before, we had given a tour to some friends. We all laughed at the presence of a makeshift panic room. Through a trapdoor…

Was one of these in your school bag?

Once I stayed up all night to read East of Eden. Later I discovered I could have watched the movie. As the assigned books in school became longer and denser, it was more difficult to complete reading in time. In the US, many students turned to little yellow pamphlets. Called CliffsNotes, these were published as study…

No coffee shop menu ever

Though the Portland sun is shining less these days, I’m still making the most of my coffee shop patio. Indoors I’d be wearing a mask, but that’s better than things were a year ago: Long lines down the block, six feet apart, ordering at the doorway. You may remember I shared a story about my lack…

Opposites attract (you know)

It’s time to flip tables. Not in anger, but to find out if your strong opinion makes sense. You know I have a thing for Paula Abdul. How can you not like someone who sang and danced with a cartoon? That was the music video to Opposites Attract. You don’t have to go “three steps…

That’s just your opinion, man

Jeffrey Lebowski is not the sort of guy you’d expect to help you reach developers. The 1990s pacifist (and fictional character) has at least one skill we could all use. The main character of The Big Lebowski, known as The Dude, is not particularly organized. He pays for half and half with a check and…

Inspiration Archive

My first Reddit “success”

A lot of people want to be Reddit famous. Having been there several times, I’m not sure why… For marketing purposes, I admit it’s tempting to look at the top of Reddit, or similar sharing sites. If your product, blog post, or tool makes it to the summit, that can mean a lot of traffic.…

Let me give it to you straight

Every few minutes I look over my shoulder at the sign to see if it’s changed. Either way, I know it’s wrong. I recently took my first flight of the Covid pandemic. Even if it’s been awhile since you’ve flown, you have likely experienced this: Your plane is about to board when an announcement references…

When the math works out

I learned my “times tables” when I was about eight years old. One particular lesson still sticks with me in my work. In the US, we memorized common multiples with a matrix like this: Find a number on the left, another at the top, and then look where the row and column meet for the…

As temporary as an elephant ear

When I saw the truck going the opposite direction, it made me want to cross the median and follow it wherever it was going. Summer in the United States means fairs and festivals. These events only last a week or two. Carnival rides, games, and fried food booths are built and deconstructed during that time.…

Not about tomatoes

I spent the last couple weeks near Sacramento—or as we called it when I was growing up, Sack o’ Tomato. This really isn’t about tomatoes, but humor me for a moment. In Sacramento, they’re really serious about their tomatoes. The guy across the street from where we stayed is a biologist who has spent his…

Paula Abdul your documentation

Wearing my Reebok Pumps and Starter jacket, I was trying way too hard to be cool. Strange to think I was learning an important lesson about documentation before my 12th birthday. It was early in the school year and each student was answering a personal questionnaire. You know the type: favorite ice cream, musical artist,…

Subject goes here (don’t do this)

Eye-catching opening line! I’m intentionally leaving some of my email template intact here. You’re getting a glimpse at how I help myself write better emails faster. This little trick is also used by great developer companies, as we learned when AWS accidentally sent its template out. Yep. Their empty template, without anything filled in. Somebody had…

Three surprises and one black dot

As students were filing in for what they thought would be a typical class, a professor announced an impromptu exam. This test was the first surprise. The professor handed out the exams with the text facing down, as usual. “Turn your papers over and write what you see,” they said. Surprise two: everybody’s paper had…

Darts for the blind

There’s a pub in Cornwall, England, where you must be extra careful of your surroundings. Pub darts is common across the UK. The Dolphin Inn, however, is home to Britain’s first blind darts team. “The Optimists,” as they’re known, admit they’ve caused some damage to the Dolphin, especially in some of their earliest practice sessions.…

What’s the Q stand for?

Whenever I leave my neighborhood by car, I’m taken past a grocery store whose name makes me shake my head. As I wait at a stoplight, the glowing yellow-orange sign calls out to me. QFC is a Northwest (US) grocery chain. The name is an acronym for Quality Food Centers. “Quality” has always felt like…

It’s time to click “publish”

“Tomorrow is another day,” so they say. We might not have that procrastinator’s phrase if someone hadn’t pushed to publish. In 1926, Margaret Mitchell started writing Gone with the Wind. Nine years later, she was still writing it. The book went on to be wildly successful, as viral as could be in a pre-television, pre-internet world.…

Too much of a good thing

Let’s just say 82nd Avenue is not the most beautiful street in the city. Nostalgic Portlanders may disagree, but this behemoth of a street—also a state highway—doesn’t live up to its “Avenue of Roses” name. All along 82nd Ave are a menagerie of gas stations, fast food, used car lots, boarded-up storefronts, and the occasional…

LOVE your new haircut

Can a faux pas be subtle? Either way, this is one you want to avoid, with developers and your friends. Let’s say a friend has a new haircut. They hop on a video call, point to their head, and say, “what do you think?” If you’re a good friend, you tell the truth. But there’s…

What “the Michael Jordan of code” needs

Have you ever noticed that professional athletes have a lot of coaches? In basketball, the head coach is most visible. But theres a whole staff of assistant coaches, not to mention trainers. Michael Jordan famously won six championships with his coach Phil Jackson. At the same time, he maintained individual coaches around him, including the…

Don’t adopt this conventional wisdom

You may be able to up your technical blog post game with a simple trick that shuns conventional wisdom. Many well-meaning teachers advise writing the important stuff last: intro, conclusion, and headline. I think you’d be better off writing them first, especially the one readers will see first. At a minimum, write your headline first. You…

“Do you do video?”

After a year of limited travel and interaction, we’re all “doing video.” Every time you’re moved from the Zoom waiting room into a meeting, you probably have the camera on. But that’s not what people mean when they ask if I do video (or if you should do video). During a recent conversation on developer content, video came…

Some developers are not developers

Some data you just don’t want to believe. If you ignore its message, you’ll miss out on the real opportunity. So why would I suggest looking for non-developers? Because sometimes that’s the audience you already have. If you’re insistent on developers as an audience, you could be under-serving the people trying to use your product.…

Hello world is overrated

Can you believe I couldn’t figure out how to use our new can opener? Look at this thing: It’s not intuitive. I had to find a video to walk me through it. The trick is to rotate it 90 degrees from the way you’re used to holding old fashioned can openers. And now that I’ve…

9 simple rules for API documentation

My son is looking at me, but it’s like he isn’t there. He’s gone into his own world, waiting for my lecture to conclude. Sometimes, we just want someone to tell us what to do. Skip the lesson, please. There’s no life lesson in this email to apply developer marketing. Just a link to an API…

Three questions every developer asks

Every night, as the kids become quiet and drift to sleep, other noises emerge. They’re the faint but unmistakable sounds of another being in our house. When the sounds first started, we were a bit surprised. Now we’ve come to expect the soft murmur of activity. We aren’t worried about our safety, nor the life…

How much developer content do you need?

Do you ever awaken with a start, a question at the forefront of your mind, giving you anxiety? You’d think it might be any of the stressful things in the world that keep me awake. Instead, this recent issue was about the International Space Station. It’s admittedly a little weird, but my anxiety-inducing question was…

Should you follow the marketing recipe?

My good friend was on a cooking show and somehow taught me something about developer marketing. My friend Chef Oz runs San Diego’s De Nada Kitchen and Market. Recently he was on the TV show Chopped. You would think it’s strange to watch someone you know on a reality show. But Chez Oz is always himself.…

ABCs of APIs

Imagine if the alphabet changed every year or so. Wouldn’t that make it hard to keep up? It’s a turbulent time. I find myself gravitating to the advice of Jeff Bezos: focus on the things that don’t change. Thankfully, the alphabet is one of those. So are what I call the “ABCs of APIs.” You…

Alright, alright, alright

That single word, repeated three times, is almost impossible to read without echoing it aloud in a relaxed Texan drawl. Alright, alright, alright. When Matthew McConaughey was first in Hollywood he slept on a friend’s couch. His Mentor refused to introduce him to agents because the actor would appear too desperate. In order to succeed…

This is awkward

I’m doing something awkward this year. And I think it will help you reach more developers. It came out of a moment on stage. I was in Brazil giving a talk at the country’s largest API conference. There were flashing lights and four screens to show my slides to the expansive auditorium. Check out the…

Developer affordances

You’ve probably pushed a “PULL” door before. Or pulled a “PUSH.” Either way, it makes you feel stupid, right? In his classic book The Design of Everyday Things, Don Norman points out the problem is not the user, it’s the designer. According to Norman, the handle “affords” pulling, so people grab and yank before reading. What…

Increase developer turnout

Can politics teach us anything about developer experience? In the United States, a record number of people have participated in early voting. Yet, if recent history tells us anything, there will still be more than 40% of eligible voters who don’t cast ballots. The percentage of developers who visit your site or documentation without engaging…

Your graduation from the first-timers club

There’s never really a moment where you move your tassel to the other side and become a know-it-all about your own company or API. The “curse of knowledge” is a real thing, which I experienced a couple months ago while in line for coffee. Our family was essentially in quarantine. I let myself out once…

How to trick a developer

When I was young, a network of commercial campgrounds would send us offers for free stuff: a giant tent, a portable TV, and other objects that would attract kids. Every time I begged my parents to take this place up on the invitation. It was free! But my parents knew it wasn’t free. When I…

Curly’s developer experience advice from 1991

What do 1990s movie references and developer experience have in common? In City Slickers, Billy Crystal went on a cowboy adventure to find himself. He and the rest of the group ride on horseback herding cattle across the American west. Hopefully your developer experience doesn’t leave people searching in the middle of nowhere. Curly, the…

Bagel Experience (BX)

Bagels helped me come to an epiphany about developer experience recently during a client call. I love a good, boiled bagel—even learned how to make my own during quarantine. In Portland, my favorite is Spielman Bagels. When I go to their store, which sometimes includes a long line, I stare around at their signage. (That…

“Internal” developer experience?

A lot of developer experience (DX) is associated with public APIs, the sort you expect to be used by developers external to your company. While speaking on a virtual panel about API descriptions, the audience chat heated up with questions about internal vs external. I’ve never understood why so many organizations don’t invest at all in how their…