Speaking Engagements & Press
2023
May 10 - Developer-Led Podcast - How to Build a Developer Community
Podcast Recording
In this interview, Jana shares her journey into the world of developer communities, the importance of education, empathy, and consistent efforts in building a thriving community. She also talks about the future of developer communities and the potential role of AI.
April 6 - Hacking Open Source Business Podcast - Building Communities & Scaling Open Source Startups
Things you’ll learn (Watch here)
- How to navigate the challenges and rewards of early stage startups
- Utilizing user feedback to develop features worth paying for
- Choosing opportunities based on passion and embracing career pivots
2022
December - GitHub ReadME Project: Building super fans through genuine human connections
Article
We all want more authentic communities. Find out how Jana Iris uses empathy and her love for the developer community to build genuine connections.
June 22 - Open Source Summit Panel - Marketing is Essential for Open Source Projects
Things you’ll learn (Recording available soon)
- How to build developer communities
- Why empathy is important
- My career trajectory that lead me to where I am now
The word ‘marketing’ has a bad reputation in the open source world, but if you want to gain traction and build a community of engaged users and contributors, people need to know your project exists — in other words, marketing. Regardless of your project’s goals or your project’s current size, marketing is critical for continued growth and adoption, both to get people to discover your project, understand what your project does, onboard new users and increase engagement among existing users. Authentic marketing should never feel sleazy, and there’s no reason open source maintainers can’t borrow marketing ideas from the for-profit world when spreading the word about their projects. In this panel, Emily Omier, Jana Iris, Nithya Ruff, and Matt Yonkovit will discuss marketing and community building strategies and how they can be applied to open source software. Attendees will learn how to apply these strategies to their own projects, taking into account their goals for the project, skill sets and resources at their disposal.
May 17 - Scaling Developer Success
Things you’ll learn (Listen here)
- How to build developer communities
- Why empathy is important
- My career trajectory that lead me to where I am now
February 22 - The Future of Community with Jana Iris (Ex HashiCorp)
Things you’ll learn (Watch here)
- Importance of thinking of community building as a long game
- Needing buy-in from leadership to build a successful community
- Why virtual events are here to stay
2021
June 21 - The Communities Show: Developer Conferences and Communities Are About People and Empathy
Things you’ll learn (Listen here)
Communities are about people and empathy, not about some attention-retention mechanics, tools, automation or whatever CRM integration. The whole episode sounds like a protopian future where the corps are not evil and the bosses care so much about their immediate team, the customers and do what is right in tough times. It sounds like it was staged even. It was not!
June 2 - The Business of Cloud Native: Building Community with Jana Boruta
Things you’ll learn (Listen here)
- What is community and why does it matter for companies building commercial tools for developers.
- Why community building is for everyone
- Is it ever too early for community building? How to determine if you’re building community for the right reasons.
May 7 - Frontmatter Podcast hosted by Len Epp, Co-founder of Leanpub
Things you’ll learn (Listen here)
- My personal story and how my upbringing shaped my career
- My process for writing Digital-First Events
- The things I learned from writing and self publishing my book
April 21 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Tech Podcast
Things you’ll learn (Listen here)
- What does experiential marketing mean
- Why a company’s brand is more than just a logo and colors
- My career path into DevRel, community and events
- Managing and creating in times of chaos
April 16 - Event Talk Live Panel
Topics We Covered (No recording available)
- How to create engaging virtual events and conferences
- Create ways to incorporate sponsors in virtual events
- What will Hybrid events look like in the future
March 31 - Flyless Dev Meetup
Topics I Covered (No recording available)
- How to create engaging virtual conferences
February 25 - The Community Corner: Adding Virtual to your IRL Community with HashiCorp
Things you’ll learn (Listen here)
- How to hard pivot community programs impacted by the pandemic
- Long term impact of community building
February 18 - Under the Hood of Developer Marketing Podcast
Things you’ll learn (Listen here)
- The importance of building the foundations of a community early on
- Why developer events matter
- How you measure the success of your events (hint: direct ROI isn’t your only metric)
January 25 - 15 Mins of Femme's Podcast
Things you’ll learn (Listen here)
- How the pandemic affected the effects industry
- Managing in times of chaos
- Hard pivots
2020
November 20 - Heavybit Podcast: Developer Love
Things you’ll learn (Listen here)
- Findings from designing digital experiences from the ground up
- Defining goals and ways to measure success
- The relationship between brand, community, and events
- Creativity in times of chaos
September 30 - Future Developer Summit Panel: What Does Remote-First World Mean to Developer Relations?
Topics we covered (No recording available)
- How our DevRel strategy and goals had to change as a result of the pandemic
- How we help our teams navigate and shift their focuses
- What are our predictions for DevRel programs in 2021
August 4 - Heavybit Virtual Event Series: Shifting to Online Community & the Future of DevRel
Every aspect of developer and enterprise software startup organizations has been touched by the COVID-19 crisis. In-person DevRel activities, like hackathons and conferences, aren’t currently possible, which leads to a shifting landscape of available engagements and higher expectations from leadership. On the panel, we discuss how DevRel teams are adjusting to the shifting landscape and how you can equip your team for our new collective reality.
June 1 - ActualTech Media Podcast: Tech Conferences Ain’t Dead!
Highlights (Listen here)
- How conferences have to evolve in a digital format
- The differences between in-person and digital conferences
- Why my team at HashiCorp decided to build vs buy a conference platform
May 20 - EpicConf: Becoming a Conference Thought Leader During a Global Pandemic in 4 Weeks
Things you’ll learn (Watch here)
- The impact the pandemic had on the events industry
- Learn how to do a hard pivot and being open to learn new skills
- Step-by-step guide on how we approached designing digital-first conferences for HashiCorp
April 28 - Admission #2: Running Profitable Conferences and How to Continue That Momentum Online
Highlights (Watch here)
- From trash fire to seeing the light
- Learning to manage in times of chaos, helping your team pivot
- Exploration of building and rethinking digital-first conferences
April 20 - Reboot Conf: Stop, Drop and Roll: Contingency Planning for Success
Things you’ll learn (Watch here)
- This year was a trash fire
- Step-by-step guide on how to build contingency plans with triggers
- Breakdown of key aspects to tackle when creating digital-first conferences
February 20 - Influence Marketing Council Monthly Event Series: How to Build Memorable Experiences for a Community
Talk abstract (No recording available)
HashiCorp wouldn’t exist as a company without a strong and highly-engaged community. Period. How we connect, communicate, and interact with our community has been written into our DNA from the very beginning. We have never treated community building as a lead generation tool. Rather, for us, it was always about deepening their understanding of the tools and strengthening people’s connection to the company and each other.
January 17 - Harvard Business School Startup Bootcamp: Building Your Brand Identity
Topics covered in the workshop (No recording available)
- What is brand identity
- What is marketing and the type of marketing activities
- How to build a brand identity toolkit and why it’s important
2019
December 19 - The Community Builder Show: How to Start a Global Developer Community From Scratch
Things you’ll learn (Listen here)
- What role has community played in the growth of HashiCorp
- How are we currently supporting and managing the HashiCorp community
- What communities do I look up to and why
- What are some of the challenges we faced along the way of building our community
June 24 - Creating Memorable Experiences for the HashiCorp Community
Why do people attend corporate events? And more importantly, why do they keep coming back year after year? The key to organizing a successful event is more than talks, fun branded swag, and a big party. It’s about value. It’s about strengthening peoples connection to the company brand and the products. In this talk, Cris Dobbins (HashiCorp Creative Director) and I dive into how HashiCorp’s Events and Experiential Team creates memorable experiences that engages its audience, builds trust and loyalty, and creates brand advocates.