Opening Keynote by Kate Edwards - International Game Developers Association

Building Inclusive Worlds with Game Culturalization

When creating game worlds, designers strive for originality and creativity. However, they often put their games at risk by not considering various aspects that can impact the reality of their worlds, either the logical consistency of the milieu or not thinking through creative choices which influence the perception of inclusion. This lecture, presented by a geographer and cartographer with 20+ years of game culturalization experience, will discuss the key factors that can impact globally-facing content and how developers of creative media can be more inclusive in their choices and in turn enhance the experience for local consumers.

8:00 - 9:00am - REGISTRATION

9:00 - 9:15am - Opening Announcements and Ice-Breaker Activity with Lee Ngo

9:15 - 9:45am - Keynote Presentation - Kate Edwards - International Game Developers Association - Building Inclusive Worlds with Game Culturalization

Summary: When creating game worlds, designers strive for originality and creativity. However, they often put their games at risk by not considering various aspects that can impact the reality of their worlds, either the logical consistency of the milieu or not thinking through creative choices which influence the perception of inclusion. This lecture, presented by a geographer and cartographer with 20+ years of game culturalization experience, will discuss the key factors that can impact globally-facing content and how developers of creative media can be more inclusive in their choices and in turn enhance the experience for local consumers.

9:45 - 10:15am - Corporate Mindshift: Bringing DevRel to Big Blue with Abtin Forouzandeh - IBM

Summary: The role of DevRel with an organization is often nebulous and fraught with conflict. Whether acting as a Developer Evangelist in the service of product management, or a Developer Advocate in the service of marketing, it is vital to have a clear definition of success that aligns with the larger organization. Abtin Forouzandeh will discuss how these dynamics play out within IBM Watson Developer Cloud and the new IBM Digital Business Group.

10:15 - 10:45am - Community "Love": Building Real Relationships with Robi Ganguly - Apptentive

Summary: Learn how to cultivate a community with an irrational passion for your company’s mission. Robi Ganguly will share examples of how he has gone above and beyond for small developer communities within the ecosystem to lay the foundation for positive developer relations. Based on years of experience in DevRel, Robi will offer audience members actionable advice on how to build community love to earn loyalty, recognition from influential people, and accelerate company growth, helping Apptentive get to 6,000 customers.

10:45 - 11:15am - Break with Activity with Lee

11:15 - 11:45am  - The Engineer Turned Evangelist with Timirah James - Verizon

Summary: This talk is for the everyday engineer of any kind. We’ll explore evangelist characteristics that live within the everyday engineer and how they might go about blossoming those characteristics to in order to become a full-blown evangelist. You’ll be ready to commence the road to evangelism, discovering evangelist that has been living inside of you all along.

11:45 - 12:15pm - Monitoring the Health of Your C̶o̶m̶m̶u̶n̶i̶t̶y̶ Self with Mary Thengvall - SparkPost

Summary: We all know monitoring the health, well-being, and happiness of our community is an incredibly important part of being a community professional, but it's arguably even more important to monitor those qualities in ourselves -- those who take care of the community. As a Type 1 Diabetic, this proves to be even more of a pressing topic for me. Luckily I have a companion to help me out. But what about the rest of you?

12:15 - 12:45 pm - Domains Aren't Just Websites Anymore: Marketing In A New Era with Sean Ottey - Right Side

Summary: Domains are how you get found. Domains are your personal or professional brand. Marketing yourself, your startup or your product has to start with a good home. Find out how domains influence conversions, traction and brand awareness.

12:45 -1:00 pm - Lightening Talk: Developer Experience Matters with Tomomi Imura

Summary: User-Experience (UX) focuses on understanding what users' needs and value, and provide practical products or services. This human-computer interaction acts the same when the users are developers. This talk focuses on Developer-Experience (DX), to establish a good relationship between developers and platform or API providers.

1:00 - 2:00 pm - LUNCH with Activity

2:00 - 2:45pm - Inclusion in Action Panel: Interactive Conversation with Cynthia Tee - Ada Developer Academy (Leading), Saranya Karuppusamy - Women Who Code, Christopher Loo - HackHarassment (Intel),  and Grace Metri - Intel

Summary: Join us as we discuss what it takes to create, nurture, and sustain an inclusive work environment. How do you make a conversation, a meeting, a team, a social gathering - a place where everyone feels like they are heard, respected, included? How do you advocate for yourself, if you're a minority? How do you become a great ally for the underrepresented? We'll talk about things we've experienced and action items YOU can do today to contribute to making tech a more inclusive place for the underrepresented.

2:45 - 3:15pm - High Risk DevRel: Indie Game Developers with AJ Glasser - Facebook

Summary: Independent game developers drive innovation and growth for publishers and platforms. Working with these studios in developer relations yields rapid product adoption and feedback cycles – but there’s a higher risk for these studios taking on new products or partnerships, so it can be hard to reach out and form relationships that last. Learn to understanding the perilous life of indies and build a healthy, self-reinforcing relationship that drives your business forward without crushing these partners under the wheels.

3:15 - 3:30pm - Tragedy of the Commons: Creating Advocates to Care for Shared Community Resources - with Tom Fifield - OpenStack

Summary:Despite being an economic theory from 1883, the "Tragedy of the Commons" can be a useful as a framework for identifying areas that need community champions. This presentation runs through some examples of developer resources that can be afflicted with the same fate and outlines methods that can be used engage people that care to avoid the Tragedy.

3:30 - 3:45pm - BREAK

3:45 - 4:15pm - Bridging the Gap: Community Engagement Strategies for Devs and Non-Devs with Sarah Jane Morris - Keen IO

Summary: Learn how Keen IO has divided their engagement approaches towards devs and non devs because ultimately the two audiences are looking for the same thing - solutions. Sarah Jane will talk about how those can be simultaneously delivered to and inclusive of all audiences (devs and non) from the perspective of API companies.

4:15 - 4:45pm - Talk Tech Workshop: Communicate Your Work & Why it Matters with Tia Over - The Mathews Group

Summary: Developers, engineers and those in the tech ecosystem are doing amazing work, but it can be a challenge to share technical knowledge or detailed research in a presentation. Telling the story of your work and why it matters is increasingly important in a competitive landscape as you present information in your day-to-day job and in the broader context of advancing your career. The Mathews Group’s Vice President & Chief Strategy Officer Tia Over will help you hone your communication skills to build an effective presentation that gets results.

4:45 - 5:00pm - BREAK

5:00 - 5:45pm - What Really Goes on in DevRel: Best Practices from Mozilla, Docker, Facebook, Google with Karen Bajza (Docker) Sandra Persing (Mozilla) AJ Glasser (Facebook) Aja Hammerly (Google)

Summary: Come hear how Mozilla, Docker, Google, Facebook define and implement Developer Relations as part of their engagement strategy. Learn the inner workings and thoughts from those who are in the trenches at these major companies. Contribute your thoughts in this interactive "talkshop" where we may actually step out knowing how to tell mom, friends, even our managers, what DevRel means!

5:45 - 6:15pm - WIP Presents: Metrics – The Numbers Behind Developer Relations with Caroline Lewko (WIP) Claudia Backus (Microsoft) Ed Schmit (AT&T)

Summary: How many evangelists does it take to change a lightbulb? If a developer falls in a your documentation and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Metrics like this -- okay, maybe not exactly these ones -- are crucial for individual evangelists and developer relations programs as whole to measure their impact ,work with various teams; as well as to justify their existence and secure resources from their company. With the help of industry veterans who have built programs from the ground up and weathered the storms of change within their companies, we’ll explore the numbers that really matter for you and your team, how to measure them, and how to use them to tell your story of success in your company.

6:15 - 6:30pm - Closing Remarks from Lee

6:30… Happy Hour