As community leaders grapple with the fallout from cancelled events worldwide, tons of folks have shared in-depth guides and tutorials for ways to move events online.
Below, we've pulled together a few shorter reads—call them hot takes and cool tools—that bring a unique perspective to the conversation and hopefully inspire some creativity and energy for your own communities.
🏎️ On the move
But first, our regular round-up of comings and goings in the DevRel and Community space. Have a tip for us? Drop a note to observatory@orbit.love.
- Stefan Judis joins Contentful as head of DevRel from Twilio (more).
- Vishwa Mehta joins Hasura as as Community Associate (more).
- Domitrius Clark joins Cloudinary as Advocate Engineer (more).
The 🔥 takes and ❄️ tools
Have you tried AuxParty? It's a super fun social listening room where you can enjoy music live-curated by others, or step up to the DJ booth yourself.
👌 Try spinning-up a room and asking community members to take turns DJing throughout the workday.
Speaking of jams, TIL how to add a little ambiance to status meetings:
PSA: You can share music in Zoom calls.
Here is how:
- Click on Share Screen
- Switch to the Advanced Tab
- Click on Computer Sound Only
- Party 🥳
This is a game-changer for casual-work and friend-group calls. 🤯
(thx & h/t to @kapil)21:52 PM - 20 Mar 2020
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I for one am looking forward to surprising, even delighting, our community members with unexpected background music on future calls.
The biggest question now will be how to pair Zoom background music with the perfect Zoom background image. To spruce up your space, check out this Zoom background gallery from Unsplash 🖼️
While we're at it, I'd like to give Josh a shoutout for always staying way ahead of the curve, and using Zoom backgrounds well before they were cool:
Sending spacey vibes to my buddy and @OrbitModel cofounder @dzello as he takes the stage at #DevRelCon. Sad I can’t be there. If you see him, tell him your favorite space fact 👩🚀16:29 PM - 10 Dec 2019
On a more serious note, as more events move online, though, organizers need to stay vigilant against bad actors. As we've seen, lots of folks are hosting large Zoom events without realizing these potential risks, so here's a 🧵 about how to configure Zoom for community safety:
Alex Miller@alexlmiller
Using Zoom to host a community call (like @hunterwalk and @CaseyNewton’s @wfhappyhour?). It’s great but unfortunately it can be abused by bad actors - so here’s how to make sure you keep control over it well!
Starting on the Main Settings page at zoom.us/account/setting00:33 AM - 18 Mar 2020
Finally, everyone's trying to figure out how online events can create the impact of their offline counterparts. For many, the answer seems to be something like, "The same great content, now online!"
But David Spinks challenges community leaders to reimagine events for our new online reality:
David Spinks@davidspinksAs youre pivoting your events to virtual, don't try to replicate the offline experience. You won't be able to.
Instead, lean into the benefits of virtual events: cost, scalability, globalization, content optionality, unlimited stages.
Rethink the event from the ground up.20:55 PM - 12 Mar 2020
I hope you've enjoyed these tips and takes. If you've come across something interesting or useful we should share, please post in the comments.
📐 Measure your community with this Orbit Model Airtable template
Measuring community ROI has always been a crucial topic among DevRel and community practitioners, but with the specter of tightening budgets on the horizon, the best teams will find ways to clearly demonstrate their impact.
That's why we made this detailed Airtable template to help communities measure their impact, communicate their value, and focus on what's working for their communities.
What tips or resources have we left out?
Share your own advice for building remote community in the comments below, and please reach out to us at observatory@orbit.love if we can be helpful in any way 💜
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