Redmonk Developer Relations Advisory Services

Sometimes we’re not as good at marketing as we should be – just call us cobbler’s children. But change is afoot at RedMonk. We spent most of our time since founding the company in 2002 as outliers. We said developers were important when everyone else was saying outsource because developers are commodities. We said open source was how to build software when everyone else was saying proprietary still had the upper hand. We said share IP to build community when everyone was saying give nothing away.

We used to be the industry analysts that seemed to nudge every conversation with a client towards better serving developers, towards building community, agility and competitive advantage through making stuff. We got away with it, because nobody else had quite the same advocacy position. Well its 2011 now and we still have a fairly unique advocacy position, but these days our conversation has changed. Well the world has come around to our way of thinking, thanks largely to Apple, but also a myriad of web trends, and the fact the outsourcing wave led to crappy outcomes. You can’t outsource user experience. And everyone seems to want an API these days – just ask folks like Apigee or Mashery.

So now RedMonk instead of nudging, wants to do some more directed marketing. We’re really good at understanding developer community issues. Just look at our dev savvy client list.

Developer relations is still emergent, its a new center of power – but we think its probably the most important corporate function in terms of organic revenue growth and customer satisfaction. If you’re in developer relations we’d love to hear about what you’re doing, so why not reach out to us. We won’t give you the hard sell- we like learning as much as advising. But it may be that we can help. We certainly don’t have all the answers – but when it comes to staffing, making the case, tools to use, best practices – we want to be an ever better hub for that.

Developer Relations has two faces- internal and external. Sure you need to support the goals of the organisation and its products. But you also need to face outwards, and listen to developers – they are your client. We can help you get better at that. We look forward to talking to you.

We’re not outliers anymore, and it feels pretty good.