Brian:
And we're live. Hey, I'm Brian. That's James. Hi.

James:
Hey, hey. What's going on?

Brian:
I don't know. I'm talking to you on the internet.

James:
The internet's amazing thing, right? I feel I only have virtual friends now during COVID. I met a lot of people, but only virtually.

Brian:
I know. Well, we can hang out eventually someday, I hope.

James:
One day in a make-believe world.

Brian:
I feel we're going to kind of talk to each other obviously, but have the same conversations that I watch you have with other people on your podcast and on your videos. So, I'm going to do the exact same thing that you do which is how about you introduce yourself because you know yourself better than I do. How do you describe yourself?

James:
Sure. Yeah. I'm starting to adopt a new tagline which is I teach developers through content. So, I think there's a couple of keywords in there, like the teach part. I've been a teacher in some capacity for past 10 years. I started my career out in evangelism at Microsoft and then didn't do that for a couple of years and realized I missed it. And so, I've taught a few boot camps. I've done DevRel at Auth0. And now, I'm the developer media manager for a lot of our technical content, a lot of our YouTube videos, that sort of stuff. So, I teach developers through content of a lot of different forms.

James:
So, YouTube personal channel have a podcast myself, do content for Auth0, just being a joy being a part of developer community and helping people learn and grow.

Brian:
Yeah. One thing that I am actually super interested in talking to you about specifically when I was prepping for this conversation, there are lots of folks in DevRel who have kind of a... I don't know you want to call it. There's a blurred line between sort of your professional life and your personal life. But the content is the Venn diagram, it overlaps. So, how do you keep it straight in your head like the stuff that you're doing, let's say, for Auth0 versus the stuff that you're doing for yourself. And how does that work? How do you keep them straight? I would get confused super easily.

James:
Yes. In some ways, it's tough to separate them. But in some ways, it's like it doesn't really matter. So, here's an extreme scenario. If I were to work for Auth0 and in my personal time I did a bunch of stuff. And I became this really, really super famous person. And I had the most followers everywhere and people respected the content I did and trusted me in anything that I said. They were like, "I want to do that thing." That's directly beneficial for the company. My audience would carry with me.

James:
So, in some ways, in that sense, it's great to benefit from both. So, I think that enables a little bit of overlap where I don't have to stress about it too much. But I do have pretty clean lines of... I don't usually start my work until 9:00 AM time. And my wife leaves at 6:30 in the morning. So, I've got from seven to nine or so where I can just hang out and then work on content. So, that's pretty much me time.

James:
I work on YouTube videos, podcasts, things like that. And then, I just kind of hard switch into my workday. But there is a lot of overlap. The better I get at editing or creating videos in my personal time, the better I'm going to be at doing that for Auth0, the better I get at doing that on a zero time, the better I'm going to be on my personal stuff. So, in that sense, I think there's a lot of natural overlap.

James:
But I think the most important thing for me is that my personal brand is 100% my personal brand. Auth0 is a part of that. I love RAM. I have no desire to leave. But if I were to leave, my brand is my brand. That's one of the things that's most important to me is keeping that for myself. And then, obviously, like I said, it benefits company where I am at the time.

Brian:
Yeah. That is actually a kind of a theme that I've heard before. You didn't say personal brand first. But it's kind of it is that personal brand does sort of travel with you. I think Laurie Barth said that in one episode we did. She was like, "It's not exactly kind of one to one depending on which company you go to. But it does sort of help a little bit."

Brian:
You are on a lot of different channels and formats. And I mean that complementary. I mean it looks incredibly hard to do. When you're sitting down and kind of... Help me understand, if not your process, how do you plan that? Are you just wake up one day and say, "You know what? This thought that I had belongs on TikTok or this is a YouTube video, or maybe it's both"

James:
Yeah. So, content for me probably stems most from YouTube. That's the thing I'm most dedicated to. So, I mostly maintain one video a week on YouTube. And people ask like, "How do you do so much?" Well, the first answer is I never force myself to do something I don't want to do. I'm not going to make myself do a YouTube video if I really don't feel it because, then, I would get burned out.

James:
I don't feel burnt out because it's stuff that I just flat out enjoy doing. And it's just any other hobby. My wife and I have picked up golf in the last year, and we play a ton of golf. We're kind of obsessed. But it's the same kind of thing that's equally as a hobby as content creation is for me. So, it starts from YouTube. But that starts from a place of enjoyment.

James:
I don't have as much foresight into YouTube videos as people might expect. Usually, it's the day before or the day of for most of my videos. I have this idea, and it's something I want to talk about. The one I published this morning was I was just thinking about what makes a senior developer. And for me, that answer became one thing. It's someone that can break down complex problems and the smaller achievable ones, and then distribute and communicate that to a team.

James:
And then, I talked about that on camera for five minutes. So, in some ways, it's a little easy. I can get on podcasts. And I talk about stuff that I talk about all the time. I can do that video. And I talk about stuff that I talk about in career conversations a lot. The interesting thing then becomes TikTok, that's something I have always wanted to have more of my personality in my content. And I haven't quite had it.

James:
Tutorial videos are pretty much like, "Hey, I'm James. I'm going to show you how to do a thing." And I show you how to do a thing, or I get like, sometimes, it's a career conversation. And I'm a little more passionate. But I don't quite have the in-depth aspect of my personality that I consider to be really funny. That's kind of my personality with people that I'm comfortable with like friends and family, that sort of stuff. And so, I looked at TikTok as a way of just do something new. Do something that's fun, and be as ridiculous with it as I want to.

James:
And those are really short too. I don't have a whole lot of foresight there either. It's just kind of what thought did I have. And then, go and kind of execute on that. But it only takes a couple of minutes to watch. And the last thing I'll say kind of talking for a little bit, but I think one thing that people over overlook easily when they think about content creation is every thought that you have, every learning that you have, every single small thing no matter how small it is, is beneficial for someone.

James:
And when you get more comfortable creating content, it's really that realization of you don't overlook the small things that other people can benefit from, and you start to translate those into videos and TikToks and articles and stuff because it is going to be valuable for someone out there.

Brian:
Yeah. I have the same or a similar feeling when you think of an idea or some kind of topic that you want to talk about or write about. And I go, "Well, that's sort of been done." I'm sure. But not every person has seen that one thing especially on this podcast. It feels like the web dev world is big, but it is finite. Eventually you're going to run out of people to talk to like, "Well, they…"

Brian:
So, I try to come up or we try to come up with different kinds of questions. But, yeah, same idea. Not everyone has heard every minute of every podcast for everything. So, I can relate to that.

James:
And those different perspectives are extremely valuable in and of themselves. So, if I go to research, like, I want to learn something new, I don't watch one YouTube video. I don't read just one article. I go and watch several. And so, that I think I'm the perfect example of always create that thing because you never know who's going to resonate with the way that you explain something or the example that you use more so than they do on other pieces of content that have been around and maybe very successful for several years. There's always these slight differences that help pick up and kind of paint the bigger picture that you're looking for when you put them together.

Brian:
Yeah. Totally. And that's something that actually I learned from having these conversations with folks in DevRel, is my first question sort of when we started doing this is how much room is there for different instructors, for different teachers. It was Jessica Chan who said like, "Well, it really depends on who's right for you." Each teacher offers a little bit something different. So, I guess what we learned today is everyone's on the same page except for me until right now. Now, I feel wiser.

James:
Now, you're on the straightened path.

Brian:
Good for me. At least, when it comes to DevRel. So, one thing I also did was I went back. And I looked at kind of what your goals were for 2021. And hard as it is to believe. There's only, what, three months left in 2021? The two things that stuck out for me was one of your goals was kind of to produce a more kind of consistent brand. So, my first question is there do you feel you've done that.

Brian:
And then, the follow-up question is, I guess, more of our congratulations. One of your hard goals was I want to get to 100,000 YouTube subscribers. And you're 2000 short right now. At the time, you were 20,000. So, that's really hard to do. Congratulations on that.

James:
Yeah. I guess I'll take the first one about the consistent brand. So, part of that, I don't consider myself a designer. I can do some basic things. And I've always been kind of self-deprecating about it. I say not only am I not a designer, but I'm bad at design. That's one of the things I'm trying to change. But at the same time, even though I don't talk about myself as negatively from a design perspective, I've also recognized that generating some of the income that I've gotten from content, it will be better for me longer term to invest in someone else that has much more experience and talent at design and branding to put some things together for me.

James:
So, that was part of that goal was to basically outsource a lot of work and work with somebody to do a complete brand redesign and the consistency aspect is I want aspects of that brand to touch every different thing that I do, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, blog post. So, it may just be an animated cue that you see or just the cue logo or the red color, or whatever it is, but have that be consistent across the different mediums.

James:
And so, a little bit of details that aren't super relevant, I started working with a designer back in March and got some good things. And then, they disappeared, like completely ghost. I don't know if there was something wrong. I can't really make any assumptions there. I had no other contact with that person.

James:
And so, I was kind of stuck. I got in a good amount of things. But I wasn't where I didn't get the things that I needed in the end. So, now, working this is actually really exciting for me. Amy Dutton is the co-host of the Compressed.fm podcast with me, and she's incredibly talented, amazing developer and designer, and has done so much work for the podcast. I've learned so much for her. She's actually working on my redesign now. And we're streaming in a few days from when we're recording to get a first look at what she's done.

James:
And so, that will be a complete redesign of my website. We'll come with some branding assets to do thumbnails on YouTube, some templates to post code snippets, and things on Twitter, again, hitting these different forms of medium and having them share colors, fonts, logos, whatever it is… Excuse me. That makes sense.

James:
I've watched other people on Instagram, and you see their image of their code snippet. You're like, "I know who that is without even seeing their name." That's the kind of thing that I want to have. That's the kind of consistency that I want to have. So, we'll see what that goes. I hope, I mean, by the end of the year, I should be in a pretty good spot with that based on the work that Amy does. So, I just can't wait to see what we've got there and start to incorporate that.

Brian:
And then...

James:
Yeah... Sorry.

Brian:
No, no. I guess that for me I almost... which is silly. But I almost took the visual brand part kind of for granted. We at LogRocket have a pretty consistent brand. But ultimately, some of our posts, we have custom illustrations, and we did the same thing. I found illustrator. And thankfully, he's great, and he's been super reliable for years. But if you were to go away, I would be like, "Nick, come back." I don't know... [crosstalk 00:13:30]Well, I mean we have to find somebody who would sort of produce this work. It just wouldn't be ideal. So, yeah.

Brian:
And then, as far as tone and voice goes, I don't know if that's something you think about or it's that's just kind of if your brand is how you might normally talk. Then, maybe it's not a huge stretch to keep that going.

James:
Yeah. That's probably less of a concern for me with the exception of kind of what I mentioned earlier of trying to have more personality. So, that was one of the things we actually talked about Amy and I in like, "What am I looking for, and what do I want to get out of this? And what am I trying to get across in my website?"

James:
And my website right now is super clean, pretty minimal. But I want it to be a little more in your face, a little edgier, a little more personality to it. So, that's one of the things that I want to have there. I think there's potentially some of the tone just super authentic. I don't want to have anything formal. I don't know how to describe it right now... Super informal, I guess. Just the opposite of formal and super casual and super conversational like the way I would talk to someone.

James:
So, that's part of it. And then, also, like I said, the just the personality and the humor. So, I think TikTok is a good example of that for me of just really exploring a little bit with different kinds of content, different kinds of videos, being a little more creative and, ultimately, mainly focusing on the humor aspect of it. Some people will take TikTok, and they do like, "Here's three tips for blah, blah, blah. And it's in 45 seconds."

James:
And that's where stuff is really valuable. But I really have years going back to Vine, if you remember that app. Looked at these comedians who did funny videos every day. And I was like, "That's amazing to me." It's so cool how they're able to get across so much humor in such a little amount of time to the point where you're coming back, and you unfortunately get a little bit addicted. And you're scrolling through these things and probably watching more than you should.

James:
But I want to kind of do that. I would love to have people think of my name and my brain, and think of the humor, and think about the jokes that I've done and resonate to those things.

Brian:
Yeah. It makes all the sense in the world. I mean it's my job to sit and think about how web devs, where they are, what they're doing when they're consuming content which I don't really like that phrase. And I talk about this. I don't content creator either. It just seems weird, very kind of sterile. Anyways, I imagine that if someone's on TikTok, you're not really there to learn.

Brian:
You're certainly not going to watch an extended coding tutorial because you can't. But the more that I actually watch it, the more I think that I am wrong, that maybe you might be there for entertain, and then learn by accident. It's funny. And then, you kind of, all right, here's a video I could go to if I wanted to learn more. I'm seeing that more and more which is kind of interesting.

James:
Yeah. You kind of started to touch on the idea of meeting developers and people where they are. Who are the people that your content is going to make the most sense for? For me, it's developers. And that's one of the things I don't regret. I wish I had more humor that was more relevant to more people because I can't really share my TikToks as much with my friends that aren't developers because it's not going to make much sense.

James:
It would be listening to a joke and people are talking in a foreign language. And you only get a little bit of it, and you laugh anyway because you think it's supposed to be funny based on the way they're talking. But you really don't know. So, in some ways, I wish I had some more universal humor. But developers is definitely the audience.

James:
And as they spend time in different places, Twitter spaces is a great example of this, has just honestly blown up. The first one I was on which was really early on in the Twitter spaces realm was 800 people live listening which absolutely blew my mind.

Brian:
Wow.

James:
And the developer community on Twitter is so big. And it's so easy for people to scroll through their phone, see it, and just listen in and have it in the background. So, that's one of the things that I've gotten more into as well. So, yeah. I think recognizing what people are looking for.

James:
And then, also specifically back to TikTok, in that minute span or now I think you can do three minutes, there's something to be said for like, "I just want to see as quickly as possible how you do a thing." I'm one of the people content creators, your favorite word, on YouTube debate about do I create a long tutorial that's 45 minutes or do I create short content? And YouTube really cares about how long do people stay on your video, not necessarily the percentage of minutes watch. But for me, one, it's easier to do shorter videos. And also, that's the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

James:
If I search for a topic, I'm usually looking for a 10 to 15-minute video. I'm not looking for the hour-long one because I just don't have time to sit down and watch the whole thing. So, there's a benefit of those quick hitters that also are valuable in terms of tips and tricks or here's how I built something. Just those, you can catch people's attention and have enough in there that gives them maybe the realization that I now want to go search for a YouTube video to learn a little bit more or build something or whatever it is.

Brian:
I always wonder especially when we started the LogRocket channel a couple of years ago basically just trying to recreate the blog on YouTube, such as tutorials. But when we started, one of the fundamental questions was who's watching a 45-minute coding tutorial? I mean that was a real serious question.

Brian:
And then, we're like, "I have no idea if people are going to do that and how." But it turns out that, for some people, yeah, they do that. But then, I also think that there's a really, like you said, there's a big opportunity for that three to five-minute window where it's just like, "Here's the thing that you need to do." I know you're working on this, whatever it is.

Brian:
I mean that's how they read our blog posts. I mean you could just watch them kind of scroll. Just like anyone consumes the internet. I'm not going to read the whole thing. Just let me find the actual [crosstalk 00:19:44] interesting. Yeah. Exactly. Cool.

James:
At least for me, there might also be a correlation between experience level as developers. I did a couple of years of evangelism on my Microsoft. And then, I started as a full-time developer at FedEx here in Memphis. And that was new for me. I'd done lots of demos, and things like that. But I've never written production code. And I was also just head joined into the web development ecosystem. I've never done anything before the summer of 2016 with web development, never anything.

Brian:
Wow.

James:
And so, one, I figured out I loved it. So, I wanted to learn more and more. But I also was so new to it that I didn't know how the pieces fit together. So, I needed the content that would show me start to finish here's how these pieces fit together. For example, Traversy Media, Brad Traversy is one of the biggest YouTube channels that's out there. And he would do every at least a couple of week, and he would have these 45-minute or hour-long tutorials. And I would watch. I watch everything at two times speed which saves me a little time.

James:
But I would watch those because I was like, from start to finish, I don't know how these things fit together yet. And probably a little bit of a difference now is I'm experienced enough to know. Even if you tell me there's this brand new technology, it does this, I don't need too many specifics about that thing to understand how it can fit in with other things that I might be working with.

James:
And so, I don't necessarily need the whole picture. Now, I'm a little more comfortable with I need to know how to do this one specific thing. And maybe, that's part of the reason why I'm specifically looking for just 10 to 15-minute videos to get that one specific thing done.

Brian:
Yeah. Little known fact, Brad Traversy and I went to third grade together.

James:
Nice.

Brian:
We're pretty close.

James:
Nice.

Brian:
I'm a little disappointed that my accent dissipated over the years. And his Boston accent is strong. [crosstalk 00:21:38]

James:
His stayed strong. Yes.

Brian:
And it's a shame that I let that one go. Hey, Brad, if you're listening. Remember third grade, it was a great time.

James:
The best of times.

Brian:
He doesn't remember. I actually brought up with him. I have no idea who you are. [crosstalk 00:21:52] Trust me. I know you. Our town was a thousand people. You were definitely there. He doesn't remember, and that's fine. I'm not personally wounded by it at all. Okay.

Brian:
So, the next thing that I just kind of wanted to talk about for a second is that is your YouTube channel, your personal YouTube channel. And the growth you've seen over the last year, that is kind of incredible. Do you feel you've done anything specific to make that happen or were you just kind of blessed by the YouTube algorithm?

James:
Definitely some of both. And I think that's kind of the epitome of YouTube. But I want to start with something that it's a topic that I'm passionate about. And it's the idea of most people say you shouldn't compare yourself because everybody's journey is different. Everybody learns differently. Everybody grows on YouTube or an audience or something differently which I wholeheartedly agree with.

James:
But I take a little different stance of I 100% compare myself to others. And I think it's really beneficial for me in content creation of my career, and things like that. But the caveat to that is that I do it with respect for myself. So, I compare myself to others with the understanding that everybody does have their own journey. And it's not a one-to-one. But I never ever in my entire life would have set the goal of this year getting to 100,000 followers had I not seen people do it in the previous year.

Brian:
Yeah.

James:
And it was kind of hard for me. I started doing YouTube videos not super intentionally. But seven or eight years ago, when I was at Microsoft, I then took a few years off. And I came back. And it's been three, maybe four years, that I've been doing videos consistently. Probably three. I have to go back and check exactly. But let's say I've been taking it seriously for three years, and I look at a few people started their channel during COVID or right before, and they got to 100,000 followers. And some of me, this is the natural reaction. And I'll be honest. It's jealousy in like, "What am I doing wrong?"

James:
And it's those natural things, and it's the imposter syndrome that people feel. But at the same time, you can take that and be respectful of yourself and realize that like, "Okay. Maybe, I have to do things a little bit differently. Maybe, I should be a little more introspective, retrospective or whatever, and figure out what I can do to try to get more reach for the stuff I create," while understanding that sort of growth is possible.

James:
Like I said, I'd never in my life would have given myself the goal of 100,000 subscribers on YouTube this year had I not seen other people do it. So, the things that I changed, and it's a delicate balance of this idea of clickbait titles and thumbnails. A lot of people say, "If you just create content consistently, the audience will grow." And that's true to a certain extent. But also if you just create the same type of content, and it's not doing some of the small things, you're not really going to exponentially grow. And that's what has been for me in the past year of experimenting with titles, experimenting with thumbnails, paying really close attention as I get a little edgier, a little clickbaity of how people respond to it because the minute I have a bunch of dislikes or negative comments, I'm going to change. I've gone too far.

Brian:
Okay.

James:
So, I'm kind of experimenting with being a little edgier, a little click-baitier, paying attention to am I still providing value, are people still enjoying it? And those are the types of things that have led to a couple of viral-ish videos that have drastically changed the trajectory of the channel. And I've heard this in watching videos in the past of. It just takes one of those spikes, and you never know.

James:
And for years, I was like, "Well, am I just not capable of doing that? Am I never going to get one? Is that not going to happen?" But the more you put out good content, the consistency. But then, also do some of those tweaks to help bring people in to your stuff, the more likelihood, the more chance you have of having some of those viral videos which then lead to growth and subscribers. And so, it's been maybe five videos in the last year that have really done the majority of the growth from, I think, it was 30 at the beginning of the year to now 98. And then, we'll close in on 100 in the next week or two which, oddly enough, I feel will specifically be one of the biggest accomplishments I've ever had because it's something I've, one, I never thought was possible until the last couple of years maybe, specifically this year probably.

James:
And then, I'm accomplishing something that I have thought about over the course of five years, for example. So, that I think will be one of the coolest things I've ever done.

Brian:
Like I said, as someone whose job it is to set numbers goals and then hit those goals, I know how hard it is. And when I saw that earlier today when I was watching and I was like, "Wow, he's at 20." And then, I was just like, "Well, what is he at now?" Oh, wow. He's real early on that.

Brian:
I guess you just stop at 100,000. You're just, "That's it." You it hit, and then you're done. I think the biggest kind of something you said made me think of this, the biggest open secret or misconception, I think, is that developers are immune to clickbait stuff. That's not true. But the caveat is you actually have to deliver once they're there. They're not going to come back more so than anyone else. It's like, "Okay. Well, ell I'm never returning to this channel because I was duped." So, that's not for you.

James:
That's why you can't... Yeah. Well, you can't mislead. And I do a lot of prefacing in some of my videos. One in particular, recently, I was talking about... I do lots of VS code videos. And it never fails. I get someone in the comments that's like, "Well, WebStorm." Is that right? Webstorm, the editor?

Brian:
Oh yeah, that's right.

James:
Someone in the comments every time, it's like, "Well, WebStorm has had this feature for 20 years, and they've been doing this for blah, blah, blah." I'm like, "Cool. That's great."

James:
But these are different products at different stages of their life. And they serve slightly different purposes although they have a lot of overlap. And so, I created a video that it was never intended to be me telling you which one is better. And this is my way of using clickbait, but also delivering on what I'm saying because I'm not telling you the title was not which one of these is better because I don't believe that.

James:
I'm one of those people that looks at both sides, and there's always give and take. There's rarely for me a definitive answer. And I certainly wouldn't want to tell people out there, "This one is definitively better," because you can't prove that. So, the title was VS code versus WebStorm, five things you need to know.

James:
So, as you compare them, here are five facts. Here are things that are true that you need to know to understand how they're different, and why they're different and take that into account. If you're going to leave comments on my channel that can continually tell me how amazing WebStorm is and how it's had features for all these years, you need to understand these things.

James:
So, I think that was you start to get a better marketing brain of seeing what people are going to respond to, but also again, at the end of the day, staying true to what you're promising in the title and the thumbnail and providing that value and gauging that based on comments and likes versus dislikes. And if those things dip, I probably will get to a point where I'll push a little too much. And then, I'll back off a little bit. And that's just part of the experiment.

Brian:
Yup. For sure, there's a place for, I don't know, I guess we'll call it controversial content where you have a message. But you're also sort of looking to spark a discussion. And in that way, you can kind of be very declarative with your title like this is... I'm trying to think of an example that we've done recently.

Brian:
I find that Russ topics are the ones that get people the most fire... I don't know what it is about Russ developers. But they are super passionate, super passionate. But sometimes, you'll get in the comments, and we'll hear all the ways that we're wrong. And you feel bad for a second like, "Wow, we really are terrible at our jobs." But then, you just kind of go back and go, "Wait a minute. I wasn't wrong. You're just really passionate about me being wrong. So, that it turns out..." It is more complex. So, I don't know. Maybe, that's just a lesson from being on the internet which-

James:
I've had a few of those recently. One in particular was I did. So, I have a Friday stream called Learning Quick where I have guests on and learning can be used in the south inappropriately to say teaching someone I'm going to learn new something. I don't actually say that. So, it's a double entendre of I'm learning fast. I'm learning quickly. And also, someone is learning me. They're teaching me. So, I bring on guests. And I had Kyla Gregory talk about doing a late career change. And I think she said she was in her mid-30s.

James:
And so, the title on the thumbnail that she chose was, "Late Career Change". Great. Such a perfect topic that lots of people are interested in. And I had this one person go on four or five posts, four or five comments explaining to me how clickbaity that was which this is the least clickbait title I've ever had because "mid-30s" doesn't constitute a "late" career change.

James:
And so, we go back and forth. And I'm like, "You're arguing with me over semantics." And then, you wrote this long response. And I'm like, "Semantics again. I'm done with this conversation. I'm not going to argue with you over semantics. If you interpret that differently, fine."

James:
But I think one of the things I've become more and more comfortable with, so, with growth, you get more negativity. But I get tons of overwhelming positivity. So, most of it's positive. But just by sheer percentages, with higher volume, you get more negativity. And the thing that I really focus on, and this is in life outside of outside of that as well is if I say something that offends you or make someone mad or whatever, I first look at what was my intent in doing that.

James:
And I try to listen. I want that to be if there's feedback, I need to take it. Some of it, you just learn to disregard because it's not relevant. Some of it, there's something that actually do differently. So, everything is potential feedback. But in that scenario, he was saying, "This is a clickbait title, blah, blah." And introspectively, I'm looking at like this was the least click-bait thing I've ever done on my channel.

James:
I don't expect these videos. I know they don't do near as well as my regular ones because they're just posting a live stream. That's not at all what my intent was. And you're also one person who is very passionate about trying to tell someone that they're wrong, like you said. And so, at that point, it's like ignore. I am comfortable with what my intent was. My intent was to make this content accessible for other people who wanted to watch it, to support the person, thank them for coming on to my stream, have that content available for other people to watch. And I had no negative intent there. So, it's easy for me in those situations to look at that first and potentially walk away and not be too bothered by it.

Brian:
Yeah. Sometimes, that happens to us as well. If some post or some piece of content makes it to the front page of Hacker News, somewhere in the comments, it'll be like, "LogRocket is..." My favorite one is always is that "they're blatantly participating in inbound marketing or content marketing." And I never reply. But I'm always like, "Yeah. You figured it out. That is correct that. Yes."

Brian:
You're not paying anything. It is free. That is what's happening. But I mean the trade-off again is it has to be good or else no one's going to read it. But I do always kind of get a good chuckle at that, like, "Yeah. We have to keep the lights on somehow." So, anyways. Okay. Well, the last topic I want to hit actually is you had mentioned earlier that it's hard to ignore other people kind of in your space. So, whether it's I wish that I could do what they do or maybe a little bit of jealousy, just that's normal. Do you ever intentionally look at other folks in DevRel for either inspiration or...

Brian:
I found out the other day that there's a top secret DevRel Discord channel or something like that where everyone, all the famous YouTubers get together and chat with each other. Do you know what I'm talking about? And can I get an invite?

James:
I'm assuming we're talking about the same one.

Brian:
I hope there's dozens [crosstalk 00:34:30] because that would be so great.

James:
There's so many that you're excluded from. Yeah. So, there's one that is programming YouTubers or something like that I am in. It's a Discord which it's probably what you're talking about. It doesn't start from DevRel specifically. It started from YouTube, and YouTube programmers as the title says which is not publicly ever... We're not out there sharing with everyone to come join us. But we have invited tons of people over, I don't know, the last several months.

James:
And it's just people that create content. So, if you're interested in that, I could definitely send you an invite. But I will say from my perspective of, one, definitely having imposter syndrome and looking at other people and wondering what I'm doing wrong, and why they're doing so much good stuff. The other aspect of this is how amazing that community is.

James:
If I had to shout out a community other than one that I put on myself, that is the number one community that I'm in because people are sharing. They're sharing their process. They're sharing tips and tricks. They're sharing how much money they get from the sponsors. So, we know what other people are getting. And that helps us advocate for ourselves. I can't tell you we probably charge so much more collectively because other people in the Discord, you're not charging what you're worth.

James:
So, it's that sort of affirmation. It's that sort of sharing of knowledge. We also have a monthly mastermind chat where, sometimes, we have topics. Sometimes, we just hang out in chat. We ask questions about best practices, again tips and tricks how to work with sponsors, like, so many different things. And we have people from all different stages like people that are less than 1000 subscribers or around that point up to Brad Traversy is in there with his million five or whatever he's up to.

James:
So, assuming that's what you were hearing about, that does exist. It is an amazing community. And if you're interested, just let me know after. And I'll send you an invite.

Brian:
Nice. I don't know that I'll have much to contribute. But at least I'll have stuff to talk about on this podcast. They'll tell everyone, "Listen, you didn't get an invite. But I did, and here's the things that I saw." I get kicked out so fast. And I would deserve it.

Brian:
Okay. So, what I usually do now, I mean, kind of towards the end is ask what... It's so hard. I mean even just asking the question. But even just looking at what people's titles are, who work in DevRel, they seem to change kind of annually. How do you feel or what do you think is going to happen in the next three, five? I always mention Swix only thinks in 10-year blocks because he's just big brain, I guess. So, yeah, do you think about kind of the future? What does that mean or is it just kind of individuals with their own brand kind of? I don't want to say, Freelancing? But kind of moving about as they see fit, whatever it is that kind of speaks to them. It's a really long question. Sorry about that.

James:
Yeah. I'm trying to piece it all together. So, thinking maybe part of that is what's the future of DevRel. And then, maybe the other side of that, what's the future of more individual content creators personal brands, that sort of stuff?

Brian:
Maybe, a more concise way to ask the question. Yeah. Thank you.

James:
I think DevRel is definitively growing, I would say. I think more and more companies recognize the benefit of it. More and more companies are investing in it especially now in a virtual world. It's different because we don't have as many opportunities to be in person with people I talked about. All of my friends are made virtually during COVID. There's a big difference in being at a conference in person and doing the hallway track and going out to dinner with people. So, that sort of stuff, obviously, we'll come back. But I think there will be a mixed environment of a lot of conferences will probably be hybrid because the benefit of COVID if I can say that without being too insensitive is we've gotten more creative of how we do online stuff.

James:
More things are more accessible to more people because we've had to be, and that's kind of cool by itself. I still can't wait to be back in person. But I think DevRel teams have grown. They're going to continue to grow. I'm looking forward to that from the perspective of when I was in college before I randomly came across this job as a technical evangelist at Microsoft, I had no idea that this world existed.

James:
You go. And if you do a degree studying computer science, software engineer, that's what you hear. That's what you apply for. That's what you see. That's kind of all you know. A lot of people don't realize that you can marry up these other skills and interests talking to people, like being an extrovert although a lot of people would say they're introverted. But you have the ability to marry up these other skills that you may have kind of ignored and pushed aside and didn't even think were a possibility.

James:
So, from that perspective, I'm excited to have more opportunities for people to do more blending of what makes them them, and what unique skills, and things they can bring to the table. And then, from the external content creator perspective, you see more and more people doing that too. And I think that's such an empowering thing because never before in history have we had the ability to make a living on our own. It's never been this accessible to do that on our own.

James:
And you look at like, yes, it's taken a lot of hard work and years for me to get to 100,000 followers on YouTube. That also, I make money off of YouTube ads. I make money off sponsors. But that stuff doesn't replace what I get in a salary. So, I'm in a very nice situation, comfortable situation to have a salary, also have side income.

James:
But people look at that. And it's just such an empowering thing to think that your skills and your personality and your brand can be a career. And you can do that and run with it. And it may be full time. It may be a full-time job and a part-time thing. But you have more ability to do what makes you excited that you're passionate about and do less of the stuff that you don't I feel like than ever before.

James:
And so, I think we will see in the past year, we've obviously seen... I have obviously seen more and more content creators kind of come out of nowhere with really amazing things and more and more people are getting started. More and more people are sharing. That's just beneficial for the community as a whole. And I think that's going to continue to grow as well and have a really, really positive impact on a lot of people's lives from both the person that's creating and becoming that empowered person to create themselves and the people that are consuming because there's more resources now than there's ever been as well.

Brian:
No. I like what you said because I personally really enjoy seeing people who are just starting out. And you can kind of tell. Even just over just running into their content over the course of just a few months, you can see them kind of improve. You can see that they're sticking with it. And they're from everywhere. It's really cool. You see lots of content for people who want to get started as a developer. Maybe, there's an opportunity for how to get started as someone in DevRel. I'm not sure you would know certainly better than I. I'm not sure how exactly that would work.

James:
There's definitely been more efforts in that regard too. I'll give another shout-out. Happens to work with me, but a completely well-deserved shout-out regardless of our working together. Sam Julien has developer micro skills, and that's a newsletter that he runs. And he goes through a lot of that stuff. Some of it, specifically, how do I get into DevRel? But a lot of it's just as a developer regardless of developer-developer advocate, et cetera, you're more than just writing code. It's communication and career progression and how do you learn? How do you prioritize your time? How do you optimize the time and become more efficient with the things that you do?

James:
There's so many of those micro skills that go along with that and have a significant impact on people's career that isn't given the attention to your point that it could be. And I think we're seeing more of that was the first point. And then, specifically, a shout-out for Sam and the content that he's done with his newsletter and some... I think he released the e-book on a Guide To Tiny Experiments thinking about a lot of companies practice agile.

James:
And, culturally, a lot of them still don't quite believe in it like the idea of failing and the idea of trying stuff to see what happens and iterating from there. It's still not really bought in a lot of places. So, that's kind of what that's about as well, is how do you just experiment with stuff and use that to influence where do you go next based on success or failures? I don't know what the word, like, leveling out failures to whether or not... I'm struggling with English. Anyways, making failures not be failures. They're just learning opportunities, and then build on it from there.

Brian:
Yeah. No. I agree. I don't think that I've worked for a company that... Every place I've worked I've always said, "Well, do you do agile?" It's like, "Well, we sort of do agile. We do some kind of…" So, I feel that's a normalized thing. Cool, man. I think those are the questions I have for you. We have talked about other people you want to shout out. But this is normally the time where we reserve for plugs. I don't know if there's anything you want to... or somebody or something. Where should we send people?

James:
Sure. James Q. Quick on YouTube and TikTok. I have to make sure to include TikTok now. I feel weird doing a podcast on a podcast. But Compressed.fm is the podcast that I run with Amy Dutton who again public shout out, Amy is awesome. And people should go follow her for development and design things.

James:
And I guess lastly is Learn Build Teach is the Discord that I run with several of the community members. And that's kind of a philosophy in my life as well that we didn't talk about, spend a lot of time learning. Obviously, we have to [inaudible 00:44:45] because it's ever-changing. Use what you learned to build stuff. And then, at the end of the day, teach people to do it too because you help the community. And then, also reinforce the things that you know or that you thought you know and realize that you didn't know them as well as you thought as you go to try to explain them to other people.

James:
So, Learn Build Teach is a philosophy and a discord. And if you go to learnbuildteach.com right now, I'll redirect you to the to the Discord invite.

Brian:
Cool. Obviously, we'll put all the links in the various descriptions of the places that you will find podcasts and this video.

James:
Sounds good.

Brian:
Cool. That's it. We're done. Thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

James:
Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Brian:
Thanks for listening to PodRocket. Find us at PodRocketpod on Twitter or you could always email me even though that's not a popular option. It's brian@logrocket.