Community

Talk-Commerce-Rani Mani

Connect, engage, and grow your community with Rani Mani.

In the last episode of Talk Commerce for 2022, we speak with Rani Mani, the Digital Media Customer Communication Lead at Adobe. We talk about all things community and why some companies get community wrong.

Rani Mani is deeply passionate about making customers successful and harnessing the power of customer feedback to improve the overall customer experience.

Rani does this at scale over social media and is constantly looking at new and exciting ways to pinpoint areas where companies are making it especially difficult to do business with them.

Rani is skilled at working with cross-functional teams across the company to figure out ways of reducing customer effort. In addition to being keenly interested in reducing customer effort, she is equally schooled in strategies for providing exemplary support over social channels and cultivating and nurturing community engagement so the company can be a community-driven business.

Links from the Podcast

https://www.projecthired.org/

https://medium.com/@brentwpeterson/how-i-talked-my-way-into-creativity-eeb1481ebbaa

Transcript

Brent: Welcome to this special New Year’s Eve version of Talk Commerce. Today I have Rani Mani. Rani, tell us your role, what you do daily, and maybe one of your passions in life.

Rani: Yeah. Hi Brent. So my day-to-day at Ajovy is telling the story of our individual customers, so predominantly our customers using Creative Cloud. I’m incredibly passionate about doing amazing things in the world just because people are truly changing the world. Adobe happens to power that, so that’s been super satisfying to be a part of.

Brent: We met through the Adobe Insiders Program in 2019. Can you believe that? At the Adobe Summit, right? Or Yes. Yeah. So we met right around that time. And you are no longer with that group, so you’ve moved on to a group, but you’ve so graciously been involved in our little mini insider group that you’ve so kindly come on to the podcast today.

Rani: Oh yes. No, there’s no way that I could be too far away from the group with so many friends, and it’s so much more about the people than anything programmatic about the program. So yeah, I thrill to be here, Brent. 

Brent: Good. Thank you. Before we get into our content, I think one of the things we’re going to talk about is community.

Brent: You have graciously said that you would participate in the #freejokeproject, so I’m just going to tell you a joke, and all you have to do is say, should this joke be free, or can somebody charge for it at some point? All right, here we go. 

Brent:

What's a sea monster's favorite food,  Fish and ships. #FreeJokeProject @ranimani0707 Click To Tweet

Rani: Yeah, I think that should be free, Brent.

Brent: Thanks. I was going to preface it with that. Most of my jokes are not worth saying, but free is very liberal. Thank you so much; all right. Community in our green room, you just mentioned briefly about that it’s sometimes community gets lost and how people do community is lost.

Brent: Can you expand on that? 

Rani: I think people lose sight of the fact that community is all about the individual, right? And what’s in it for them, what makes their heart sing, and how they can band together to support and share with one another. That it’s not meant to be transactional.

Rani: And a lot of companies, and even individuals, even nonprofits that I see trying to rally the community, make it about other things other than the individual. And I often wonder Brent is it not the most obvious thing that the community should be about the people that are in it? And why are we making so much of a big deal around the cause?

Rani: or the corporation or whatever the external thing is, as opposed to diving into the people. Because I feel like once you dive into the people and they are loyalists, and they’re bound to one another, no matter what the thing is, they will stay intact. Which I think is a real testament to how our insider program.

Rani: I could come in and out of it. Adobe may or may not be a part of it, but I feel like that group will forever last. Now the way we’ve set it up, I feel very confident about that because you are all so connected to one another that it’s a real thing of beauty to watch.

Brent: Yeah, I like what you said about not transactional, and I think leaders in positions that look for ROI want to figure out how can this transaction give us value.

Brent: And I think that’s the first mistake anybody would make in building community. Maybe just tell us a little bit more about how you feel and what you think about it being about the person. How focusing on that person helps build community. Cause some might think that’s backward like it should be focused on the community.

Brent: But I agree with you that it is about the people in the community and focusing on each of those. People help the community to become stronger. 

Rani: Yep. I feel like there is no community without the individual, and a community happens to be the sum of multiple individuals. And so, to me, the most basic attack.

Rani: Adam of that community is individual. So I need to not. I need to. I want to focus on who you are, Brent, and what makes you sing, right? What lights you up and what are you trying to do in the world, and how can Adobe and how can I be a part of that? And how can this community assist you in that, right? Like when you start with that premise, it’s a win-win for all.

Rani: But I feel like it’s no different, Brent, than anything in life, right? Whatever it is that you’re doing in life, if you don’t start with the individual and what does success look like to them and what gets them out of bed today, and what are their hopes and dreams like, how are you going to get to the heart of anything if you don’t start at that very basic level of the person?

Brent: The flip side would be that some company wants to create community, and they want the community to be about the company, and then everybody loses focus on the people in it because there’s no common bond between the people. It’s all just the company and the.

Brent: Whatever they’re trying to do is driving that community. Where organically community should be built because people want to participate in it, 

Rani: And the company should and can be a part of it. Like I feel like our Adobe Insiders Group has and will continue to do Somers results for Adobe, right?

Rani: I feel like this group does amazing things on behalf of Adobe and is very quick to defend and promote and all of that, for which Adobe is incredibly grateful. But in the event, Adobe was to ever step out of that community, I really firmly believe that, Because you all have established such a bond, and there are so many connective tissue threads within the group that, it’s really wonderful.

Brent: Part of the way I got into the Adobe community was through Magento, an Adobe acquisition. And I can say that the Magento community operates in a similar fashion, where the community really is the driver of everything around what the corporation would like to see, but there’s no oversight from some big brother saying you as a community have to do this.

Brent: And I like what you said about, they’ll do somersaults over it cuz they’re passionate about what they’re doing right. Like everybody in the community is passionate about some aspect of what they’re in it for, 

Rani: right? Everybody gets something slightly different, and there is no overarching you need to attend this many meetings, and you need to tweet this many times.

Rani: And I very purposely left it that way. Because I just felt like there were many, much bigger things that bound us together as people. That would have a much greater staying power than providing some arbitrary structure like that, 

Brent: Talk a little bit about the difference of how we can help to tell each of our own stories rather than a company story.

Brent: As a community, does it really help the community to tell the story about the company, or does it tell, is it help the community to tell the story about individuals who are in the community?? 

Rani: I don’t see it as a mutually exclusive thing. If you think about it, Brent, our community does both, right?

Rani: Our community gives the name and faith, and personality to the Adobe logo, as you tell different things that you’re doing using Adobe products, it’s your story, but ultimately gets wrapped up into Adobe story as. , right? So I feel like both need to happen for it to be a really compelling, memorable story.

Brent: I can remember in Magento Imagine the last one was 2019 and then the Adobe Summit followed up. But during that, we got Adobe Rush as a free gift for attending blah, blah blah. And I remember sitting there in that Adobe. I attended one of the Adobe Rush specific like there was some kind of a tutorial event or some

Brent: kickoff event and said, Hey, this is what it actually does. And I did CR I, and I remember him creating a short video during the session that said, Hey, I’ve made this while multitasking in my Adobe Rush session on Adobe Rush using Adobe Rush. And then, I published it by the end of the session.

Brent: I think it just, that kind of gives to how we can be passionate about a product and also promote a product while doing a product and sitting in listening about a product. I don’t know where I’m going with this story but was true. It was still fun. 

Rani: Very true. But not all products and services lend itself to that, right?

Rani: Adobe is in an absolutely unique position to have such an iconic brand and so many products that are within the fabric of our culture that, it lends itself to exactly what you’re talking about. 

Brent: It’s not as exciting to say, Hey, I’ve created an integration using Adobe io. While I was doing my Adobe IO session, and now I can, oh my gosh, make AEM talk to joking. 

Rani: Adobe covers, or for the people who are part of what do you call it, washing machines or dryers or, like I, I often, when I first started the group, I was like, this is criminal that I get to do this because, It’s how Adobe set up and what we offer the world, it’s, I feel like people clamor to be a part of it.

Rani: So it’s just, it’s such a natural, dare I say, easy thing to mobilize the community around. 

Brent: If you could speak a little bit to how. How you see the storytelling and if there’s anything different. Is there a magic sauce in the Adobe community, or is it something that is just inherently good because the community is building what the community’s building?

Rani: I think the magic sauce is the people, right? Like the love. If any individual within the group were to pull back or new people came in, the ethos would be different. And that isn’t to say that we don’t always welcome or look for new people, but I think there’s something very special about the existing.

Rani: People within the community and the amount of time you’ve all been together, the kind of hopes and dreams and struggles that you’ve all shared. You’ve been in some of our happy hours, Brent. And we get very up close and personal, right? We’re talking about deaths and marriages and divorces and Custody battles,

Rani: We talk about some really milestone real hearts stringing kind of things, and so that kind of vulnerability and that kind of connection with one another, it’s very much driven by the people.

Brent: The key to a good community is just what you were saying about it’s not just about some one thing that there are so many aspects around that. And we all have our own lives, right? And our own lives contribute to the community.

Brent: And whatever we do in our lives helps to build that community and make it stronger. And then, maybe you could speak a little bit about it. each of us in a community has a strong point. Each of us has one little aspect that adds to it and makes it a really strong community.

Brent: How important do you think the diversity in that community is? 

Rani: When I think about diversity, I think about it more than just ethnic and cultural diversity, right? I’m thinking about it as diversity of thought, diversity of backgrounds. Perspective, and that’s so important because we don’t. How boring would it be if we’re all like one another?

Rani: There have been things brought up and new and innovative ideas that have been offered due to the diversity. And we’ve all benefited from it. That’s why I’m so impressed with you, Brent, that in addition to being a part of the Magento community, you still took that leap of faith and became a part of this community that, at first, I’m sure, felt like a bunch of doorknobs, right?

Rani: Because there was no one. Product or one campaign, or one, anything that bounds us together. I brought a group of people together, and my ultimate question was, are these decent human beings? Oh, and of course, who happens to have a decent social footprint who are doing new and interesting things in the world of digital experiences?

Rani: But my ultimate criteria was, Are these people that I admire enough and feel comfortable enough with that I would invite into my own home and expose my four kids to, right? That was my ultimate criteria. And without exception, every single one of you that’s part of this group, it’s a resounding yes to that.

Rani: And so it’s been a great thing, right? We’ve just got a really good group of people. . Like not just the passion, but the level of goodness of the human being, right? 

Brent: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And for the kid’s thing, I’m worried more about the community members and my kids, like they’re exposed to my kids because, never mind.

Brent: Yeah. Gonna, I was going down the, a bad joke path there, . Yeah. And I guess when I was thinking about diversity, I wasn’t necessarily thinking. Cultural and ethnic, but that is a good part of it. It is important in a community for people to have different strong points.

Brent: And, I’m part of the commerce community, which gives me a different view on things. And now, for me personally, what I’ve learned from, going to the Adobe Summit when it was live in person, but then attending the virtual ones, was that there’s so much more to the whole experience that a customer would have using something like Adobe, you’re using any kind of platform that we can all become better people or even better in our own personal roles that we’re doing because we’re exposed to this diversity in what everybody’s doing.

Brent: So there could be one person who’s marketing, and there’s one person who’s data or commerce or whatever, like we all get together, and we talk. I think that’s as important in that community as the community itself. 

Rani: Yep. No, I agree. I agree. And the ethnic diversity has been a real treat as well because, Adobe really stands for,

Rani: amplifying and elevating the diverse voices that we represent in the community, right? In terms of our customer base. And so that was important to me as well, that we had that right mix of cultural and ethnic diversity within our group because, ultimately, perspective is made up of who you are and where you come from, right?

Rani: And so we, we have a real nice mix of that within our group as well. 

Brent: Yeah, absolutely. And just want to applaud you for helping us to tell our stories in the community. You helped me quite a bit. To be able to tell my story to the community.

Brent: And I think I have a blog post out there somewhere. Anyways, it doesn’t matter. That’s hard to hear. Yes. No, there 

Rani: is. And it was a beautifully done story as well, Brent. In fact, we should link to that from Oh yeah. This podcast so that people can see it because I, and this. The premise of who Adobe is, we believe that everyone has a story to tell.

Rani: And whatever we can as a company, given our products and services, whatever we can do to empower and enable you to tell your story, then we’ve done our job. 

Brent: That’s awesome. Rani, we’re quickly running out of time. I know we wanted to target 10 to 15 minutes. A as we close out the podcast, I give a guest the opportunity to do a shameless plug about anything.

Brent: What would you like to plug today? 

Rani: Yes, I would love to plug a nonprofit organization in the Bay Area by the name of Project Hired. I’m a very proud board member of the organization, and the organization is, Focused on providing advocacy and providing employment services for the disabled community.

Rani: Disabled people makeup one in four people in the world are disabled, and unfortunately, disabled people are woefully underemployed. And so this organization. Provides counseling and guidance and all sorts of services to help individuals with disabilities get employment. I would love for the audience to take a look into Project Hired and participate with them in any which way that you feel inclined.

Rani: Obviously, during the holidays and going into the new year, we’re always looking for donations. And donations don’t always have to be in the form of money. It can be volunteering. It can be if you’re a part of a company that has open jobs that you would like to do some matchmaking with our clients, that would be incredible.

Rani: So many different ways to participate and to give. 

Brent: Yeah. Thank you for that. And incidentally, I just did an interview with a company that does sim something similar. It’s called John’s Crazy Sox, and they hired a disabled individual in there, and I don’t know what the percentage is, but it’s large, that’s one of their missions, and they talked a lot about the mission of whatever the company is, has to reflect what their customers are wanting.

Brent: And I feel as though Adobe does reflect. In itself and with the employees and people like you that help to promote causes like this and help to amplify their voices. Yes. 

Rani: Yes. No, most 

Brent: Definitely. Rani Mani, thank you so much for being here today. It’s been such a pleasure talking to you, and I wish you a very happy New Year.

Rani: Oh, a very happy New Year to you as well, Brent. Thanks for having me.

Brent: You’re welcome.

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Summary

Brent introduces Andrew and says they’re an engineering manager at space 48. 

Andrew notes they’re part of a local council community council, and Brent says they met the lord mayor. 

Brent says they’re going to talk about the free joke project. 

Andrew mentions that DevX is an internal conference where they get together and exchange ideas. 

Andrew says they heard about the big hackathon organized by the bigcommerce team. Andrew and Brent talk about plans for a big commerce conference in manchester. Andrew notes that there was a discussion on slack and that they got some excellent feedback. Brent and Andrew talk about expectations as a developer. Andrew and Brent overview bigcommerce and the community manager. Brent and Andrew discuss open saas and how developers can get involved. Brent and Andrew discuss building an application and the difference between doing front-end work and being an experienced developer. Brent and Andrew overview how to stage the application and test the authorization mechanisms.

Andrew says if they’re interested in expanding into ecommerce development, give them a shout. 

Brent notes that they’ve been to many of the events space 48 puts on, and they’re going to let john steal the one. Brent says it was a challenge to get the accent.

Transcript

Brent: Welcome to this Big Commerce Community edition of Talk Commerce. Today I have Andrew Barber Androooo, as he corrected me, Androooo Barber, who is with Space 48. Andrew, go ahead, introduce yourself. Do a better job than I did. Tell us maybe your day to day role and one of your passions in life. 

Andrew: Yeah, sure. I’m Andrew, I’m an engineering manager at Space 48. One of my passions, I’m very much a community person in, in real life outside of the course. I’m part of local council community council, and I also partake in scouting as a member in there too.

Brent: We’ve mentioned in the Green Room, I did the Great North Run a New Castle a couple weeks ago, and. My friend, it works at the council and the council building, I dunno if they call it not city hall, whatever they call it in England. Really cool facility. It’s built in the 1960s.

Brent: It’s listed. We met them Lord Mayor. We got our picture and it was very cool. So anyways, that’s enough about British politic. Yeah, I know that you’re in Scotland, so I’m not gonna, we’re not gonna dive into that . Before we get started I know that you wanted to participate in the free joke project, hashtag free joke project, and I’m gonna come up with a classy little jingle soon, maybe after Iron Buru.

Brent: It’s one of my favorite drinks. We can’t get it here in the US anymore, but they have some fantastic commercials. So I’m gonna tell you a joke. In fact, today I have a poem for you. Sure. All I wanna know is if you feel as though it should be free, or if at some point we could charge for this joke.

Brent: All right. Ready? I dig. You dig? We dig. He digs. She digs, they dig. Isn’t this a beautiful poem? Not really, but it’s very deep. 

Andrew: That’s good. I do like that one. Give me a good chuckle. I’d say open source and free on this one. Good. Yeah. Bring it to the whole community. That’s a good one. Good.

Brent: Alright, so now you have a joke that you’re gonna tell us. 

Andrew: Yeah, it’s for this out in the green room. So I came prepared with a joke. So 

Andrew: why did the programmer quit his job? He never got arrays. I feel like this should be the moment. Yeah, 

Brent: I’ll admit your joke was much better than my joke. And for the programmers out there, that is a very good one.

Brent: All right, so Andrew, today we’re gonna talk about big commerce. Big commerce community. Let’s dive right in. I know that space 48 put on the big DevX. Conference and you did a hackathon around it. Talk a little bit about that. 

Andrew: The DevX conference that we did I know you spoke to Tom, so I was also involved in the organization of that.

Andrew: So DevX is an internal conference that we do at Space 48 every month where you get together and exchange ideas. And I ideas and implementations between the various squads at space. So we brought that to the BigCommerce community. It was definitely Tom’s idea but brought me on board and myself and Ki and Dan managed to put something together.

Andrew: Straight after that, we heard about the BigCommerce hackathon which was organized by the BigCommerce team. We partook. So we had two teams in there from Spaceport eight. It was. I was gonna say Tom’s team, I can’t remember what his his name was something like, Leaping Planet Frog or something, I can’t remember.

Andrew: And then it was our team as well which was galaxy Quest. So that was made up of three members of Space 48 that work in my current squad at the moment. 

Brent: And Tom’s team, he’s Tom, is based in Bath. The, so did his team really clean?

Andrew: They got no entry. So that’s that’s good. Good for them. 

Brent: But maybe next year the the big DevX that, that, that was something that’s, that was open to the whole community. So talk about how you opened it up and how you’ve had some success now and building this community around big commerce.

Andrew: Yeah. So we spoke about it internally how we might approach this and how it might look. And I feel like there’s a lot of talent within Space 48 and the various scores that we have. I feel like it’s better to open up to the community and we felt, sorry, I should say open up to the community and bring in external speakers, teams and people that would like to talk about something in the commerce space.

Andrew: So we put out an open invite and the become a slack developer Slack. d know Heather’s spoken about recently. And so we, we got some replies back some ideas of what people might like to talk about. We left it very open just as long as it was. Discussing something within the commerce kind of ecosystem.

Andrew: And we got some great talks. So we had talks about like stencil the and the template language handlebars. We had talks on creating b2b. Style stores. And the other talk that we had, and I’m gonna have to check this one so we can edit this out. I’m really sorry. Can’t remember the last talk.

Andrew: My goodness.

Brent: Is there is there plans to do a an. In person in say Manchester for Big Commerce. You could call it Big Titans or something like that. 

Andrew: So I know that Space Boy are quite well known for their ME Titans conference. I do believe we are organizing another one that’s a hot take . But I do believe we are putting another one on coming soon as for a big.

Andrew: Okay. The Commerce conference it’s not something we’re looking at the moment but we might look to include other aspects into maybe developing an eCommerce conference instead of just a major conference. But yeah, watch this space at the moment. Nothing to tonight. The 

Brent: space 48. Watch that one.

Brent: That’s fine. . It tell us about some of the participation and how that worked online. That was it. Was it, did it feel like it was a, did it feel like a conference where you could participate online and enjoy yourself? 

Andrew: Yeah, so this was the first one that we had put on. I feel like there is improvements that we could definitely make in the future.

Andrew: We initially, so we weren’t sure what kind of like interaction we would have using the the platform that we were using. And so I feel like that’s something that we have taken back that maybe wasn’t enough opportunity to participate. What we did there though, we did get some really good feedback.

Andrew: From the community. There was discussion in the Commerce Dev slack afterwards as well, which was good, which kind of people were talking about the ideas that had been discussed at the conference. But I do feel like that is an improvement point that. Myself and Tom have take it away. And maybe we look at other platforms other than Zoom.

Brent: How about from an expectation standpoint, as a developer, what would you expect in something like a big big DevX? 

Andrew: So I think we did have some really good examples of what I’d expect Talks from like Matt Go where he was actually live coding which is always challenging, I think that was a really good show to Tony Mce as well with his core website was talk as well, went in depth of how developers can create amazing eCommerce experiences and and obviously satisfy the big Google engine too. So I feel like it did meet expectations. And I feel like those, yeah, we always have to have one live code demo go wrong, at least at our conference.

Brent: Yeah. I’ve definitely have had that experience of doing things live on stage. When you’re not supposed to, you should be doing prerecorded, but I think live is always more fun. So maybe explain there, the hackathon was the big commerce version of it and the dev exchange was more of the presenting some of the ideas.

Brent: Is that how it worked? 

Andrew: I didn’t, I guess it was organized almost separately. There was a little bit of a line there. . We did hear obviously that there was a hackathon coming but none of it really tied in. I guess they’re both just community events and we hope that the people that partook in our conference also partook in the the hackathon.

Brent: So I, I know that there’s another SaaS platform that doesn’t seem to have the same type of community. What do you think makes Big commerce. Over some of the other SaaS commerce platforms out there? 

Andrew: Oh good question. I feel like the willingness to help each other within the big commerce community at the moment is quite vast.

Andrew: Everybody’s willing to help out and support each other. Although we’re. potentially working in different agencies and working, on, on different projects. I feel like the Slacks a great place where people are constantly communicating ideas, new takes, new directions that you could look at a problem or a challenge.

Andrew: And I feel like that’s quite unique. Initially it spills out into the forms as. . I don’t parti as much there but it definitely, you can see it. Definitely when you Google a question, the BigCommerce Slack aCommerce forum does fill it at the top there. But yeah, the willingness to help out and support each other, I think is there, and it’s pretty important.

Brent: Do you feel a difference from big commerce? Do you feel as though big Commerce is very open to this whole concept of a 

Andrew: community? I think so, and I think it’s improving. So I’ve been involved in BigCommerce development for a couple of years now, and I can see that it is growing and it’s been nurtured well.

Andrew: New roles have been introduced at BigCommerce too in the last year or so. And I feel like they’re helping to nurture the community in the correct direction. 

Brent: Yeah, I think the, they have a community manager. That I’ve just interviewed and Heather and she is fairly new to the role and I think it’s exciting that they’re putting these resources into building out a group of developers to help support each other.

Brent: Around this idea of open SaaS. Do you feel as though the concept open SaaS is a real open source concept or do you think it’s a buzzword? 

Andrew: I think that, I think it’s an ideal that they’re working towards. And they’re still filling out the definition almost of it. But what’s good?

Andrew: They’re happy for interpretation of the definition. And Katie, Heather and the team are listening to feedback from developers to, to better the platform. I know in my involvement in the community, some of the ideas that I’ve fed back, I’ve seen roll back into the product which is great.

Andrew: Other things that I’m passionate about, likes of open source. I’ve spoken to the team there and things like the Hato Fest kind of idea has been floated about and that, that seems to have now become a thing as well within the community. So I feel like the definition is still being defined, but I feel like they’re helping define it.

Brent: I know one thing that Big Commerce often puts forward as open source, their checkout, and there’s another popular SAS platform that has a very locked down checkout. Do you think that’s a good example of how a developer could get involved? And make their own custom custom payment say, and get it back up and running on a eCommerce or on a BigCommerce site?

Andrew: Yeah, the open checkouts are a large move I guess in the direction of open sourcing areas of it. So also, I’m not sure if you’re aware, they’ve also just. Add a big confirmation page into that as well, which is great to see that kind of project growing. Various other projects as well are open source like the stencil bar utilities Sten Bar Stencil utilities and Stencil cli.

Andrew: So we’re seeing some good contributions there as well. Yeah I’m a lot for them. Open sourcing. More of that project. 

Brent: The so they hold this whole concept of open sas, the whole idea of community. If I were a developer, what, and I wanted to build a module or a module, an application, what’s the best place to start?

Andrew: So I feel that the documentation of BigCommerce is pretty good. Pretty good, really good. And I feel like that is, is probably the area where you would start, right? I feel that’s one place and you’re working almost ensure, I feel like they also promote the forum quite often in inside the documentation.

Andrew: And I feel like that’s then your kind of next, go-to asking questions within the forum, gathering the. Experience of other developers on maybe a question or a concern that you have. And then the Slack community comes into that as well. And I feel that they’re opening that up to more people now.

Andrew: Where it used to be, I think only agency partners that were part of the Slack and now we’re seeing every, people within development come, which is really good to see. It’s helping the kind of diversification of the community. And the experience as well where people have all had different experiences on different platforms and they’re bringing those ideas and thoughts into the community as well.

Brent: As a new developer, do you feel as a new developer, is there a role difference between building an application compared to just doing front end work? 

Andrew: There is definitely difference in the way that you would handle it. We saw that on the hackathon project that we put forward. So typically our work is working with the api, working on front ends Osten front end.

Andrew: And I feel like the application is a different experience. The way that it’s of produced, the way that you authorize and call APIs is slightly different. But if you’re a slightly experienced developer on the. Kind of ecosystem. I feel like it does it does become a little bit easier.

Andrew: So either path would lead to success in the other field, if that makes sense. 

Brent: I just had the question the other day about developing a module on Magento comparing compared to develop being an application in big. What would you say the biggest differentiators are in doing either one? 

Andrew: I’m gonna have to skip this question.

Andrew: So I I didn’t previously work on Magen. I’ve, and within Space 48, I don’t work on Magen. So I’m sorry I can’t answer this one. . 

Brent: No problem. I answered that. Magento’s self-hosted. So you’re gonna build an extension that’s directly integrated into the code and Sure. An application from BigCommerce is self-hosted.

Brent: So if I’m building it, it a open question if I’m building an app is, Staging area that you can host your application in interim before the application gets launched. Talk to us a little bit about that. 

Andrew: Yeah, sure. When you’re developing an application you can run everything locally.

Andrew: So within, your local environment as first staging the environment, I know that as. As partners, you can request a sandbox store to test the application on. And so then you can have almost a, a live environment that you can go away and test on the authorization mechanisms for creating an app.

Andrew: You can basically get to a stage prior to submission of the app, which means that it is it’s working like an app would come in straight from the app store. And so you’re able to develop in a very realistic environment. As for likes of hosting this app and things like that, as you’ve mentioned, you do need to be looking at third.

Andrew: For ourselves, we, in the hackathon, we used the Verel because we used that an X Gs type app. Just so that we could do front end and backend and and all that fun stuff within one project. But I guess different apps that handle differently. I know that space here we work on. Our application code bases tend to be PHP and React.

Andrew: So that’s slightly different how to, how we typically do things here. 

Brent: And I guess that leads to my next question, then, the skill set for a developer who’s looking at developing apps on big commerce, it would just be JavaScript, maybe some PHP or some other backend language. Yeah. I feel 

Andrew: for that there you could come with multiple.

Andrew: Multiple skill sets. So from back end point of view, I guess it would depend on where you’re hosting. You could even run sort of landers using Python if you really wanted to. Except that if you come from a PHP background, there we go. There’s your favorite or if you’re using JavaScript and no gs I guess you’ve got a whole handful of places to host it.

Andrew: As for the front end, that can be separate. . And so that typically would be, like you’ve said, there hasting my own js sort of front end, or it could be a react front end. The application itself is I framed into the back end of commerce. And so as long as it’s hosted somewhere you are you’re not limited to, to set language or set skill set. 

Brent: So as we as we close out the podcast I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about anything you’d like to plug. Andrew, what would you like to promote today? 

Andrew: Sure. I haven’t come with much prepared. I guess we could. Speak about Space 48 slightly.

Andrew: So we are an eCommerce agency. We are platform agnostic, but we do tend to be Magen Shopify and commerce based. But we do look at other tools and I guess so you can follow them on Twitter. So we’re at Space four eight, find us on LinkedIn. And we are actively hiring for developers and.

Andrew: In the general practice and in the SAS practice as well. So if you’re interested in expanding into eCommerce development, please give us a shout. 

Brent: Yeah, and I’m just gonna add that I’ve been to the many of the events that space 48 puts on, and they’re super fun. So I hope they come up with the concept.

Brent: Big Titan. I’m gonna let John steal that one. He probably already has it. But fantastic community events. Very well organized. And extremely fun. And it, you get a trip to Manchester usually. Maybe it’ll be in Glasgow this next time, or could we understand what you’re saying? I’m not sure that’s a joke.

Brent: That’s very true. That’s very true. Andrew didn’t awfully fast. Yes, they do. Yeah. I remember my, I I went to school in Birmingham, which is for the American listers, the south of Glasgow. And I took a bus from a coach from Birmingham to Glasgow, and then I changed and went to Edinburg. And they, and I remember them saying, I’m like, where’s my next coach?

Brent: And they said, J and I’m like, is it J or G? I have no idea. So I eventually found it, but it was a little bit of a challenge to get the accent. I will say the Jordy accent for me is much more difficult than even the Glaswegian accent, . 

Andrew: Accents are definitely hard in the uk, that’s for sure.

Brent: Andrew, thanks so much for being here today. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you. I look forward to meeting you in person at one of the big commerce events, either in the UK or in Texas or who knows where. I look forward to building a bigger and better community around big Commerce. Thank you so much for being here.

Andrew: Perfect. Thank you, Ben, for today.

Talk-Commerce Matt Dolimpio | Mile in My Shoes

Changing Lives through Movement with Matt Dolimpio of Mile in My Shoes.

Running together to transform ourselves, one another, and our community. We interview Matt Dolimpio with MileinmyShoes.mn in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Mile in My Shoes (MiMS) brings together residents of the Twin Cities from diverse backgrounds through the power of running. Based in homeless shelters, addiction recovery programs, and re-entry centers for people exiting incarceration, MiMS uses running as a catalyst for community-building, boosting health and wellness, building leadership and self-efficacy, and spurring personal and social action. By running together, our Resident Members and Run Mentors find common ground and begin to learn from and reach out to one another for support. As we transform ourselves, we transform one another.

https://www.mileinmyshoes.mn/donate

Transcript

Brent: Welcome to Talk Commerce. Today I have Matt Delpo Depo. Very, a very clean name. Matt, go ahead, do an introduction. Tell us a little bit about your day-to-day role and one of your passions in life. Yeah, 

Matt: absolutely. Thanks. I’m Matt Delly. It’s alright. I mess up pronouncing it half the time anyway.

Matt: As this, like most of my family, I think there’s still debate. I’m the program coordinator at Mile and my shoes in m. And I have a wonderful opportunity day to run and join communities across the Twin Cities and help build those communities. With Mile and My Shoes, what we do is we bring and build community through writing, and we typically do that at places.

Matt: Either the people or the act of running have been historically disenfranchised. So places like treatment facilities, often known as rehabs homeless shelters, and halfway houses for people who are, were recently leaving incarceration. And that’s where our teams are this year. Outside of the homeless shelter.

Matt: We do not have a homeless team this year. And what my role there is beyond the running with the teams, which is my favorite part, I outfit the teams and all of the new members with gear as they required. Everybody who runs with us gets a a supply of running shoes. We have shirts, shorts. Pants.

Matt: And then as the seasons dictate, we have other things like gloves, hats, stuff like that. Lights. And we outfit everybody. We ask that you run four times with us and then you get to keep this wonderful gear. And then we have incentives as well. And I I. Track and provide all of that for the members and mentors across the teams where you get a blue shirt after 10 runs, you get a really great alumni pack with a smart watch for 20 you get a headlamp at 30, a really beautiful sweatshirt at 50, which is one of my favorites.

Matt: And we continue every year. We’ll give you new shoes if we’re continuing to support you. And you’re running. And it’s been a real gift to do that. I also do a lot of day to day administrative processes. I help coordinate different events across the Twin Cities through Mile in My Shoes.

Matt: We do voices of events. We just had a pizza run last night that I helped coordinate Latinas on the Run joined us there. That was another wonderful organization that I got to meet last night along with Brick Oven Bus, who was fantastic in providing us those pizzas. And I really do have a dream and a gift job.

Matt: I found this organization when I was living in a halfway house and it transformed me from someone who used to laugh at runners to being just an absolutely avid runner , which still makes me laugh to say even, and I always challenge people to ask me that when I’m running because a lot of times, big run, I might not agree.

Brent: But I always feel that way after. Yeah. That’s that’s such a true story about how many people have poo-pooed running or put their nose up to runners and then suddenly they’re running every day or they’re running marathons or alter marathons or ironmen or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So before we get into our conversation and the topic today is going to be around charity and maybe how entrepreneurs can start or help in charity and.

Brent: What is the mission of each charity? And I think I’m part of Mile In My Shoes, so I have a specific passion about it and running. But before that, I have a project that I’ve started. It’s called the Free Joke Project, hashtag free joke Project. And all I do is tell you a joke and then you tell me if that joke should be free, or if you feel as.

Brent: That joke could be charged for or is chargeable. And then I have some segments going where I’m giving free sponsorship spots for people, for me to tell somebody a joke, a free joke, and then they get a promotional sponsorship spot. So Matt, we might have to follow up on a specific segment just for my, on my shoes.

Brent: I feel as though that mild, my shoes needs free jokes. More free jokes. I 

Matt: love that. I love it. We get ’em at the runs. But I 

Brent: understand, and I get the runs sometimes after eating at the Himalaya, and I’m just, I’m gonna stop, right? Nevermind. Okay. Let’s go right into the joke. I know that I was about to, I was about to dive into port taste.

Brent: All right, . Matt, let’s let’s just keep moving. Stay on top. And I’m realize I’m the host and I’m already off topic. All right, let’s do the. Okay. What’s the difference be? What’s the difference between a clown and an athletic rabbit? One is a bit funny, and the other is a fit bunny, 

Matt: but a, I like it.

Matt: I don’t know if I would charge too much for it, but I would use that at my bar when I bartend. I would bring that, I would use that as a nice joke. That’s a. 

Brent: See, that’s an athletic joke that fits into Mims as well. 

Matt: It is very much yeah, it is very much topical for what we’re and what we’re wearing.

Brent: I feel as though your reaction is one that I could probably not charge 20 grand for the sponsorship spot. Yeah. I probably have to charge a little less. Anyways, I think that’s, it’s keep moving. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s keep moving. So Matt let’s first talk about Mims. My. Changing lives through movement, I think is the mission statement.

Brent: , tell us a little bit about the reason or the how transforming somebody’s life can be done through the simple act of movement. 

Matt: Beyond a lot of the academic research that’s happened in medicine, especially in things like recovery medicine where you can look at running in particular, but lots of other forms of movement.

Matt: Really do help repair and reestablish a lot of our damaged neural connections. Our brain chemistry as a whole. A lot of the healthy endorphins that come from running a lot of the. The physical fitness, the boosts, the natural boosts of serotonin and dopamine and or epinephrine that happen really do help.

Matt: Especially with things like what’s called pause post-acute withdrawal syndrome and things like that. So there’s obviously that physical and psychophysical component that I think is really important. And I think that we still, we need to continue to do lots of the research that we’re doing to see how much more and how much movement is really great about that, but more.

Matt: I think one of the cool things about running is that it is a remarkably accessible. And an activity for so many people. Movement is accessible for so many people. And I know that’s obviously not, an all inclusive thing, that there’s limitations that some people have. But I think that movement alone is something that we can work with and it allows us to build a bond where physical creature, we’re physical species as much as we are a social species.

Matt: And I think that when we combine the two together, The bonds that we’re able to build with each other as well as the growth that we’re able to experience within ourselves is just magnified. I think that it allows us a really nice opportunity to have fun while we’re practicing self-love and self-improvement.

Brent: Yeah, I think one, one thing you keyed in on there is the group aspect of it, and I’ve heard more than often, that guys will say that more than just the running part of it, they appreciate the camaraderie and the community that we build with those people over time by consistently being there.

Brent: . And then let’s just say there’s no judgment. Like you’re, we’re just there to run with them and we’re all equal, right? 

Matt: That’s right. More judge less. That’s one of our. 

Brent: You run more judge less? Yes. I run with Matt often and I can barely keep up with him and but Matt is so nice is to slow down for me.

Brent: And that’s the other thing is no, no one runner is left behind and nobody runs on their own. Yeah. So I think that community aspect as well as just the simple aspect of moving ma all those pieces come together and they create this unique, beautiful thing. That people show up. . 

Matt: Yeah, absolutely.

Matt: And the community really is the cornerstone of what we do at Mile In My Shoes. It’s what led me into Mile in My Shoes. It started with my roommate when I lived in the halfway house, inviting me to join and hyping them up a bit. And I was already on a bit of a fitness journey and I was like, sure, let’s try running.

Matt: All right. I had been walking for a long time. I had enjoyed that, but I went out and I did not. The run part of my first run. But I loved running with Emily, who I had run with that day. And I went back out again cuz I did finish my mile. Everyone starts at the mile and I was pretty cool. That made me feel really good.

Matt: And then afterwards I felt great. And the second time I was blown away by everybody. even more to the point where I almost got a little suspicious and was like, this is gonna be some kind of a cult or something. And then by the fourth I was so enamored with the people I was with and my team and the community that I didn’t realize that what I was looking for was that community connection, that validation, I had been so worried while I was incarcerated, what my role, what my life would be socially when I got out.

Matt: I’ve always been a very social person and I was really very concerned about being a pariah and not having. That, that connection that, that community or I’d have a community that I would find unhealthy, that I was trying to get away from and to experience such an extraordinary bright spot, a super nova of love and community and acceptance.

Matt: When I got out coupled with this, like by the fourth or fifth run, I was hooked on that. It was the, it was this combination of. Being with these people, and I, you flattery is wonderful, but I remember running and apologizing. I am sorry, I just need to, I need to walk for a minute.

Matt: I need to walk for a minute. And then suddenly I was running a 10 K and it was remarkable to see those two things. And I had so many people encouraging me or I never would’ve gotten there. So that community is just the essence, it is the vitality even more than. . 

Brent: Yeah. I think not only do you get introduced to all kinds of different people and there’s so many different there’s such a wide variety of types of people that aren’t.

Brent: Yes. From the mentor side and the resident side to the alumni side. Yeah. People in every walk of life. But we also help, and I’ll use we cuz I’m part of mild, my shoes Yes. But mild, my shoes also brings people to. And introduces them to the next part of running, which is competing in something. It 

Matt: doesn’t I thinking about it.

Brent: Yeah, it doesn’t, I think that’s another unique experience that and you don’t have to run, you can walk a race. There’s so many different in that when you get to that point I, I invited my mom who’s in her late seventies to walk five Ks. , there is so much more to running than just the act of running.

Brent: , there’s all the training and maybe talk a little bit about the journey you took as you went through some of that in the 

Matt: beginning. Yeah, absolutely. So when I started I had never really run. I was not the most athletic kid growing up. I played sports, I played basketball, I played stickball.

Matt: Growing up in New York, I played. I swam up until ninth grade on a, excuse me, on a competitive team. And I enjoyed swimming. I enjoyed all those things. I was not physically built for basketball especially not playing in a place like New York where it was so competitive. I loved baseball, but I never had too many opportunities to play growing up, so I really stuck that as more of a fan anyways, point being when I, as I got older and older, I really turned more towards you.

Matt: Drugs, alcohol, things like that. I was, I smoked for a long time, starting when I was 12 years old. It was, I was never particularly healthy. I always worked a very active job. I worked in restaurants primarily for the last 20 years. Some other gigs, one as an investigator in New York and things like that.

Matt: But for the most part, I worked on my feet. As a bartender and a server, so I was always carrying shit up. I was always carrying stuff. I was always walking, I was always getting my steps in, but it was still a very unhealthy life. Here I am, I go to prison. I finally have an opportunity to do all of these things that I had talked about.

Matt: Finally, getting into shape, working on my nutrition, losing weight because I have the time. There’s not a lot to do in prison. And one of the few things that we have left to do is have that recreation time where we can lift weights and exercise and stuff like that. So I spent a lot of time walking the compound that I was at in Duluth.

Matt: I spent a lot of time, as much time as I could in the weight room and listening to other people who knew more than me, who were already further along on their fitness journey, some of whom had really taken it to become a career when they were leav. I asked them for advice. I would trade protein shakes for suggestions and tips.

Matt: And so I started to get, and I lost about 50 pounds when I was in prison, and I felt great. And I put smoking years ago, and I was ready to take that next step, but I was definitely timid because that was something every time I tried, I would play hockey in prison, I would do something. It was still like this achilles heel for me.

Matt: No. Actually intended there, but I when I got out and I started running that first mile, I was able to do, I was winded, but I did it, I think I did it in 10 something and. I remember Emily d being like, you did it though. You did it. Say you did it. You ran it. You didn’t talk it, you ran it.

Matt: And she would use that to continue to inspire me throughout, run. So did so many of the other mentors that I got to run with. My first year there, Noah was another great example of someone who managed to distract me from my misery when I was midpoint about two months in, when I was finally starting to run two and a half.

Matt: Three miles at a time before I needed that break. And my pace was, and I was, but I was struggling and I had this very chaotic breathing and trying to learn it. And Noah would just, he could just always seem to talk me into this food state, where I was more entranced to.

Matt: Because I couldn’t talk. I was huffing so much. And then Emily d would always remind me like, Hey, you know what? You just did, you just hit four miles. Have you ever done that before? After tricking me into running the longer route, and I, as I got stronger and a better runner, and it took less time than I expected and I would feel, I remember I only ran in the mornings then, and I would remember just every day I would run.

Matt: I felt awesome. All. It didn’t matter what else happened that day. I always felt like I had accomplished something significant and I physically just felt good that like runner’s high, that you get and you get that initial peak a little after the run. It would subdue, but it would go it would leave me at this better place.

Matt: My anxiety would be subdued. My joy would be increased and I just feel better. That transformed my running style into when the pandemic hit. I started running once a week with Beth, who I work with at Mile in My Shoes. Now she’s our program director, Emily and Erin, who was one of my teammates at the halfway house, and we would run together once a week, but I started running alone and that gave me a new gift where now I run in the mornings by.

Matt: and it allows my ADHD brain time to get out its little kinks and all of that. And then I go back in the evenings and I run or run, walk with with our teams. And I get that community aspect. So I get it now twice most days. And I don’t know, I just, I don’t, there’s so many other activities that I’ve started and not held onto this long.

Matt: And I think the fact that I’m not. Still running, but running more now is a testament to the power of in the community and b, running itself. 

Brent: So one of the topics we talked about in the green room is redemption. And I know that you have a lot of a lot of thoughts about that. How do you feel?

Brent: And I feel like Mel in my, my, my shoes puts us all in the level playing field. . But you did talk about, those comeback success stories and things like that. Talk a little bit about redemption and some of your thoughts on 

Matt: that. Thank you for asking.

Matt: Yeah. Redemption is one of the topics that I am most passionate about. In general, I. Appreciate how much we love a comeback story, and I can appreciate why it’s one of the most relatable heroes journeys that we can go on as a, as an individual and as part of a community. And so I think there’s a, and we all wanna know that’s possible too, right?

Matt: We all wanna know that if we stumble and recover, that we have a. To return to that, that recovery is gonna be worthwhile, right? Otherwise, why not just give up every time we make a significant mistake, right? So I find this idea of redemption to be so powerful, so promising, and it also has given us so many wonderful humans that have thrived when they’ve come back, when they’ve risen from the ashes, for lack of a better cliche.

Matt: And I do wish, as I mentioned earlier in our green room discussion, The idea of having to struggle initially isn’t this inherent part of that redemption arc that I think we’ve often made it, that it’s this overcoming of adversity that alone validates redemption, and I don’t think that’s necessary.

Matt: I think it can be a powerful tool. I think that discomfort leads to change and often positive change, and I think that’s wonderful and it shouldn’t be discounted, but I don’t think it’s a. And I think that organizations like mine on my shoes, like the Second Chance Coalition that does some legal work in our state capital particularly about things like felony murder laws and some of these more like strictly punitive in draconian laws that exist that are designed to help people find.

Matt: Find that like second chance to find that beauty and that story and that comeback tale, that hero’s journey. I think that’s amazing. And I think it does require help. First off, it requires a community to accept you and that’s the whole point of redemption, right? Is that you’re redeemed yourself.

Matt: Sure. But the community has allowed that redemption to be like accepted or validated and I think that’s wonderful. I think organizations that sort of encourage and help that, which I think my and my shoes does extremely. Partially because of what you were saying about how we come from all these different backgrounds we run together, the community, we don’t have any judgements.

Matt: We just come together. And that alone can be such a powerful conduit for allowing us to say, I do belong. I am here, I am redeemed. I don’t necessarily need to do more. I just need to be here and be me and continue to do as well as I can. And these people will be here with me. If I slow down, they’ll slow down with me.

Matt: They’re not gonna leave me behind. and together we could do anything. And I think that’s incredible. 

Brent: Yeah. There’s a little bit of trust involved in there, isn’t there? Yes. The people coming into the group have to trust that that we are gonna slow down or we’re gonna try to speed up. And then there’s some learning as well because there are, if we want to try to relate this to running.

Brent: there’s people that are farther ahead in their journey and , they need to slow down for us, right? , as mentors even, . yeah. So there, there is a it, there, there is a definite time when everybody has to come together and we have to communicate together. There is also that aspect of of being able to talk to somebody and who’s in a different place.

Brent: And that could be, it could be substance abuse or it could be. You’re in a ha you’re in a tough situation. There’s all kinds of aspects there that, that make you want to be empathetic for your per, for your fellow person. And empathy is directly correlated to mile in my shoes, the whole idea of what does it mean to run a mile in my shoes?

Brent: You have to have empathy. And I think as part of that empathy, redemption and forgiveness has to be, has to. Part of that, and I think we’re talking about maybe less about the individual, but the more of the community forgiveness to accept somebody into community no matter what they’re, what they’ve been through in their past.

Brent: Absolutely. Would you agree with 

Matt: that? And I think that there is something to be said about like bad actors, right? There’s gonna be people who are gonna take advantage of that mentality. That is an unfortunate reality. I think though, that when we focus on things like that, that we do ourselves a disservice.

Matt: That can always be dealt with. It’s usually not too difficult to discern that as it’s happening or shortly after it, it happens. And I think that community forgiveness piece and that welcoming back in and allowing people that opportunity to thrive once again and to be a part of that community, that’s the, that’s a huge part of who we are as a species.

Matt: Like you talked about empathy and Yeah, absolutely. It’s literally the, where. Idea mile in my shoes, that expression, that phrase comes from is a way of explaining empathy. And I love that so much. And I don’t know how, I didn’t make that connection until you just said it, but thank you for doing that.

Matt: Cuz I think that is so important to, to note. I do also think there’s an important part of self redemption and I think things like running and I think things like self-improvement can lead to a healthier form of discomfort that lead to change You. And I think that focusing on things like that for allowing ourselves to improve, tend to work better.

Matt: I don’t have any data. I’m sure there is data out there. I don’t have any to back that up. I was just throwing it out. But I do have a feeling that’s the case. It just makes the most sense. I Look, what we do is our instinctual response when we’re born, we can’t walk, we can’t eat, we can’t do anything except cry and nurse.

Matt: That’s a species that is instinctually requiring some form of empathy in order for it to perpetuate itself and survive. 

Brent: Yeah, and I think part of this journey as well is some discipline. And everybody, I can’t say that you can say across the board there’s nobody that has perfect discipline, right?

Brent: No. And as in, in my shoes, we train for certain events and there’s a couple of bigger. A group trains for a half marathon, but also a group trains for a full marathon. And every year we get people that are going through that journey. Yeah. And as you get, as your goal is bigger, your commitment to that goal is bigger.

Brent: And if you don’t make the goal, either you don’t do it or you are in a ton of pain once you’ve done it. Yeah. 

Matt: And you’ll hear it too, you’ll hear from people when you ask them, when I ask ’em about their trading, and they’ll say that exact thing I missed it. Now. I, when I went back, I feel, oh, it was a rough day

Matt: So 

Brent: you’re 100%. And there’s a part of that is part that, that is a discipline that once you’ve gone through that you’ve realized, oh, 16, Then I ran a marathon 12 weeks and then I did a half marathon. Wow. Now looking forward, there was lots of anxiety or lots of stress involved in doing that.

Brent: But once you’ve done it and then you’ve come through it, you’re like, wow, just like waking up at 5:00 AM or six 5:00 AM to get to a 6:00 AM running group every morning I do that. I’m like, God, this is I don’t want to get up. Yeah. But once I’m leaving and I’m coming home, I’m like this is the best decision I’ve ever made in 

Matt: my.

Matt: Every single time. Every single time. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be running at Roseville at six in the morning and I’ll be working late this evening at my second job. And I promise you, at 5:00 AM tomorrow morning when I wake up, I’m gonna be like but by six 15 I’m gonna feel like a million dollars being in that group running.

Brent: I’m so I want to just pivot a little bit to employers, entrepreneurs. How would. Part of this journey too is as an employer, you want to help, you want to, you would like to help people. And in, in this economy, when it’s still super low unemployment, which is great for us here there, there sometimes has to be some learning that has to do on the employer side for people that are, that, that are coming out of, say, out of prison or through a halfway house or there’s all kinds of issues that come.

Brent: What, do you have some advice that you would give to an employer or how to help the employer through that? 

Matt: Yeah, I would say the first word is patience. And I don’t mean that in any sort of I’m not trying to be condescending or anything like that. What I mean by patience is that, There’s so many hoops that people who come out of prison have to jump through, even in the best case scenario, right?

Matt: Whether they’re on supervision, whether and they have a PO that they have to report to and have to do all of these things for that could show up and visit your workplace at any time. Things like that. That those things happen and that they have to take this certain degree of priority because of the inflexible nature of car supervision.

Matt: That can often be problematic, and I think that having patients in an open dialogue about the situation so that expectations are where they should be, so that hey, this guy can come in, he probably won’t, or this woman can come in, she probably won’t, just to see if I’m actually here at work. They might call here.

Matt: To verify if I’m here or if I was here at a certain time, that’s okay. I may have to go and, meet with them at, during work hours or something like that. I promise to make up that work, so that you have these open dialogues that expectations are there. Secondly, I’d say, obviously give the chance, and I know it seems like that should be reversed, although I’m starting to see the trend of the chances are being given out.

Matt: But they’re often utilized as a way of either underpaying somebody or, using it to hold it over their heads. And I don’t think that’s necessarily gonna be as positive. So I, I do suggest giving people this chance. I think they’ll find people in prison a two things through returning from incarceration to, to trades that you’re gonna see consistently.

Matt: They are going to have remarkable work ethic that’s probably less expected. , especially if the conditions are any better than they were in prison. And they probably are. And the other thing too is I think you’re gonna see them very eager to shine. They’re gonna be eager to want to grow. They’re gonna, they’re gonna be motivated to make up for lost time.

Matt: This is not just my personal experience, but what I’ve noticed. With my comrades from incarceration, who I’m still in touch with the people I’ve run with a mile on my shoes. Talking to a 68 year old dude who’s like hole in ice for his job just because he wants to like, move up and get something better and then he still shows up to run with us or walk with us, and I think that’s powerful.

Matt: I think employers would have a remarkable experience. Allowing a lot of offenders to, or, recently exiting incarceration people to have these opportunities to grow. And it’s not just things that I think are often traditionally associated with us. I was given this opportunity by mile in my shoes to work here at a nonprofit to do something a little different than I had been doing for a long time.

Matt: I had this gift of an opportunity, this chance that Beth and Michigan and Whitney took on me. And I am eternally grateful for it. And I am, I have a learning curve too. That’s the last part that I’ll mention is that especially for people who have been incarcerated for a long time, There’s gonna be a learning curve in terms of how things are done nowadays.

Matt: And I’m not just talking about the obvious things with like technology, like smartphones and apps and stuff like that. That stuff actually seems to come a lot quicker than even with the boomers, than a lot of people often assume it will. I won’t say why, I won’t say that we have any of this tech access inside, cuz we sure don’t.

Matt: We definitely don’t see any of that inside, but we do. I do think though that just, even just the way business is done, the way jobs are applied for the way jobs are and way even management interacts communicates with staff, I think now is much different than it was, even when I was younger.

Matt: There’s certainly a lot more familiarity, a little less formality in a lot of , even things like that can be really awkward for people coming out of prison. So I’d say those three things are a good starting. And then just treat them like humans. Man. Don’t treat them all that differently.

Matt: Beyond that, just understand that their circumstances are a little different, much like you would, someone who’s a single parent hopefully that you would accommodate them and understand their situation a little bit better. Someone who’s, less abled or differently abled things like that, just an accommodation.

Matt: To the circumstance. 

Brent: Yeah, and I’m, my, my professional background, I’m involved a lot with project management and there is certain assumptions that you make with a client and there’s certain assumptions that the client makes with you in that project management situation. And I can tell you that if you don’t communicate, the less you communicate, the worse the project goes.

Brent: , this is the same thing. It’s just communicating is the top three things you need to do. You need to, number one, communicate the number two, you should communicate. Number three, you should communicate. Yes. Those three things will get you so far. Yes. And then I always say the less time there is between those interactions the.

Brent: Missed expectations you’re gonna have. So if you’re, 

Matt: if you have, and that’s what, and I would actually say, and I know you asked me specifically about employers, but for those of us coming out of incarceration who are looking, I always encourage people to be. Very forthright and honest about the situation specifically, so that those expectations are there because it really, it, you don’t want that anxiety, you don’t want that insecurity and you certainly don’t want people finding that out later cuz then they start to wonder what you had to hide and why.

Matt: And you can be like, I was just ashamed or I was insecure, or whatever. But it’s better to just start off that way, and I know how difficult that can be. It pays dividends, I promise. 

Brent: Yeah. Good. Matt, we have a few minutes left today. At the end of the podcast, I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug.

Brent: What would you like to plug today? 

Matt: Obviously I want to plug mile in my shoes. You can see us at mile in my shoes.mn on Facebook Mile in my shoes. We also have a community group There were Instagram a mile in my shoes. Check us out, check out our socials. We would love to see you there. We have a lot of really great information on our website.

Matt: You can there’s a link there to get some of our me. You don’t have to earn a blue shirt. You can, and we’d love it if you did. You can also buy one. I’m not gonna say what You have to tell people how you got it. I’m just saying. You can get one. They look great on everybody. We’ve got all different sizes.

Matt: We have really great sweatshirts, hoodie. Available and all of that. That all helps. The money that we get from these mer, shes helps us outfit our teams. It helps us outfit our mentors with their wonderful incentives for doing things like being our team coach or team captains and things like that.

Matt: Team leads rather team captains or are for our run members, and they also get a cool sweatshirt for that, a really nice gray crewneck. But yeah, it helps us out in our teams. It also helps pay our staff salaries, which is one. Big parts that get us out to, distributing that gear, running these teams, finding these teams, doing all of the management and, human labor that’s necessary to take those donations and make sure that we get the best out of them.

Matt: I also would like, you’re also welcome to check out, there’s so many great organizations out there that do similar. Missions to what we do, or that complimentary missions is probably a better word for it that are working to improve our community as a whole that are working really hard to making the world just a little bit brighter and brighter.

Matt: But I think that what we do at my and my shoes is so wonderful, unique and powerful, and it’s impacted not just my life, but so many lives, both from the member and mentor perspective in I’ve yet to hear a. Experience, and I’ve seen so much beauty, joy, and growth that I can’t help but encourage people to check us out and join us too.

Matt: It’s not just about merch and donations, which we love. We accept run mentors. If you’re in the Twin Cities area we are always looking formentors on a rolling basis. You can join us in our community events, our voices of events that are coming up. We just had the pizza run last night.

Matt: So we love having the community as a whole involved in these event. I hope everybody gets to listen to this podcast as well. I would absolutely love to, to see all of your listeners show up for one of our runs, even as a guest and just see what we’re all about. It always brings me joy, much like your visitor yesterday brought us so much joy at visiting our runs.

Matt: So you, personally the power of of that extra community involved. And he got a blue shirt. I think he. It’s in his first run, right? Yeah. So 

Brent: come on. No. Yeah. VJ was here a couple years ago and he leads our laughter sessions. He a thought he he just does that on his own.

Brent: makes us laugh. So it such a great benefit and it’s just a really good example of diversity in our society that brings in different people and they feel comfort. Doing something out of an ordinary in front of a whole group of people. Yeah. It really is powerful to see. I just want to piggyback on your plug because I do want to have people recognize that there is a significant investment that Mile and my shoes makes in every single person that joins Mile my shoes, I should say.

Brent: The residents that are coming out of the halfway house, and you had mentioned that they get shoes, they get a. And eventually they’ll get a Garmin watch and a headlamp. It is a signi. It’s not just, 

Matt: Hey, here’s parable shoes. The shoes alone are significant. You know how much running shoes cost?

Matt: I know you, these shirts even are 40 to $50 each. Like all of the things that we outfit yeah, there is a substantial financial cost. And then of course there’s the labor cost that comes from our volunteers that do an extraordinary job helping us out. And, our staff.

Brent: And going back to that trust and there’s no expectation put on that person when they’ve earned those pair of shoes. Zero, they could never show up again if they don’t want to get that watch. They could go and not show up and not even run ever again. It’s, it is something that I guess in a sense they do earn it, but they’ve earned it from the fact that they’re participating over and.

Brent: And and, my, and my shoes supports that and it’s such a great gift that we all get, myself, 

Matt: you might get a phone or some texts from me though if you do stop running. Just to give you a fair warning, I may be like hey, we haven’t seen you in a while. How’s 

Brent: it going? What doing? I don’t wanna say that the.

Brent: I don’t want to say that there’s not repercussions, but there, there is , there’s, let’s say there’s a bit of accountability, like we Yes. Yeah. I we could go into so much more detail that Yeah, of course. There, there is a follow up. There’s a person who’s who takes care of alumni and there’s a person who takes care of the, of recruitment and there’s so many different roles that are volunteer roles that aren’t eight roles.

Brent: Everybody is pitching in to make this community a great community. And I think the essence of this whole thing is how well the community works and how well this aspect of movement and changing your life through movement can really change your life. My life has been changed through it. 

Matt: That’s wonderful.

Matt: I’m really happy to hear this. 

Brent: Matt, yeah. Thank you so much for being here today. I will put all these links and contact information on the show notes. Excellent, and we will have to have a follow up with more folks from my shoes. 

Matt: We’d love that. Thank you so much for having me, Brett.

Matt: I really had a great time. Thank you.

Talk-Commerce Chris Johnson

Putting the Human into Partner Relationships with Chris Johnson

Do you remember when the pandemic first hit and everybody said it’s all going to Zoom, and in-person meetings are dead? We don’t have to meet up anymore. And there’s no point in seeing anybody in person because zoom and virtual meetings have taken over. After all, zoom and personal sessions have taken over our lives and existence. It’s not true.

In-person is alive. ?

We interview Chris Johnson, SalesLayer. He is the partner success manager with SalesLayer and is all about relationships. We talk about Zoom life versus real life and how maybe you can’t just get somebody a beer while you’re on Zoom. Handshakes and hugs. They are part of the Spanish culture. You’ll learn a little bit about how Chris approaches relationships and his partner management, as well as a little bit about what SalesLayer can do for you as a company.

?This is a great episode and an excellent interview with Chris Johnson.

Why use SalesLayer? Check it out here.

You can hear our interview with the CEO of SalesLayer.

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5 Reasons Why You Need a Community Manager in Your Developer Community

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Transcript

Brent: Welcome to Talk Commerce. Today I have Heather Barr. Heather is the community developer manager, or the developer, community manager with BigCommerce heather, go ahead, introduce yourself. Do a much better job than I did . Tell us your day to day role and maybe one of your passions in life.

Heather: Yeah, absolutely. So great to be here. Thank you so much, Brent. Like you mentioned, I am the developer community manager at BigCommerce so I basically just do the day to day admin type things with our developer community spaces. The most puppet is our Slack. In addition to that, I build out some programs and host events and things like that.

Heather: And now that we have a really awesome solid developer relations team I work. Very closely with them to do exactly that and just improve the developer experience or try our hardest to do that at the commerce. And one of my greatest passions is it actually is somewhat of a newer passion.

Heather: Maybe in the past, like year or two, I have built out a, like a van, like a camper van out of a old like Amazon truck. And so I really love traveling around in that and just doing some camping or glamping I guess you could call it. But. 

Brent: All right, so now I’m super jealous and maybe after the interview we’ll have to talk about camper vans cuz I had the same idea out of an old, like a sprinter van or something.

Brent: Yeah, I love that concept and it gives you an opportunity to get out on the road and see things. So that’s super cool. Okay, so before we start the really fun interview, we’re gonna do the free joke project. And I did prep you on this, so it’s, I’m gonna just tell you the joke and then the goal is this a free joke or is this one we could charge?

Brent: So I have a very, I have a quick and simple one today. Ready? All right, I’m ready. To the guy who invented zero, thanks for nothing. 

Heather: I like that one. That one is definitely charged worthy. It’s simple. It’s to the point. And it definitely 

Brent: crack a smile. All right. Good. Do you wanna try one more or are we good?

Heather: I like that one, but if you have another, I can handle 

Brent: another. All right. I got an easy one. Okay. What does scholars eat when they’re hungry? Academia nuts. . 

Heather: Okay. ha ha, I really like that one. good. That one I would pay for . 

Brent: Thanks for playing along. Yes. I need a little jingle for that, I oh, definitely. I’ll think about a jingle later on. All right, so let’s dive into the bigCommerce community. I’m excited about the BigCommerce community cuz I was just, I was at the partner summit and it has this sort of open source vibe that some of the other communities have. Tell us how, what you’re doing in the community and how you’re helping the community grow.

Brent: And tell us a little bit about the Slack channel and. Yeah, go for it. 

Heather: So we have a Slack workspace and we are working on getting it to a point where we can just like fully blast it. But everyone listening to the podcast definitely reach out and get involved. I can have a link for bread that he can share, so you can join us there.

Heather: But yeah, that’s our most popping space right now. But we have other things going on in the community as well. The slack is just more of the I guess a real time peer-to-peer resource that we have available for developers and partners who are building solutions on the platform. And so in there we host some series events like AMAs.

Heather: We’re asking anything events with some of our product members. So basically if. People in the community have some interest in meeting with like someone from product or a team from product like mobile or headless or page builder or building widgets or whatever it is. Then basically we get those requests and then we just host like a small sort of intimate meeting in Slack and one of our like dedicated channels where you can just ask product anything about that topic.

Heather: So those are really cool. And we do those we do about two to three or four possibly every year. And we can increase that if we get a little bit more resources or help . But yes, so that’s one of the main things I guess going on in like in the Slack. We also have some other types of events depending on, like what you as a partner or developer are interested in.

Heather: Let’s say you want to I guess market or just promote your service to merchants and just have a space where you can talk openly about it and just have a real conversation about what you’re solving for and what are the, maybe the plans to come and so forth. We have an a series event like that as well.

Heather: We do it two to three times a year as well. And that is in our customer facing community. But to sign up, it’s through our developer community and then through My partnership with our developer relations team, Katie and Steven and Constance, which I know you already met with Katie. We are doing some bigger events, so those are really awesome.

Heather: So we did our first hackathon, which was really great. We planned to do many more and then, Also this past year we actually had our first community lead event too, which I know is huge, like in the space where you’re from. But it’s new here at BigCommerce and I really hope to see like more of these types of events and other types of content just like organically forming.

Heather: But that was with Space 48. So they held a, like a paneled type of, Virtual event where they basically were able to grab some partners from the community and just share tips and all types of stuff and just like things that they’ve learned like while developing on the platform. And it was completely community led and it just blew my mind.

Heather: It was so awesome. And yeah, I mean there’s just a lot of firsts going on right now and our developer community, and I think that is what’s really exciting is because, we’ve been building it for a couple years now, our. . Yeah, so we’ve been building it for a couple years now, and it’s just like we’re finally getting to a point where we’re able to.

Heather: see these types of opportunities and like actually really go forward with these types of opportunities ourselves, like internally. So I would say the big thing about getting involved in our developer community right now is that there’s a lot of firsts. So if you have any ideas or if you just wanna be a part of the beginning, like it definitely has.

Heather: That type of vibe where it’s like we’re, we’re getting that momentum and so we have a lot of stuff in the works and we have we just have a lot that we all wanna do as well. So it’s a really good time to participate. 

Brent: Yeah. And I can say that we worked with Space 48 on that first event in for another community in Austin in 2016 with Shipper HQ and Karen Baker.

Brent: Nice. , that was organized and we ran that until 2019. So it was it’s a great place and I’m gonna propose that we, we do a big the big Dev X or whatever we call it. Yes. Event in, in Austin next year. Maybe we should call it BigCommerce by, we have to think of a name to mimic off of, So by Southwest, right?

Brent: Ooh, okay. Commerce by SAS or something like South SAS by sas. Yes. We’ll have to, oh 

Heather: my gosh. Include you in the party planning committee. SAS by sas. Thinking of. So next year big developer things. And we’re starting to start conversations about those now and seeing who we need to talk to make these things happen.

Brent: Yeah. And there’s a great event space that we’ve always, we’ve done it in twice. It’s called Trinity Hall. It’s on Trinity, and I don’t know. Anyways. It’s in downtown Austin, but yeah. All right. So if I’m a new developer and I want to get involved in the developer community, and I, maybe I wanna build an app, is there a, is there like a place that, So I’ll join the Slack channel, and then is there a way for me to easily get started?

Brent: Walk me through pretending that I’m a developer and I really would like to participate in the BigCommerce c. . 

Heather: Yeah, absolutely. We have a lot of different spaces where developers can try to, reach out or get involved with others. But I would say Slack is definitely the most popular, but it’s not the most visible.

Heather: So that is something that we are working on now as far as like how to get that to be a more visible place and whenever we are able to get it to be a more visible place, that’s the other side to it. So depending on where this app developer, came to us or found us, whether it’s Twitter or our help center forum or stack overflow or whatever it is we would be reaching out.

Heather: So that’s what my team does. We reach out. And then also Katie, she’s really great with our Twitter. . So yeah, we basically would get in contact to find out what you’re trying to do, and then if we feel that, you’re an app developer, so we would obviously send you the link to get involved with our Slack community, and then there you can connect with other developers, other partners that have been building apps forever.

Heather: And so you have those resources but also build that relationship with you and then really provide some resources that help you individually, but that’s like linking the correct docs to you or different. And right now actually our developer relations team is working on a like an app series or they will be starting soon.

Heather: Because that is a gap right now too. It’s partners and developers are just like people that are new to building solutions on the platform, having that hard time getting an app off the ground, I guess you could say. And so that is something that we are actively working on right now. But I would say, the best or like the vibe right now in the community on how we could help is just really getting to know you one on one and providing those resources to you one on one. So it is more of a, Hey, let’s connect, let’s help each other, like that type of vibe. As we continue to grow, we can scale and can provide more resources and pump out more resources ourselves.

Heather: That’s when, you know we can provide those links and you. That content. 

Brent: Yeah. And there, there are regular public facing document doc, there’s a dev doc series that you have that’s public, so I could start there and then also get in contact with you to join the community and get going. How about I know that you mentioned having your.

Brent: First hackathon. , what are the plans around maybe having an in person 

Heather: hackathon? There are plans to having an internal hackathon. Yeah, that was our first one and it was a blast. And it got a lot of people excited. So that was like external people as well as like BigCommerce employees as well.

Heather: Everyone was just so comforted about the hack up on. And with that comes more I guess you could say. So teams, approaching us saying, Ooh, like we wanna, what about our thing? What about our thing? And they also third party at companies as well, saying Ooh. And so there is a lot of interest, which is really good for us because we get to plan out in advance let’s do this hackathon, virtually this one hybrid, this one in person or whatever it is.

Heather: And we can plan all of those out. And maybe we can make all of them hybrid. Maybe we can try different locations. There are a lot of ideas. Basically just a lot of ideas on what we wanna do as far as getting one planned. We’re not sure which one we’re gonna do next. Actually we do have one next, but we can’t talk about it right now.

Heather: And it. , that one maybe virtually. But midyear or like maybe late in year, I think we’re gonna try to do something a lot bigger, and that would definitely be a hybrid or in person. And then potentially doing some like small, like little dev challenges virtually, or even like doing some small popups in person would be really cool.

Brent: Yeah, I think we usually cap hackathons at 80 or a hundred people just because of the amount of people that you could fit in a room and we always hit it after an event. And it was always really fun. How about including people other than developers like project managers and solution architects?

Brent: Do you see a space for them in the community? I definitely 

Heather: do, and we have some of those Those types of roles are people with those roles in our developer community Slack right now. And so basically our developer community, Slack it’s like a umbrella acceptance. I guess you could say if you sit under the technical umbrella at all, if you work with.

Heather: Your developers. If you’re a CTO or a solutions architect or something like that, then you definitely are what we’re trying to have in this space. But for these events, I definitely see a benefit in having them. I think project management especially would be. Excellent to have because that’s what they do in their job and they really help the development lifecycle.

Heather: And so I think there’s a huge benefit of having like one project manager, like per team. I think that would be a really nice way to divide it up and then just really have a lot of success in the hackathons and from the submissions and on a team level. 

Brent: Yeah I, There, there are some other events that happen in other communities that are longer, or maybe they’re a weekend event, maybe a Friday night through Sunday event.

Brent: And then you, where you come together, build your ideas that you want to do. Then you put a team together and then that team goes and tries to get as much done as they can. By Sunday night. , so that comps would include a project manager or some kind of a architect, maybe some, there’s a lot more room for roles there.

Brent: Yeah. And then some people that aren’t so technical wouldn’t feel left out and they can participate in the event and have a lot of fun. 

Heather: Yeah. I think the more diverse the team can be the more successful it can be, honestly. 

Brent: Where do you see the BigCommerce community going in the next year or two?

Heather: In the next year or two, I see us doing so many more events really honestly. I see that being our, I guess our biggest opportunity is doing hackathons, doing smaller like developer challenges and then also just Getting ideas from our community as well. If there’s something that they, like our members really want to push out or just wanna be involved or really want us to push out or, and just see as an opportunity, we are all ears for that.

Heather: Like I said earlier, like we’re just in a time of a lot of firsts and so we are so open to making this the, this community. The best it can be for our members. We really want to hear from our members. We really want to just give them what they want. And I definitely see events being a huge thing for us this upcoming year.

Heather: And that’s a whole different type of just a broad range of types of events that I see coming. 

Brent: Are there any plans around, seeding other sort of community leaders to. build communities in other countries. In other areas. 

Heather: Yeah. So that would be that would be incredible. I think so there’s a lot of like really mature communities and then also just some really engaged like younger communities that are doing this right now.

Heather: And that have been doing it for years. And that’s something that I would personally love to see. Like for the Hackathon, for example, we had people that were, it was a worldwide type of event and it was really cool to see because we only had two weeks to really announce it. But it was like split between many continents, so it was, it would be really nice to just have I guess like focus groups or just user groups or just super, just whatever we wanna call it, but just like based groups in different regions.

Heather: And I think , like Magento or a lot of other types of different communities where they have they host like their own meetups and stuff like that. And even if it’s super casual but then we can be involved like on our side of hey, like we can help organize it or whatever. But then yeah, like y’all totally own it, like y’all are there.

Heather: Let us know how we can help. Notion does this I really love that productivity tool and they. They have a really excellent community, but but yeah, I definitely see that. I’m not sure how realistic that is for like this coming year since we’re like, we’re just now being able to like host all these really cool events.

Heather: But hey, if it happens, like I am all for it and I, yes, I’m like for making it happen to you. So whatever I can do to help with that and if we have a lot of interest and a lot of engaged people in different regions, like I am definitely for helping getting that. , 

Brent: I know in the agency space it BigCommerce is growing so fast that it’s been difficult to sometimes find developers and so you have to train developers.

Brent: Is there a easy way for an agency head to say, get to, to hire somebody that’s been involved in another SAS platform and convert them or help them understand? Getting up and running on BigCommerce yeah. So we 

Heather: have like big dev boot camps. That’s one of our excuse me, that’s one of our products or one of our services for getting started.

Heather: It’s like an onboarding type thing. So if you are a developer or if you have a developer that is like new to building on BigCommerce and you really wanna set ’em up for success Big Deb Bootcamp is a great option. Excuse me. Yeah, so you can get involved with Big Deb Bootcamp. I can actually get the link for you and I.

Heather: Include it so that you can try to like, push that out with your recaps and all that. But basically it covers developing on stencil on different types of getting started with like headless all of our APIs. Goodness. And just basic development, like getting started developing absent themes going over all of our resources basically.

Heather: So it’s a really nice program to get involved with if you’re new or if you’re just like trying to take advantage of what other resources are available to 

Brent: you and do you see developers quickly being onboarded and getting up to speed. On BigCommerce 

Heather: I guess you could say it really depends.

Heather: So with BigCommerce, we have developers that are, like third party developers as far as everyone, is a third party developer, but we have freelancers, we also have like developers that work for our partner agencies, and so it really depends on their relationship. I would say as far as what type of onboarding they get, which is something that we are working on as far as onboarding just developers in a better way in general, no matter you know, who or we know what they’re with.

Heather: I would say our. Are our partners. They have I would say more visibility to the big Deb Bootcamp. So I’d say that is something that kind of sets that like those developers aside because if you are a partner, you have more visibility. You just know about it more. If you’re a freelance developer, you probably have to discover it in a little bit of a different way, which is possible, but it’s not as visible to you.

Heather: So I would say. as far as like resources, like big dev bootcamp, it is a little bit more accessible if you are a partner. But then everything else as far as our documentation and our communities, like those are all very open for any sort of developer. So no matter if you are just doing freelance or you working for an agency or one of our partners, then you have access to the community.

Heather: And with that you have, the community team and then also Dev Rail to just walk you through whatever you would. 

Brent: and I would imagine that the amount of BigCommerce developers is like an iceberg where there’s the ma vast majority that aren’t involved on the Slack channel.

Brent: And it would be great to get ’em all involved. Yes. . Yeah. So maybe a message out to all the agency. Heads to tell their developers that there’s this great place that you should join and absolutely get questions answered, right? I think that’s the main key about the Slack channel is that if you do have questions, there’s so many people in there that are so smart, then that can help you get those questions answered quickly.

Heather: I agree and if you are a partner listening to this podcast or this interview we are going to have our own spot on the partner newsletters, the agency and tech partner newsletters. So that’s new and keep a lookout for us. We’re hoping to keep coming monthly with new content and also always having that CTA where you can share with your development teams to have them join us in the developer community.

Heather: We would love to have all of you. 

Brent: So a, as we finish things out today if you have one like little nugget that you could give a developer who’s starting right now besides joining the Slack channel Yeah. What would you tell them? 

Heather: I would really tell them to take advantage of. Us. That would be me, that would be Katie, that would be Steven, our developer advocates.

Heather: And it’s not only through Slack. We are, you can meet us on Twitter, you can meet us at some events. You can meet us wherever LinkedIn, this podcast. If you are struggling and you’re maybe posting on Stack Overflow or in the help center, reach out to us like dms because we wanna get to know you and we wanna get to know like how we can.

Heather: Not only just you, but also just every other developer that might be going through like a similar experience as you. And we really want to talk and connect and we do. And so if you’re a developer and you’re not super into that, totally understand. I would say something that could help.

Heather: Ah, goodness. Reaching out really does the best, even if it’s like on a GitHub repo or something, just letting someone know. That’s really how we make our changes. Even product. If you comment on GitHub or if you submit an issue or anything like that, or reach out to us in some way, or even tweet at us or whatever it is reaching out does.

Heather: Really help us make it better. So if you can find a way to reach out to us in some way that is what I would 

Brent: recommend. Yeah. And there’s also a BigCommerce Twitter community space now. Yes. As well. So that’s another good place for people to join. And there is more people in that space than another platforms I’ve noticed recently.

Brent: So that’s good. It’s being used. Yes. would add that as a developer and I’m going to admit that I started as a developer a long time ago. It is sometimes hard to ask questions and reach out and you really wanna solve it yourself. But once you’ve once you’ve paired up with, if you find somebody who can really help you, and I know when I got started I found somebody could help me.

Brent: And I think I was on MSN Messenger way back in the day and man did they help me, and there was so much more that I could get through with a little bit of guidance and mentorship. That, I think that the big com, I know that the BigCommerce channels can offer you even better than stack overflow or something like that.

Brent: That gets your question. You ask questions that’ll get answered quickly. So I can’t advocate more for using that and taking advantage of that as a developer. And it’ll really launch your career as a developer and help you accelerate your learning and getting things done. And then I would also say play around in a sandbox environment and make some stuff.

Brent: Yeah, 

Heather: absolutely. I second everything that you say. I agree a hundred percent. I can’t agree more actually. 

Brent: Great. As we close out, Heather, they I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug. Okay. What would you like to plug today? 

Heather: Goodness. I’ve been prepping for this question. I’m not sure I’m having a hard time threatening a shameless plug.

Heather: I’m not gonna lie, but I will say if you could invest in a. Reusable water bottle. You can take it to the airport, you can take it everywhere. If you could fill it up. I actually went to a place to eat not that long ago and I was like, Hey, can I just fill up my water bottle? And they’re like, Yeah, do it.

Heather: Of course. So definitely get yourself a reusable water bottle or a few. That’s my stainless plug, . 

Brent: Cool. Thank you so much. Heather Barr, the community development developer manager for BigCommerce thank you for being here today. Yes, thank you 

Heather: for having me.

Talk-Commerce Robert Rand Community

The Big Blue Wave with Robert Rand

What is a healthy ecosystem? Is it with a platform that only focuses on large enterprise clients like the fortune 500? Or is a healthy ecosystem around a broad base of commerce users that can mature and grow into a large company?

Robert Rand and Brent talk about the future of Magento Open source and what Adobe could do to help the community. We debate on the sliming of the core to add more features.

What do you think? We finish the episode talking about Shopware and the blue wave coming to the USA.

Let’s face it. It’s hard to build an ecosystem. We discuss what Shopware is doing to build its ecosystem and the resources they are putting into making this happen.