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Hi, how's everybody doing? It's nice to see you! In case you're wondering what I'm doing, this is a tip from Ben Orenstein, who said that to get rid of pre-presentation jitters, you should power pose. I want you to know that if this doesn't work, I'm going to punch him.
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My name is Bree Thomas. I think we can put these down now. I also wear black so you couldn't see any armpit sweat; it's a good trick. I am a brand new developer as of just eight months ago. Thank you, thank you! I work with a product company called iTriage, and I spend much of my day spelunking in a very intimidating code base.
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I spend a lot of my time studying and pairing with anybody who will have me, to be honest. But in a past life, not too long ago, I was a product marketer—and that's what I want to share with you today: a little bit of that experience. Specifically, I want to talk to you about brand—what brand is, why you should care, and how you can use brand in your open source projects to start differentiating yourself in what is now a very saturated and competitive landscape.
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Before we can delve into how to do this, we need to level set on the basics. So, what is brand? To demonstrate, I'm going to show you some logos. Don't worry, they're not hard. I just need you to tell me what they sell. Does anybody know what this brand sells? Very good! Are you a runner? Not so much? Just checking.
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What about this brand? Does anybody know what they sell? Hardware? Okay, great! Good. What about this brand? Jeremy Jackson, what does this brand sell? Oh, shut up! What you really need to know is that he drives one of these. Alright, so those were good answers. But really, let's start with Nike. What Nike sells is more than just shoes. Nike sells empowerment. They sell the belief that greatness comes from within.
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It's not a gift; it's not destiny. It's actually a fierce commitment and an unyielding focus that you can make yourself into anything you want to be. You just have to do it. How do they communicate empowerment? Well, that takes different forms depending on who they're talking to. How they communicate with women, how they communicate with men—what their advertisements look like, spanning sports and races, it's all different.
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But at the core, it's really about empowerment. They are that constant voice of empowerment, telling you that you can do it; you can be better. When Apple launched their 'Think Different' campaign, it was a summation of what the company stood for at that time. In positioning 'Think Different', they didn't do it with products; no, they did it with humans—accomplished, iconic humans.
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To quote some of their advertising that I'm sure we're all familiar with: 'The crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the ones who see things differently.' While their ads have changed quite a bit, 'Think Different' is still a very prevalent part of their DNA. Whether we're looking at the iPod ads from way back when, which featured literally nothing about their product—just a silhouette on a bright colored background—or the ads you see today, there's an inherent attitude that is simply and beautifully executed.
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What's great about their ads is that they spark immediate iconic status. There are lots of creative spin-offs of their ads and copycats, but what they do is spark this crazy group of devout followers for every single product release. BMW, 'the passionate driver's car,' is about aspiring to joy in driving, regardless of your station in life. Be that a biker or a mother, the BMW is the car for your inner driving enthusiast.
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At the end of the day, it isn't about status; it really is about joy. So why did I show you these brands? Because they don't just sell a particular style of footwear, or a fancy color of an iPod, or even heated seats in a car. Actually, what they sell is a belief: empowerment, 'Think Different', joy, and beliefs are held by humans.
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Humans build relationships, and relationships build community. So take a look around you right now. For better or for worse, we are all a community. We share some common beliefs in how to build software, for instance. But just having a good product—just having a good product anymore, or some pristine lines of code that you've written—whatever the metric du jour is of what pristine is—that's not enough.
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No matter how amazing your project or your specific product is, if only you or a very small few are at the epicenter, then it's just a matter of time before it breaks down. And while we can all completely understand Ryan's burnout with Railscasts, it really doesn't lessen the blow when we lose that. I can speak for myself as a new developer.
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As you develop your open source project, how are you going to foster a community? How are you going to attract contributors, maintainers, and adopters, for that matter? How are you actually going to keep them? The really great brands symbolize more than just the products they sell. They represent a culture of people who share common beliefs. The really great brands are human, and that's what I want to talk to you about today.
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I want to talk to you about how you can build a 'who' at the same time as you're actually building your 'what.' To do that, we're going to walk through some brilliant basics. I've got a couple of open source projects that are doing parts of this really well, so I'll illustrate that with them.
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Then we'll move to practice. I'm going to give you a scalable framework that you can start using immediately, and I'll give you some methods for how to populate that framework with content. Lastly, I'll provide a couple of examples about how you can actually apply this in real life.
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The basics of brand are really just about personality traits. How would you describe your best friend to someone you've just met? How would you set your sister up on a blind date? Brand strategists have a go-to set of personality traits that they like to use. We'll start with purpose: why does a brand exist? What do they seek to change in the world? Where do their motives originate from?
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What do they stand for? What do they hold as dear, in terms of values, as they interact with us and the rest of the world? What do they say when they speak? Do they speak the truth? What do they do? Are they following through with actions that speak louder than their words? What does their image look like? How do they portray themselves? Is it something that I want to be seen with?
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More importantly, do I personally identify with them enough to want to do this? For the record, I do not have any Harley Davidson tattoos, but the beauty of this guy with this tattoo is that he isn't making a statement about Harley Davidson; he's making a statement about himself, and Harley Davidson symbolizes certain things about him.
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Now, let's take a look at some of these traits I've just described across a couple of open source projects. We'll start with Amber. I mean, seriously, what an adorable identity! This is just the cutest thing ever. What's great about Amber is that they deliver this character that is inviting and approachable.
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But more importantly, when I look at this, what they convey is something very significant: a childlike ease. Even their swag is in line with their persona. This is interesting because when I look at their purpose—a framework for creating ambitious web applications—that sounds scary to a new developer. I just want something that works, but it sounds big and daunting.
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What you see here is that right above their more adorable and inviting cartoons is this comfortable, easy feeling of more productivity out of the box. They are very clear about what they value—writing less code, avoiding trivial decisions, and my favorite: developer ergonomics. I don't actually know what that is, but I know ergonomics is healthy, which means it's beneficial, so I love it!
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I feel good about this. This feels like, okay, I can use this. Here's something else that Amber does that I really like: they post all the minutes from their core team meetings. This creates transparency, which invokes trust from me. I gravitate towards this, and as a new developer, this reinforces that they are approachable and inviting.
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Another open source project worth mentioning is Ghost. Ghost is just a blogging platform, and we're talking about an open source project with a tremendous amount of competition. There are tons of static site blogging generators out there right now, like WordPress, Squarespace, Jekyll, and Octopress—some of these players even have the backing to be running TV commercials.
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But here's what I love about Ghost: they put a very specific stake in the ground that they are just a blogging platform because they really stand for one thing—and that is publishing. This is why they're going to focus on this one thing: they want to do this better than anyone else. For them, focusing on publishing is about taking the future of freedom of speech to the next level. I can get behind that; that sounds good, and I should be involved.
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Ghost is guided by very clear values that support this. Users first, always—this is what it's about for them. Secondly, it's for love, not for profit. They operate freely and do not accept money, as that would impose changes on how they approach development. I find that very interesting. These brands I showed you are very clear about their beliefs. You know what they stand for, and you see that represented through everything: their copy, how they talk, their aesthetic, their swag, and even down to their development ethos—how they make choices in features and enhancements.
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So it should be simple enough to do, right? I think it's important to know that developing a truly authentic brand is more than just applying a bunch of adjectives or paying for a really slick logo. There's a method to that madness, and I'm going to walk you through a process to discover your 'who'; that's what we're trying to build.
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First, you can't do this alone. You can't do this in a vacuum. Let's be honest, you've been drinking your particular open-source Kool-Aid all day long. You need some healthy perspective. Find one other person who's willing to sit in a room with you for four to six hours at least, and psychoanalyze the heck out of your project. If you can find more than one of those people, great; grab them. But let's not have a classroom, okay? Let's keep it small—small teams of people who have no problem telling you what they really think.
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You want them to understand the space, and they should know a little bit about you and your project. Now, for the process you're going to see, the exercises I'm going to take you through consist of three basic steps. We'll have a ton of sticky notes, and we're going to write a lot of words on them—that's the ideation process.
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After that, we're going to take those words and start to group them into categories by common themes. Once we have that done, we'll prioritize. We'll have some winners to get started. We need to know where we're going—what is this thing we need to fill up with all these words? I have a simple brand structure in mind because when you're starting out, thinking about words like purpose, mission, and values can feel very heavy.
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For some of you, it just feels like marketing jargon. Whatever your take on it, that can be quite daunting. I like to start here with just a simple why, how, and what. What you'll see is that at the end of this, we'll arrive at the same juicy stuff. Why is a sentence that expresses why you get out of bed in the morning—or for most of you, why you stay up until 4 AM. This is a personal and passionate statement.
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The 'how' is where we discuss what makes you different, your points of difference, and your personality. If we were to describe you or set you up on a blind date, how would we describe you? And lastly, the 'what'—this is what you really deliver. And a hint here: this will be more than just a list of your product features; it will be bigger than that.
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A few notes on the content that fills this brand structure before we get started: It's not about copy, so don't get wrapped up in the words because you worry about them being printed somewhere forever. It's about getting the words down and ensuring they express the intent. This should be organic; it can grow and change as your brand and your team evolve.
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However, you do want to try to get to that core piece of positioning—much like Nike has a core piece of empowerment positioning—but they express that differently depending on venue and audience. Lastly, remember to make it about you, because if your reason for being—the why you get out of bed in the morning—is just focused on your competitor, someone you see as your rival, then your brand is automatically going to have a pretty short life.
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Now that we know where we want to be, it's a matter of how to get there. To walk through this, I'll use a current open-source project as an example. Perhaps you've heard of it—it’s called Exorcism. Exorcism is something that's very important to me as a new developer; this tool has been instrumental in my learning.
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Katrina, who developed this project, has also been instrumental in my learning. For those of you who don’t know, Exorcism is essentially crowdsourced code reviews for daily practice problems. Here’s how it works: as a user, you pick a language, you pick an exercise, you download a test suite, you write the code to solve that problem, and then you resubmit that solution back to Exorcism.
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Other members of Exorcism can then come in and comment on your solution. The goal here is to iterate over small chunks of code and to engage in thoughtful dialogue—some back-and-forth constructive feedback about new ideas or things we could be doing better. Or, what if you chose a different label for this or that method?
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Now, there’s some purpose in the lineup with 'why' being at the top. That's the overarching umbrella. Like I said, it’s also the hardest thing to fill out. So when I start this exercise, I like to begin smack in the middle because for most people, their points of difference—how what they have is different—is the most straightforward.
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So, what makes your brand different enough to care about? Your points of difference can span implementation; they can span customer service, language, design patterns. The idea is to get all of those out onto sticky notes. Write them out with you and your other friend in the room and then get them all up on a whiteboard.
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For Exorcism, it might look something like this: Imagine this is a whiteboard of sticky notes. Keep it short and simple—no novels; that’s part of the reason why you use post-its. Now, once you have them in front of you, start grouping them. How can you align these in categories that make sense?
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Then once you have them in a category, what are you going to call those categories? For Exorcism, it might look something like this: mentorship is a point of difference—how Exorcism creates a platform for people of all skill levels to be mentored by others. Intrinsic motivation is another aspect. If you noticed, Exorcism doesn't use scoreboards; this isn't about trying to get to a badge.
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This is about becoming a better programmer by working on small, iterative problems. There’s an intrinsic motivation about that—that's the goal. And then a safe forum, because it’s an important piece of Exorcism—constructive feedback is key, and as you can see, these points of difference also start to look like values.
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Now, when it comes to your points of difference, I personally prefer three categories. That’s not a scientific rule; it’s just my preference. Four categories work too. But if you only have two, that’s good. However, with five or more, baby kittens start to die; people just cannot focus on what you’re talking about—it’s too much.
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So, let's plug these into our framework and move on to personality. Again, with the sticky notes, we’re going to start thinking about how Exorcism looks on the inside and what it looks like through a competitive lens. Who else is doing things like this? What does it look like to users? What should it look like? We’re going to use adjectives here, right? Some personality-type adjectives.
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This is what we'll write down, and the goal here is to get as many words as possible. Grab a thesaurus and add to them! Now, we group the words again, looking for common themes and overlap. And this might be what it looks like for Exorcism.
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You want to make sure the group weighs in on these categories. Everybody should be clear about why a word was offered—what was the thinking happening at the time? What were they trying to express with this or that adjective? You can have as many categories as you want here—there’s no danger to kittens yet.
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Now it’s time to vote. Per category, you'll vote for your first, second, and third word. The objective at the end is to tally the results and for each category, one word wins. Now that you’ve got those words, these will be your working elements moving forward. This is what many brand strategists would call your brand DNA. For Exorcism, we've got: engaging, analytical, obsessive, educational, and motivating.
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Now we need to start building a person. How do we do that, right? We have these DNA elements. Well, we need to start thinking about a character that matches these words. If we’ve got a character, we must consider what that character sounds like. Take your DNA and map additional words against that, right? Corresponding traits.
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If a DNA element is analytical, that's probably a very rational character with a reasonable and calm voice. Those are some words that might help describe that character. Now, to actually describe it as we would our best friend, we need to make it do something. Using that working set of words, we want to craft several sentences to introduce Exorcism as a person.
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Exorcism is inviting and always looking to collaborate, for example, an infectious enthusiast—pushy but in a thoughtful way. Let's record those into personality, and now we can move on to the 'what' you really deliver. As a reminder, what you deliver is bigger than just a product description; often, this really becomes your mission statement.
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To do that, we need to return to our brand DNA where we started. First, we make it do something, and now we have to make it say something. This is where we want to craft a sentence that expresses the collective meaning of these words—not just their dictionary meanings, but again, what was that collective intent when we were in the room?
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Why did those words win our vote? What was the conversation that happened? As a platform, Exorcism is about improving your skills in writing code; it's about giving and taking feedback and solving problems. So, if we're going to make it say something, I often like to start with: 'Exorcism delivers,' followed by what your product is.
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Exorcism delivers practice for those who do not settle. That's the 'what.' Let’s add that to the framework and keep moving. For the 'why', I like to start this one with: 'I do this because.' This is the personal and passionate statement.
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Think about things like, what was the event that sparked you to start this open-source project? Was there something that was frustrating you at that time? Were you searching for something but couldn't find it? What do you genuinely believe in at the end of the day? For Exorcism, it might look like this: 'I do this because I hate lazy code, and teaching actually takes a village.' ZFor example, that persistence in detail matters.
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Once we've got these on our sticky notes, we want to start grouping. This is a slightly different grouping exercise where we're looking for the one-liner—what represents the why. We want to examine how these notes are similar and see if we can find that one-liner—a word or short sentence that sums up that belief.
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With Exorcism, which started out as a crowdsourced platform for code reviews, we get to the heart of the 'why.' The thing that is so vital about why Katrina stays up until 4 AM or why those of us who participate in Exorcism love to be nitpicked is that the devil is in the details. This is what's important about becoming a good programmer and mentoring others.
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This is what it takes to be better than just good—you have to practice a lot. Now that we have this story, what are you going to do with it? Now that you have a 'who' in your brand structure, how do you use it? Oh, marketing! Don't worry; I’m going to keep this simple, focusing on some low-hanging fruit.
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Although it's true that I've shown you a lot of big players here, if you take the time and do your due diligence upfront to think not just about what you're building, but who that looks like, what that is as a person—this upstream work will reap rewards in your downstream efforts.
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Now you have a place from which to start communicating. Right out of the box, you can say different things in your README. I know we've heard tons of talks about how important README files are, but one thing I think is crucial is voice.
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Yes, it’s great to have a README full of instructions, but I want to know more. I want to feel a bit more of that personality when I'm reading it. Understanding the 'who' makes an open-source project stand out for me. I remember it better. So when you're constructing your README, think about all this work that we've done, all of these adjectives up on the wall, and write in that tone of voice.
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Here’s the thing: you might be a total jerk or boring and passive, but your code doesn’t have to be. You can build a whole new character. Once you’ve got a voice, now you’re ready to tell your story. You can tell your story everywhere: blogs, conferences, events, and social media.
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What’s important is that as you're telling your story, make sure you hit those key points of difference—those values that are most meaningful to you. Be clear about what you deliver, because it’s more than just a list of your product features. You wouldn't stay up until 4 AM doing this otherwise.
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It matters a lot to you, and it probably means much more to the community as well. So don’t just tell people what you’ve made; tell them why you made it. Tell them what you believe. Because beliefs are held by humans, and humans build relationships, and relationships build community. Thank you.
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You.
