Chat with Adriana Cerundolo about Google Developer Groups - Coffee with a Googler Video Lecture | Coffee with a Googler - IT & Software

welcome to the Googleplex this is an
incredible place where lots of great
stuff being worked on every single day
before I worked here I always wondered
what it'd be like to come to the
Googleplex meet up with a Googler and
have coffee with them and just chat
about what they do how they do it and
why they do it and today we're going to
do exactly that hi welcome to this
episode of coffee with a Googler I'm
Laurence Moroney and i'm here today
chatting with adrianna chair under low
she's a program manager for Google
developer groups and Google developer
groups are where developers can get
together with developers to meet up and
learn interesting and great new things
so Adriana tell us about yourself
welcome so let's see so I'm a program
manager for GD geez Google developer
groups and that is a community program
that lives under the developer platform
team within Google so this is the team
that manages all outreach and
relationships with our external external
developer audience ok what are Google
developer groups what do they do and
like what does one look like GD GS are
in person meetups for developers who are
interested in learning about or talking
to other devs about Google developer
technology so such as Google cloud
platform including App Engine chrome are
also Android or other Google platform ap
is so in these groups folks get together
and there's either Tech Talks code labs
design sprints they might even get
together and watch a video that's
launched on developers.google.com around
one of our technologies so the point is
for people to learn more about
technologies but also within a community
setting so the audience's technical
folks developers or also other
enthusiasts tech enthusiasts even
entrepreneurs who want to learn more
about bleeding-edge technology and
meeting other like-minded folks now
these are all over the world right how
many of them are they yeah actually it's
a growing program we started several
years ago and now we have over 600 g DG
chapters and over a hundred countries so
yeah it's really exciting have you
visited them all you know I haven't I do
get invitations to and I wish I could go
to all of them to be honest but I did
recently go to Nairobi for a summit yeah
it was super exciting well I'm really
lucky that I was able to attend we had a
summit for our mentors that are
organizers that helped mentor other new
organizers in the area in sub-saharan
Africa so yeah so we actually do have a
Google office in Nairobi but we had a
conference there for them at a local
hotel and it was great to just meet them
in person and to be able to provide
training and empower them to be better
organizers and community leaders in
their area and that's one thing you do
mention its community leaders because
these developer groups they're not run
by Google right they're run by people
outside of Google exactly and that's
actually a really important element that
it's run by the community so Google
supports them and by ways of providing
technical content or product or event
incentives or ways in which they can
engage more deeply with Google whether
it's sometimes google speakers or even
event support for larger events but for
the most part the power of the GDG
program is that it's sustained by the
community itself so in fact most of
these organizers are going and finding
external sponsorship from other sponsors
and we urge them to do that because
that's what allows them to be
sustainable also we don't dictate what
their content is about so obviously
Google is in the name which means that
the focus is google developer
technologies but in terms of what they
work on what content they use ultimately
that's for the organizers to choose
based on their interest and also the
only way that one can be successful as a
community leader especially for
something like this where it really is
about community it's about having a
passion right and wanting to make some
sort of impact whether it's personal or
for the community so the only way that's
sustainable is for them to understand
well what drives me as a developer what
do I really care about what are the
people around me care about and then
that's what you fuel your content on for
the DDGS cool you know g DG organizers
are a special breed because they not
only have really strong technical skills
but they have a desire and also a skill
level to be community leaders this is
generally can be a rare combination to
find you know that's definitely valuable
when you find it absolutely but in
general these organizers don't have a
chance to go and build those larger
community and softer skill skill sets
you know so what we like to do is we do
like to have some technical content of
course in the
Summit's but also I find it really
important to provide community
leadership and softer skills training as
well to help them with presentation
skills communication to allow them just
be general better leaders and it also
contributes to better life skills so if
somebody wants to join a GD g how do
they go about doing it first off check
out on our directory page developers at
google com first of all that's our main
page you can check out more about GD
geez there then we have a tab for the
directory page and we have a global map
where you can see all of our GD GS
around the world so every time it isn't
that it is a google map of course yes we
couldn't go without one right yeah so
you can check out there to see if the
chapters available in your region and if
one is not listed in your region you can
consider starting one okay yet that's a
great question like how would one go
about starting one like if I live in a
small town in Alaska and there's no gdg
and yeah of interest for one like how
would I go about doing absolutely well
first of all I just want to know what
that community management as I've
mentioned before or alluded to is not
for the faintest of heart there's two
main components or skill sets that is
important to be an organizer first is a
technical component and then the second
is some sort of community leadership
management whether you know maybe you
have a local church group or another
meetup group that you run right so if
you don't have one of those different
skill set you know find someone who can
help augment that skill set so say you
have a really strong technical
background but you're not so sure about
the community management piece you know
find a friend who's also interested in
join forces in general I would say that
it's always important to find a
co-organizer or just even a larger
organizing team right a garden half does
the burden shared right that kind of
absolutely I'm so once you've decided
that you're ready to move on maybe or
move forward with starting a chapter and
you have like another individual that
wants to help you out go ahead to our
website page and so it's
developers.google.com / start and there
you'll be able to find a link to our new
chapter application page we just ask a
little bit about you what's your
motivation for starting a GD g and then
you can submit an application we can get
you rolling nice sounds good so folks if
you're interested in starting up a
chapter go ahead take a look at the site
and it's
linked underneath here and you know
would love to see you forming sites and
forming GD geez all over the world and
continuing to expand but there's one
thing that I keep hearing about that the
because it's such a community thing is
that the community designs a t-shirt
every year oh yeah I know you're wearing
that the t-shirt this year which we go
so how does that work it like what's
going on with the t-shirt for this year
yeah we have a lot of organizers that
come together for google i/o every year
and we have a t-shirt contest for them
to build some sort of original design
using the GE g logo so if you go to on
G+ you can search hashtag GDG hashtag io
15 and the third hashtag is hashtag
shirt and you can search for your
favorite design or rather vote for it
and then maybe we can raffle one off
sounds good so yeah if you can hold on
to a couple of them for us after i/o 15
and folks if you leave a comment
underneath this video and our google
developers channel then we'll we'll give
a couple of t-shirts to some of the
winning comments though well thank you
so much I'd Rihanna for coming along
today and thanks everybody for watching
this far it's been a wonderful episode
and we've had a great time with Adriana
talking about GD geez I'm gonna have to
go visit a few of them myself now
because they sound great they'd love to
have you I'll be there so thanks
everybody for tuning in and watching
along with this episode of coffee with a
Googler you can find more of our videos
on the Google Developers Channel linked
underneath and that we hope to see you
again soon thanks
you