Have a read of this post by Mike Rowehl on the subject (“ Why Mobile Developer Programs Aren’t Working “). Mike knows a thing or two about mobile developers being one himself.
His post is critical reading for anyone involved in mobile developer outreach. Mike points out that:
- You can’t have marketing people talking to engineers/developers. You need to have real, live, proper engineers conversing with engineers.
- You can’t fake it by sticking up a ‘community site’ and assuming everyone will pop along — see Mike’s excellent real life example of Vodafone’s Betavine not working very well at all for him
- Holding a hackathon just because you’ve got a platform launch coming up is a total waste of time
Nice post Mike!
By the way, Mike is a regular organiser of Mobile Monday Silicon Valley — I interviewed him in one of the very first Mobile Developer TV episodes.
Thanks for the follow-up Ewan!