{"id":4143,"date":"2018-04-10T15:58:02","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T10:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahmadawais.com\/?p=4143"},"modified":"2023-08-16T06:03:11","modified_gmt":"2023-08-16T13:03:11","slug":"developer-advocacy-helping-developers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahmadawais.com\/developer-advocacy-helping-developers\/","title":{"rendered":"\ud83c\udfa9 Developer Advocacy: How Am I Helping Developers?!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am a developer who’s not an introvert. Clich\u00e9 or not \u2014 that’s who I am. I love helping people, teaching developers about cutting-edge software, giving talks, organizing meetups \u2014 and generally being helpful by even creating automation tools like create-guten-block<\/a> and hundreds of other free and open-source software projects<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This post is in part a re-published piece from my 2017 Year in Review \u2192<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"2017-Ahmad-Awais-Year-In-Review\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By writing this post, I mean to share what it means to be a developer advocate and an open source evangelist. I help developers in many ways. I’m an enthusiast who finds happiness by doing open source and making friends.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

\n
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\u26c5#<\/a><\/h2>\n

COMMUNITY
\n<\/span>Social Proof, Portfolio, Meetups, Talks, Oh My!<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I love to write code, I do. That’s the highlight of my day almost four days a week. But I have this side of me where I try and reach out to the local community, do meetups, give talks, and all that.<\/p>\n

2017 was no different. I did lots of stuff to improve my social presence, be more involved with the community, and generally be a better human.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcfa BTW I watch a lot I mean a lot of TV. 2017 was no different. I have started tracking my TV seasons via Watched.li, here check out my profile<\/a> \u2014 it says<\/p>\n

\ud83d\ude32 Ahmad Awais is currently tracking 77 shows and has seen 4571 episodes.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcbb
\nSoftware Apprentice!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I actually took on another software apprentice Saqib Ameen<\/a> this last year \u2014 he’s now part of our TheDevCouple Team<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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  • An intelligent young man, studying Computer Science at UET Lahore.<\/li>\n
  • I’m sure in a year or two, he’ll be contributing a lot to open source.<\/li>\n
  • Currently, he heads the WordPress Urdu Translation Team<\/a><\/li>\n
  • Along with me, and Maedah<\/a> he arranged the local WordPress Translation Day #3<\/a> which went quite well<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    \ud83d\udd30 Whereas my previous apprentice, Ashar Irfan<\/a> is also doing great, leading the software development behind one of my open source partner<\/a> companies, called WP Security Audit Log<\/a>. Check them out.<\/p>\n

    \u2705 Moreover, he became a WordPress Core Contributor<\/a> last year, which is amazing. Everyone in my team is a contributor now.<\/p>\n

    I’m happy with this approach of helping others make a difference.<\/em><\/p>\n

    \u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

    \ud83d\udc26
    \nTwitter Verified Profile<\/h2>\n
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    Not many people know this but I used to be head of marketing at a local agency. It was my first job which had a short lifespan.<\/p>\n

    \u2705 I once crafted and executed a mega marketing campaign for WAAR the movie<\/a> \u2014 led it to 25,000+ IMDb votes<\/strong>, where WAAR ranked as #1 in Highest Rated Feature Films Released In 2013<\/strong> on IMDb. Also, the most voted movie in the history of Lollywood<\/a> (PK version of Hollywood).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    This goes to state the fact that I am into marketing as well. I think no developer can ever be successful if they can’t market themselves better. So, it was an incredible milestone for me when I got verified on Twitter.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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    \"@MrAhmadAwais<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    \n

    \u2192 I wrote more about it \u2014 \ud83c\udf89 Got Verified on Twitter! @MrAhmadAwais<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    \u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

    \ud83d\udc50
    \nMeetups, Talks, Networking!<\/h2>\n

    In 2017, I did more meetups and talks than I could count. I think it was two to three meetups every single month except for December. The following three meetups were the best.<\/p>\n

    \u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

    MEETUP: \ud83d\udce6 Learn to Host Your WordPress Site With DigitalOcean!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    \u2705 Teaching people how I host some of my WordPress sites by myself using DigitalOcean was fun. Especially when we had discussions about scaling.<\/p>\n

    \u2192 I actually made a small video tutorial on YouTube<\/a> for this one.<\/em><\/p>\n

    \u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

    TheDevCouple\u2019s #Hacktoberfest Open Source with WordPress Meetup<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

    \"HacktoberFest-Meetup-Cover\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    \"Meetup<\/a><\/p>\n

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    \u2705 On this meetup, we gathered a bunch of software engineering students and I taught them why Open Source & Git is so important. We had great sponsors i.e. DigitalOcean + GitHub \u2014 they also sponsored our pizza. \ud83c\udf55<\/p>\n

    \u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

    TheDevCouple\u2019s WordPress & JavaScript Meetup Lahore 2018<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

    \"TheDevCouple\u2019s<\/a><\/p>\n

    \"TheDevCouple\u2019s<\/a> \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\uddedThe fun part of this meetup was that we had Ulrich Pogson attend this meetup all the way from Switzerland. I talked about WordPress & JavaScript and tweeted<\/a> the link to my slides used in the talk \u2014 Zoom-out to make the slides fit your screen, it\u2019s made for 1920px.<\/p>\n

    \ud83d\ude80 STATS & IMPACT: <\/strong><\/p>\n

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    • As the earliest organizer of WordPress Meetups Lahore<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 when I first joined, it had fewer than 30 people as members. With the help of the local community, co-organizers, my TheDevCouple team<\/a> \u2014 I have been able to grow this meetup to the 8th largest meetup group worldwide (at the time of writing) with following stats:
      \n\u2705 Over       3,250 WordPress Lahore Meetup members<\/a>.
      \n\u2705       8th Largest WordPress Meetup worldwide<\/a>.
      \n\u2705 Laser focus on Engineers and developers.
      \n\u2705 Meetups with       international attendees<\/a>.<\/li>\n
    • The new DigitalOcean Meetup Lahore<\/a><\/strong> that I started in 2017 grew to over 500 members<\/a><\/strong> in less than a year. We had most incredible meetups with the help of awesome sponsors like DigitalOcean<\/a> and TheDevCouple partners<\/a>. \ud83d\udc4b<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      \u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

      \ud83c\udf99
      \nInterviews, Press Mentions, & Podcasts!<\/h2>\n

      Every now and then I get on a podcast and talk about stuff I work on. This time around it was about Open Source as a Life Style<\/strong>. I did this podcast with the good folks at PressThis Podcast \u2014 run by David Vogelpohl<\/a> – Vice President of Web Strategy – WP Engine.<\/p>\n

      Since we are talking about WPEngine, I’d like to shout out to Heather J. Brunner<\/a>, one of the best female CEO’s I know off. She’s led WPEngine to a great deal of success and her passion for open source has helped me complete several open source projects, with WPEngine as a backer.<\/p>\n

      \ud83c\udfa4Listen here \u2014 Ahmad Awais \u2014 Open Source as a Lifestyle<\/strong> \u2192<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n