I recently attended a meetup of the Seattle Android Developers group. Their guest speaker was Tim Bray, Developer Advocate from Google. Tim was there to talk about the Android OS for mobile phones. Among Tim’s many accomplishments he’s also the co-inventor of the XML Web standard. Whatever, no big deal.

That night Tim made the distinction himself that he was not “developer relations” - a role that usually has that fishy not-a-developer smell. All night he spoke to an audience of active developers, as a developer but with an official tone. He shared wisdom, but wasn’t afraid to poke at the faults of Android at the same time. He was honest and genuine.

Maybe it’s the open source nature of Android, but Tim never made me feel like I was being sold to. He was viewed as a resource and as an expert.

And it worked. I’d already been interested in Android for a while, but the very open and approachable nature of Tim and his message at the end pushed me over the edge and sold me on Android.

That’s right. He sold me but never appeared to be selling me. Oh how stealth his black magic was.

If you want to get developers using your products don’t “sell them” (or at least don’t appear to be), inform them. Be like Tim and present yourself as a expert there to answer any skepticism. That open culture feel is a warm inviting blanket for developers like me. I’ll be much happier to work with you, rather than work for you.

Above all don’t be “that guy” who’s there just to have you sign on the line which is dotted. That guy smells fishy.