What is Developer Think Tank?

Developer Think Tank is the place where leading developers, program managers, and others come together around the issues and insights they face in the growth of our API economy today. Originally launched in early 2011, Developer Think Tank exists because in the last few years all three players in the developer business changed the way they view the world.

  • Program managers no longer see developer evangelism as something they do on the way to some larger role at their company; they see developer outreach as a career and they’re likely to pursue that career across multiple companies.
  • Organizations no longer see third-party developer engagement as an incremental value source; it’s central to their business model.
  • Developers don’t see themselves as members of one developer community; they’re the glue that bring communities together.

 

Perpetual beta

Perpetual BetaThese changes point us in some obvious directions, but they’re no crystal ball. We know where we expect to be tomorrow, but are less clear exactly where we’ll be next year.

When we started working together three companies and a decade ago we would not have predicted our current paths. We have no illusions we know precisely where this venture will take us a decade from now.

Our path depends on what our community adopts and requests. If you have a feature request, let us know and we’ll try to implement it.

We’ll have bugs along the way. If you find one, please offer suggestions with details and we’ll fix it.

Yeah, we know we need a real bug reporting system. Services on our road map demand it. We’re working on it. Perpetual beta.

Who is behind Developer Think Tank?

Lee Wright

Lee has been involved with developer communities since 2000 when he co-founded AnywhereYouGo, a venture-backed global independent mobile developer community that provided application developer tutorials and testing from labs in Dallas and London.  According to independent research, AnywhereYouGo was the site more mobile developers used than any other.

Lee later led developer recruitment and Web-based support for a large global developer program.  Through improved communications, Web-based support, targeted outreach, and partnerships with other communities, the program gained more than 500,000 new members.

Over the years he’s spoken at industry conferences in the United States and Europe, and his research and commentary has appeared in print and online (Ad Age, The Industry Standard, Wireless Week, and RCR) and ZDNet, InfoWorld, and ID Newswire–back in the day when people read magazines–and on CNN.

Lee graduated from Drake University and received his Masters of Management at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern.

Kevin Sharp

For the past twelve years Kevin has consulted with developer programs building mobile, location, and cross-platform framework communities. Previously he worked with developer programs and systems integrators in the industrial controls and supply chain logistics industries as a design engineer, product manager, lead technical writer, and frequent speaker. He has also consulted with device manufacturers and speech recognition vendors and his contributions have received industry recognition.

Kevin has written and edited books on technical and financial topics and written hundreds of technical white papers, feature articles, and opinion columns. He has published over 100 mobile app product reviews and works with client’s social media teams. He is experienced in electronic newsletter production, tools, analysis, and optimization, and has been the exclusive provider of these services to a global platform vendor’s premium communities for the past six years.

Key publications include:

Contact us

Kevin Sharp kevin@developerthinktank.com
Lee Wright  lee@developerthinktank.com
Everything else dtt@developerthinktank.com
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