Respecting the Social Battery in DevRel  ## Metadata - Author: [[Dev Rel]] - Full Title: Respecting the Social Battery in DevRel - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #DevRel - #SocialBattery - #CommunityWellbeing Author: Carly Richmond Source: YouTube / DevRelCon Talk Reference: [Respecting the social battery in DevRel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo) date created: 2025-08-22 21:40 --- # Title: Respecting the Social Battery in Developer Relations ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) --- ## 📝 Summary: Carly Richmond (Elastic) explains how **respecting the social battery** is essential for sustainable work in Developer Relations (DevRel). She frames the social battery as the **finite energy pool** used across cognitive, emotional, and social interactions. When drained, symptoms appear as mental exhaustion, overstimulation, and difficulty processing information. Richmond shares strategies such as **color-coded stickers**, the **Pac-Man Rule**, and **SpaceTime** breaks to manage community and advocate well-being. The central message: supporting both community members and DevRel professionals requires intentional practices that balance energy with engagement. --- ## 📖 Main Content: Richmond emphasizes that the “social battery” is not a separate store of energy, but part of a single energy pool used across all human functions. Overuse in high-intensity social contexts—like conferences or booths—leads to depletion. Recognizing symptoms (fatigue, low processing, disengagement, sensory overload) helps advocates adjust. For community members, adaptations like **color-coded stickers** to signal openness, and the **Pac-Man Rule** to keep conversations inclusive, help prevent burnout. For advocates, balancing extremes—conference intensity vs. solo content creation—requires planning **constructive SpaceTime**. By normalizing recharging behaviors, DevRel becomes more sustainable, equitable, and humane. --- ### 🗒️ Notes - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo&t=0) Carly introduces the concept of the social battery in DevRel. - [01:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo&t=70) Social battery ≠ introvert/extrovert binary—dynamic, affected by health and workload. - [02:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo&t=135) Dr. Roy Baumeister: one energy pool for all tasks. Social stress drains faster. - [03:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo&t=210) Symptoms of depletion: mental exhaustion, poor focus, less engagement, sensitivity to lights/noise. - [04:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo&t=240) For communities: support with color-coded stickers; allow easy switching during events. - [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo&t=300) Pac-Man Rule: keep conversations open for newcomers, and allow easy exits. - [06:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo&t=360) Advocates: extremes of high social activity vs. solitude require planned recharging. - [07:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo&t=440) Elastic’s “SpaceTime” concept—intentional breaks to recover energy. - [08:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo&t=480) Conclusion: DevRel sustainability depends on caring for both community and self. --- ## 📖 References: - Dr. Roy Baumeister’s research on willpower and finite energy. - Pac-Man Rule (common community-building practice). - Elastic’s “SpaceTime” initiative. --- ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. Richmond clarifies that **social battery depletion is not about separate energy categories**; instead, all energy comes from a single pool. When socializing conflicts with natural tendencies, energy drains faster. 2. She stresses the **Pac-Man Rule**: leaving conversational gaps allows newcomers in, while giving others a respectful exit when drained. This fosters inclusivity and reduces burnout. --- ## 📰 Newsletter: ⚡ **Respect the Social Battery, Save Your DevRel!** At DevRelCon, Carly Richmond (Elastic) reminded us that our “social battery” powers everything we do—coding, community talks, booth duty, and even casual hallway chats. Burn it out, and you’re running on empty. 🟢🟡🔴 She championed **color-coded stickers** to show how much social energy you’ve got left, plus the **Pac-Man Rule** (always leave space for one more). For advocates, it’s about balancing extremes: thousands of conversations at conferences vs. working solo on content. Elastic’s solution? **SpaceTime breaks**—structured recharge moments. The takeaway: thriving DevRel means **looking after both community members and ourselves**. 💙 🔗 [Watch Carly’s talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo) --- ## ✅ Action Items: - Position **social battery management** as core to community health in WordPress events. - Advocate for **visual aids (stickers, signs)** to help contributors set boundaries. - Normalize **SpaceTime breaks** in contributor events, mirroring Elastic’s model. - Frame this as part of **inclusive contributor experience**—aligning with OSPO leadership goals. - Educate event organizers on applying **Pac-Man Rule** to improve networking and accessibility. --- ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - Communities that normalize social energy boundaries will have higher contributor retention. - Implementing SpaceTime breaks at events will reduce burnout for advocates. ### 📊 Methodology: - Surveys pre- and post-event to measure participant energy levels. - Controlled trials of sticker/Pac-Man interventions at WordCamps. - Comparative retention data across events with vs. without structured breaks. ### ❓ Questions: - How can we adapt social battery awareness for fully online communities? - Can SpaceTime breaks be integrated into remote contribution sprints? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Longitudinal studies on advocate burnout in relation to event design. - Cross-cultural studies on perceptions of personal space in community settings. ### 💡 Implications: - Improved **sustainability of DevRel careers**. - Models for **open-source governance** that value well-being. - Policy recommendations for healthier event planning. --- ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: - Visual: ⚠️ Stickers helpful, but more visuals (infographics, cue cards) could aid. - Aural: ❌ No podcast/audio version. - Verbal: ✅ Storytelling analogies (hippo exhaustion, Jerry Springer reference). - Physical: ⚠️ Could add interactive role-plays of Pac-Man Rule. - Logical: ✅ Evidence from psychology and structured frameworks. - Social: ✅ Community rules for inclusion. - Solitary: ⚠️ Lacks reflection prompts; could suggest journaling post-event. - Naturalistic: ❌ No analogies to environment; could use renewable energy metaphors. --- ## 📊 Accessibility Assessment: - Screen Reader: ⚠️ Transcript unstructured, needs semantic markup. - Keyboard Navigation: Not addressed. - Contrast/Readability: Not evaluated. - Text Resizing: Unknown. Recommendation: ensure scalability. --- ## 🌍 DEIB Assessment: - Cultural relevance: ⚠️ Stickers common in tech, but may not be universal. - Inclusive language: ✅ Neutral and accessible. - Neurodiversity: ✅ Identifies sensory overload as valid symptom. - Representation: ❌ Focus on advocates; expand examples to broader communities. - Psychological Safety: ✅ Normalizes breaks and energy boundaries. --- ## ✅ Logical Validity: - Strong inductive reasoning: Symptoms of fatigue → likely energy depletion ([03:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo&t=210)). - Causal reasoning: More social strain = faster depletion ([02:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo&t=135)). - Weak - Summary: In this talk, Carly Richmond discusses the concept of the "social battery" in the context of developer relations. She explains that the social battery refers to the amount of energy one has for engaging in social activities and being in large crowds. Carly emphasizes that it is not a binary characteristic and can change throughout one's life, impacted by factors such as mental health and workload. She highlights the importance of respecting individuals' social batteries and provides suggestions for supporting community members, such as using color-coded stickers and implementing the Pac-Man rule. Carly also emphasizes the need for self-care and finding a balance between social interaction and alone time. Ultimately, she emphasizes the importance of looking after ourselves and the developer community in order to effectively perform in developer relations. - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JzNZJEb6Jo it is my joy to invite Carly onto stage to tell us about respecting the social battery in devel please stand up for hello everyone it is so fab to see you all today um so my name is Carly Richmond I'm a developer Advocate at elastic and as we said I'm going to talk about the social battery today so I'm going to talk about what it is so we're all in an equal footing I'm going to talk about how it impacts our own jobs within developer relations and I'm going to give you some ideas of the things to look for to maybe see if your own batter is starting to deplete okay so what is it well it's kind of similar to the badges I've got up here I'll be honest I don't have one of these badges but I'm super tempted um but what they are basically the idea is that it's how much energy you have for engaging in social activity speaking to people being in a large crowd before you really start to feel like you need to kind of go off and do your own thing and have a a little bit of a break now that's not necessarily A a problem and it's something that can change as well now I'm not just talking about the idea of introversion and extroversion being something that you have that's a binary characteristic it's something that changes throughout your life it can be impacted by factors such as your own mental health it can be down to workload it can be all sorts of different things that drive whether being in a social situation or around a large crowd of people is energizing for you or if it's something that's going to deplete your energy super quick so obviously we're getting to the end of Devon how many would kind of like to chill like my hippo friend here yeah we're all getting there and that's okay now the social B battery and the draining of it you know impacts our ability to function and operate as human beings and that's not because we have a separate battery it's a little bit of a Mis Noma that we have one lot of energy for socializing and one lot of ener energy for just existing and another lot of energy for you know doing the the mental operations that we need to do for work the reality is as Dr Roy bow Meister found that we have one energy source for everything that we do it's just the fact that if we're in a situation where we're trying to fight against our natural reaction and engage in wellpower we are going to deplete our energy far quicker and that's why talking about social battery is fundamentally important because if you're forcing yourself to go through a social situation which you might have to in certain um areas then you're going to deplete your energy far quicker so obviously one idea is mental exhaustion as a symptom feeling like hippo here you just want to collapse on the floor but there's other aspects as well to look for when it comes to that depleted energy level so I'm talking about things like struggling to process information so maybe it's the last talk of a day and you're just feeling like nothing is going into your brain when nothing is being retained think about are you able to take the social cues of other people so if you're struggling to identify them then it might be that you're feeling a bit drained are you less engaged in conversations than you might be normally that's another thing to look out for and think about other things as well such as do you have sensitivity to Bright Lights such as the one that's right over here um loud noises those can all be symptoms that you're perhaps needing to take a bit of step back now there's two groups that we really need to think about when it comes to devil and the social battery and the first group is our lovely community members that we love engaging with so all those developers and people that we're actually talking to we need to make sure that we've got adaptions in place to support their own social batteries irrespective of the size of the events that we're trying to engage in so how many of us have seen these colorcoded stickers are some form of variation yes so quick question how many of us have changed these through an event so started off with a green sticker and then ended up with another one at the end there's not that many hands up and that's a real shame cuz I've never changed my sticker color either but the reality is if you're at a large event with thousands of people you might start off being very green and saying hey I'm totally up for chatting to everybody I meet but then by the end of day two at the end of day three you're sitting towards an Amber or a red so when we make these stickers available or events we also need to make sure that people know that they can change them and also that it's something it's easy to get a hold of they don't have to start running around a large venue to find out who to get the new sticker from the other thing we need to think about is the Pac-Man rule so how many people are aware of the Pac-Man rule great how many actively mention it at the start of their events so there's less hands up and I think that's a real shame the only time I've ever seen this mentioned is actually a Half Stack and I think we need to do more on that because there's two factors to think of with the Pac-Man rule so by allow encouraging people to go into that kind of Pac-Man shape over a closed Circle you're allowing new members of the community to pop in where they're perhaps unfamiliar so they can meet new people and feel a bit more welcome and a bit more comfortable but it also means if people are starting to feel socially drained they can hop out of a conversation and let someone else in so let's make sure we embrace the Pac-Man Rule and actually mention it to encourage everyone to use it now we need to think about ourselves as well and that's not coming from a selfish Viewpoint it's just embracing the natural fact that in order to work effectively and be there for a community we need to look after ourselves too we go from very interesting extremes from Devo I started as an advocate in 2022 April and one of the things I find really interesting about this job is the extremes and social activity I go through I go from being on boo Duty potentially speaking to hundreds if not thousands of people for several days depending on the size of the event to being at home working on content in my office by myself literally with nobody around and the reality is that going between those extremes can be very unhelpful there's times when you want to Crave social interaction if you're working at home for example but we also have the these other extremes where you just need a bit a bit of a break and that's where we really need to consider this constructive space time so when I joined elastic obviously when I was applying they sent through the source code to me and one of the things I found really important was the idea of SpaceTime in order to give me the breathing space I need to think and this applies very well to this social battery situation the fact of the matter is that sometimes you will need to engage in social activity so chatting to colleagues on slack when you're at home and it's quiet and you just need to talk to somebody or even arranging a quick virtual coffee or if you've got the luxury of a local Wei worker in office go off and do that get that social energy recharge yourself that way but the opposing extreme is if you don't want that social experience take the space time to go off and breathe if it's in the middle of a conference that's a okay that's where things like Booth break should come in it's also important to try and make sure that we have spaces where people can hop off and have some quiet time such as kind of Corners with chairs Etc but you know what ultimately this all boils down to what Jerry Springer said in order to really perform we need to look after ourselves within Deval and also the community of developers that we ultimately work with so I've spoken about the dev battery sorry I've talking about social battery today how it relates to developer relations talked about some of the tools we have that can make adaptions for and also the importance of SpaceTime thank you very much for [Applause] listening, Respecting the Social Battery in DevRel, Dev Rel, 01hp21sdqwgwgh9ccvqpnav329.