Lots of companies want a community. Few understand what that actually means. Too often it becomes a Slack workspace, a newsletter and a set of engagement metrics, managed like any other marketing channel.

Communities don't work like that. They're built on trust, on giving before asking, and on people feeling they own something, not that they're being targeted.

I've spent much of my career on both sides: as a developer in communities, and helping build them from scratch, from user groups and online spaces to conferences. In this talk I'll share what it actually takes. Why developer advocacy has to be grounded in being useful and honest, how to align community work with company strategy without killing it, how to measure what matters without turning people into numbers, and the mistakes that keep repeating across the industry.