Investing in the heart Of Google Cloud, our developer and customer communities

Announcing new investments in Google Cloud developer and customer communities

Helping developers be their best is core to Google Cloud’s mission. Our developer and IT admin communities serve inspiring roles in the complex cloud ecosystem by helping their users adopt new technologies and solve challenging business problems. Our job is to support these technical communities wherever they are, by making their jobs easier and encouraging them to push the boundaries of their imaginations.

Today, we are thrilled to announce investments in two new communities. First, is the launch of the Google Cloud Community, a new discussion forum that allows customers, partners, developers, and technical practitioners to ask questions of any type and get help from a global network of peers both inside and outside of Google. Second, we are joining forces with Stack Overflow as a launch partner on their new Collectives product, which helps developers find trusted answers faster, access new Google product information all in a single place, and earn additional recognition for their contributions.

Both communities will serve to enhance creativity, foster greater collaboration, and contribute to the overall success of our developer community and our valued customer base. These investments reflect the energy and excitement we have for our Google developer community at large.

Announcing the Google Cloud Community

Over the past year, we’ve seen developers increasingly connect digitally to share knowledge, learn from one another, and solve problems together. To provide a hub for those interactions and provide new connectivity to Googlers, we are introducing the Google Cloud Community.

Supplementing Google Cloud’s docs, tutorials, and hands-on training, the Google Cloud Community discussion forums allow people to ask questions and get help from a global community of peers, or give back to the community by sharing what they know. 

Googlers are excited to collaborate with this community to gather direct input that can inform our product roadmaps and create a feedback loop around our products and services:

Key Google Cloud Community experiences include:

• Product discussion forums: Join peer-to-peer discussions around products you use every day.

• Community blogs: Read thought leadership and technical content from Googlers and customers, as well as community member interviews. Be in the know on upcoming community learning opportunities, industry trends, best practices, and events. 

• Ideation and UX research: Help drive product enhancements and innovation through member-sourced ideas and research participation opportunities. 

• Collaborative learning: Find the right certification path, join cohort-based learning groups, and connect with mentors. 

• Community events: Participate in virtual or in-person meetups and events. Engage directly with Google product managers and experts with “Queue the Questions,” an opportunity to ask questions about Google’s products and technical topics. 

To consolidate and simplify our experiences, the Google Cloud Community brings together discussion forums and groups for Google Cloud and Google Workspace,  the Apigee Community, and Cloud Connect Community. Plans are forming to incorporate many other relevant Google Groups over the next year.

Get started with the Google Cloud Community:

1. Register and create a profile at googlecloudcommunity.com.

2. Find a product discussion hub that interests you. Start commenting and join the discussion and subscribe to stay up to date.

3. Participate in our first ever Community Learning Game to elevate your BigQuery Skills and earn rewards.

Google Cloud and Go Announce a New Partnership with Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Since the earliest days of both Google Cloud and Google’s Go programming language, Stack Overflow has been an invaluable developer resource. For the past five years, the Go User Survey consistently identified Stack Overflow as the #1 place to find answers to Go questions.

As the launch partner for Stack Overflow’s Collectives, Google is fostering and empowering the largest independent developer community to build faster and push the limits of both Google Cloud and the Go programming language. This investment further underscores Google’s commitment to supporting open source projects and communities.

Through Collectives, users of Stack Overflow will see heightened participation from both the Google Cloud and Go Language teams. We will be sharing knowledge, engaging with developers over questions or feedback, and recognizing those who most actively contribute to the Stack Overflow discussions around our technologies.

Key Stack Overflow Collectives experiences include:

• Find trusted answers faster: See answers recommended by Google or provided by Recognized Members (Google employees and other Stack Overflow users who we recognize as subject matter experts on Google technologies). Recognized Members will have badges identifying them when they post a question, provide an answer, or write an article.

• Get product information all in one place: Browse content relevant to Google Cloud and Go in a centralized place within the Collective. There you can also find links to our website, support channel and code hosting and social media accounts.

• Explore new content formats: Stay up-to-date on our technologies and find more in-depth product information with articles, long-form content like how-to guides and announcements that can be found on our Collectives page.

• Earn recognition: Get rewarded by Google for your contributions to the community. There is a leaderboard you can access via our Collectives page (see the “Members” tab) that will help us identify top contributors who we can designate as Recognized Members.

Get started with Stack Overflow Collectives:

1. Join the Stack Overflow Collective for Google Cloud [https://stackoverflow.com/collectives/google-cloud] and/or the Collective for Google’s Go Language [https://stackoverflow.com/collectives/go].

2. Participate and share your expertise with other developers building with our technologies.

Thank you to all of our Google Cloud Developers for inspiring us with your ideas, projects, and creative solutions. We look forward to more investments in giving you the very best experiences with Google Cloud and seeing all of the incredible contributions you’ll make across the industry in the future! 

Special thanks to Steve Francia, Strategy & Product Lead: Go Language & Ecosystem for contributing to this blog post.