The Google Developer Experts is a thoroughly useless program (except for Google, of course). The people in the program are great enough without this nugatory marketing scheme. They dazzle you with flights to events etc which does not happen for most GDEs.
I never gave GDE much thought as you just don’t become a sellout to boost a for-profit company’s influence for free. A company that indoctrinates you into believing you are doing pro-bono work for the community. When a great friend proposed that I apply for the GDE program, I considered the request and invested one week to build a case for it. I was trying to lay down footholds to support my decision that it was indeed worth it. But sadly enough, I could not find in the GDE members’ own experiences, grounds to support my decision.
GDE is like freemasonry. You cannot apply, a member must contact you. This should tip people that something strange is afoot. You can have high standards, but, let the doors open. It’s a way for them to also identify their best fishermen and target them more.
Another thing is that they also look for influence within the community. In addition to technical expertise, you need to be already speaking at events, publishing content, mentoring, and advising others. They need to ensure that you will be able to pump down Google’s marketing through enough throats; hooks, sinks, and lines. And oh, if you don’t qualify yearly, you’ll have your fisherman license removed.
In sum, you need to be already great to be part of a program that uses you to promote its products and services and give you access to relevant events and resources for you to be able to do your job better. It also gives you exclusive access to other fishermen so that you can fish better.
It is your responsibility as a developer to prevent initiatives like the GDE from wrapping people up. We must allow all companies to be the corporate-as-community entity. Since we cannot, we must give the privilege to none. The community is the community. Sure Google can have a community of its own experts. But, the GDE program also includes OpenSource and machine learning for example even if they don’t have a direct link to specific Google products.
We do need corporations but as community sponsors. Not that the corporation becomes the community. GDE is not like Microsoft’s MVP program where you are recognized for your work in relation to the company’s products. This one tries to pass Google as a community evaluator with a title branded under its own banner, not even a community-focused title.
We don’t need Google, the privacy freak’s validation to be expert developers. And we need to keep Google and its fake tech-agnostic sugar-coated goodwill at bay. We must purge the community from economic foxes and keep the community spirit untainted. You can be great without Google and noble if you refuse to be corrupted and tempted by its economic lures.
Long live hashtag#opensource and may mountebanks marketing always foil!