Become a Zone Leader and Get Recognized

Become a leader in the new DZone Network, and you'll have a great opportunity to get recognized by developers around the world. It's a fun, easy role that is specifically contoured to fit into your already slammed schedule, and the benefits are considerable. Read on to learn more...

DZone's Network is growing

DZone is launching a new group of websites that focus on a wide range of developer topics including Ajax, Ruby, PHP, Java, Groovy, .NET, ColdFusion, SQL, Rich Internet Apps, SOA, Usability and much more. These sites will work in conjunction with our DZone.com social bookmarking service to provide reliable, professional resources that satisfy the multifaceted information needs of real-world developers. Our new “zones” will leverage the fast growth and extensive reach of DZone.com to provide outstanding visibility for their content, and content in any particular zone can be easily shared into other zones when appropriate. The underlying zone community infrastructure will provide support for many types of content, including resource-intensive materials like video, screencasts, image galleries and podcasts.

Actively seeking Zone Leaders

We are now seeking passionate, articulate, well-informed individuals to serve as “Zone Leaders” and help shape these new zones into world-class communities that developers can trust and depend on. Zone Leaders will be the leading voices of these zone communities, and they will have prominent, high-visibility positions of status within their zones. The role is ideal for someone who already has a personal blog and regularly covers developer-focused topics.

What's in it for you?

Most Zone Leaders receive a modest monthly honorarium (nobody will be retiring on this), and ALL Zone Leaders will have prominent status, privileges, and visibility on their zones - usually on every page. Additionally, as a Zone Leader you become part of the team behind the world's fastest-growing developer network in a way that will enhance your personal reputation and opportunities. Finally, although it's just for fun, we are also implementing a Zone Leader "schwag" program where we will produce and send out t-shirts, jackets and other chotzkies. So, it's a combination of prominent status, schwag, and in most cases, cash consideration. Everyone involved so far is having a lot of fun. You will, too!

Zone Leader role and your personal blog

We have designed the Zone Leader role to work well for people who are already active bloggers, and DZone encourages Zone Leaders to post the same content into their zones and into their own personal blogs. This "double-dip" approach lightens the burden of being a Zone Leader and helps ensure that the personal blogs are not disrupted. Additionally, the content will reach a broader audience through DZone Network distribution, and thus it will help grow the status and influence of the Zone Leader. It is a win-win situation that lets the Zone Leader enjoy the best of both worlds: community and personal blog.

Leading means more than merely blogging

Zone Leader means more, however, than merely being a blogger on DZone. We also expect Zone Leaders to be ambassadors who use their privileged positions to lead and manage their zones fairly, recruit others to contribute articles and presentations, and shape the tone of the community by setting a first-class example. Zone Leaders will have a broad set of administrative and moderation privileges that allow them to edit or delete zone content, warn and ban inappropriate users, and reward users whose participation they consider valuable with status and privilege. Being a Zone Leader means being an active part of the leadership team that manages the zone communities, even occasionally having to function as referee or peacekeeper when things get out of hand.

So, what are you waiting for?

If you feel that being a Zone Leader is a good role for you, then let's talk. You can call Rick Ross at +1.919.678-0300 ext. 104, send me a note, or IM "rick@dzone.com" on AIM/MSN/Jabber, and we'll take it from there.