Evangelism
explained
Christian Heilmann, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 06/11/2008 (Yahoo Internal)

I’m Chris.
Hello I am Chris

I live in London, England

But originally I am German

Doesn’t matter though, both
countries keep losing against
you playing football...

Anyways...

Developer Evangelism

Sounds like not working,
right?

Far from it.

As a developer evangelist you
are first and foremost a
translator.

Tech Colleagues
The Business
Evangelist
The Outside world

You are lucky if the business
understands that as an
evangelist you need your
freedom.

You are also lucky if the
business doesn’t have any
short-term agendas.

Your colleagues are very
much needed...

...as they keep you rooted in
the now and the reality of the
company.

They can also be bad for the
cause as they have to suffer a
lot more day-to-day
frustrations than you do.

Your job is to find the middle
ground of these frustrated
voices and the business
message.

This is where the truth lies.

First and foremost you need
to be an independent voice.

Keep your eyes open all the
time and follow what is
happening on the web.

If a startup or a competitor of
your company does
something cool...

...you should know about it.

Don’t barge into the
developer “scene” trying to
sell only your company’s
solutions.

No matter how
cool they seem
at the time.

Instead show them as an
offering, a system that works
well with others...

...making everybody’s life
easier and our jobs less of a
hassle.

This is very important right
now as if you don’t work
efficiently...

...you might become
redundant.

Which brings me to another,
very important asset of
successful evangelists.

Don’t bring your own
agenda...

... instead know what
problems the people you talk
to have.

I’ve had quite a hard time in
my career to get my bosses to
sponsor me a ticket to go to
conferences...

...or even leave the office and
talk to other companies and
developers.

Which meant that when I
finally went to one...

...I made sure I
got my money’s
worth.

Whenever you talk to people
about your products and
services...

...make sure people can take
something back to impress
their bosses with.

Which means that you need
to do your homework and
find out what people want
from you.

You show different products
to a design agency that you
would to a Python crowd.

Talking about geeks...

Coming from a large
international company may
be a benefit...

...but only when you use it
right.

Deep down every geek sees
every large corporation as
evil and replaceable by a
small server script.

I thought that.

Now I know that these
corporations are made up by
geeks like you and me.

Photo of Pete LePage of
Microsoft and Peter-Paul Koch of
Quirksmode.org drinking at The
Ajax Experience in Boston
Not the Antichrist
Not a hairpiece

And our job is to get the
world to at least hear about
these geeks...

...if not meet them in the
flesh.

Which is why we should not
only be present at developer
events...

...but also open ourselves to
geeks and invite them to
come to us for some informal
(yes, beers) events.

As a developer you need to
be visible to get your
concerns heard.

You might be the best
deliverer out there but if you
really want things to
change...

...you also need to tell people
about what you do and how
you succeed in being
efficient.

If you share your knowledge,
you are less of a risk.

You should work for the
company, for yourself and for
the next developer taking
over from you.

By sharing information
internally you make sure that
developers can have a real
life and get sick without
stalling projects.

You also allow for developers
to move around from project
to project, thus preventing
boredom and elitism.

Sharing information
internally is an absolute
necessity to have a successful
team.

However, to get the full
picture you also need to
validate your ideas with the
outside world.

The same applies to big
companies.

We could be arrogant enough
to say we know what people
need.

But in essence we know jack
until we can get it confirmed
from outside our echo
chamber.

And that is what we are doing
with our evangelising.

Evangelising means that we
prove and improve our
products and assumptions.

Business
Evangelist
Internal
Developers

Evangelist
World
Evangelist
Internal
Business
Developers

So how can we get the
message out there?

Well, first of all by using the
internet.

Set up a local mailing list that
people can subscribe to.

Have a blog that explains
techniques and solutions built
in the company.

A good example is the
Filament group blog.
http://filamentgroup.com/lab

I found this via a bookmark
on del.icio.us...

...that made it to hotlinks...
http://dev.upian.com/hotlinks/

...which I have subscribed to
in Google reader...

...which meant a friend of
mine found it through my
shared items...

...who lives next door to them
and didn’t know them!

The web is a web of linked
systems.

Not a billboard.

Instead of just
building
something
and hoping
that people
come...

...be present where people
already hang out.

Have a twitter bot telling
people about things that
happen.

Use social bookmarking,
photo sharing sites and social
networks.

Then you will reach much
more people and point them
to your resources.

They in turn will tell their
friends and contacts.

And word of mouth from
people I trust is much more
powerful than a corporate
message.

Whatever you do, wherever
you show up...

Be very
responsive.
Establish
yourself as a
“way in”.

So what do *we* have to
offer you can talk about?

It all starts at
http://developer.yahoo.com

Designers can benefit from
our design patterns:
http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/

The YUI is an amazing
framework to build web sites
with (CSS, JavaScript,
Widgets)
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/

Our APIs give access to all our
data:
http://developer.yahoo.com/everything.html

In various handy formats and
now even accessible with a
SQL-style syntax:
http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/

Using the Yahoo Application
Platform, people can develop
applications running on
Yahoo! sites:
http://developer.yahoo.com/yap/

The performance team
assembled an amazing array
of cool tools and information
how to make web sites
lightning fast:
http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/

There is great information on
server security and attack
vectors on the web:
http://developer.yahoo.com/security/

And for people who want to
mash up data in a nice, visual
way, there’s Yahoo! Pipes
http://pipes.yahoo.com/

There are several systems to
use to authenticate users for
your apps with our help:
http://developer.yahoo.com/auth/
http://developer.yahoo.com/oauth/

Lots of stuff to talk about and
package up in an easy to
understand way.

Why not have a go at it?

Obrigado!
Christian Heilmann | http://wait-till-i.com | twitter: codepo8