On evangelism

Last November I wrote that an evangelist like Amazon's Jeff Barr is what The Planet (as well as any other traditional web hosting provider) needs to succeed survive. A few weeks ago I was very excited to see that SoftLayer has given my friend Kevin Laude the title of API Evangelist. And yesterday, The Planet announced that it's got an evangelist too (and his first name is also Kevin). Very cool!

Kevin Hazard says he's here to provide corporate transparency. And to "improve the user experience on our corporate site and in our order process." Which are great starting points, but I hope he will take on a much broader role. For instance, he could...

1. Maximize both The Planet's and his own "surface area" through not just blog posts, but also building networks on Linkedin/Facebook/other communities and sharing media on Flickr/YouTube/SlideShare/other services

2. Play an active role in local developer groups (of which there are plenty near The Planet's home base)

3. Attend relevant conferences (some great upcoming opportunities include OSCON, Office 2.0, Web 2.0 Summit... After all, every developer and web app startup needs hosting?)

(BTW, Chris Brogan has a really good post-event follow up guide)

4. Track down and subscribe to as many customer/vendor/partner blogs as possible, and participate actively in these communities

Kevin says an evangelist is someone who listens, but I think Seth Godin has a better job description: it's like "being the head of a big trade association, but without the bureaucracy and tedium". It's about "seducing stragglers into joining the group" and "balancing huge amounts of inbound correspondence without making people feel left out". Which is pretty much what Jeff Barr does. If Kevin wants a fan club (like Jeff has), he will have to measure up!

PS - On a somewhat related note, Rich Miller over at Data Center Knowledge writes that Savvis is marketing its data center tours like rock concerts. Sun's Black Box tour is pretty sexy, too. Check out those crowds in Vienna! Does The Planet's new evangelism program represent a shift away from steep discounts towards more up to date forms of Internet infrastructure marketing? Stay tuned...

Comments

[Jeff Barr]

Wow, thanks for the mentions!

May I suggest a step 5, join the Global Network of Technology Evangelists (http://gnote.ws/).

[Isabel Wang]

Wow - didn't know there's such an organization. Thanks, Jeff!!

[Kevin Laude]

Hi, Isabel! I think Mr. Godin's "seducing stragglers into joining the group" thoughts are right on target. The fun part of the job is convincing that one guy who hates you, your product, or your company so bad that the use of $PRODUCT may actually help them out and that $COMPANY is a good group to do business with. Every company needs someone to spread the word to the world about how cool your product is outside of traditional marketing means.

Jeff, thanks for the link to GNoTE. I'll definately check them out. :)

[Kevin Hazard]

I'll do my best to measure up, Isabel. :-)

I will most certainly get the ball rolling on your suggestions... The first week or two of work is always intense, but as everything settles, I'll be more able to move forward in these other directions.

As far as immediate plans go, we will be pushing out a minor website update today with several design and style improvements, and we will be doing a bit of a facelift on the blog. If you want a sneak-peek, head to www.kevinhazard.com to see the new look before it goes live and let me know what you think.

[Isabel Wang]

Kevin & Kevin,

I think an evangelist should be more concerned with "them" than "us". The #1 goal isn't to articulate your value proposition, or to collect feedback on your company/product/service. It's to understand your constituency.

Because your current and prospective customers are not just "developers", "small business owners" or "online merchants". There are distinct individuals with interesting and often unexpected use cases for web hosting. I think uncovering what role you play in their worlds is more important than convincing them to take part in yours.

As a point of reference, check out this video of Jeff's presentation at Ignite Seattle (http://ignitenight.blip.tv/file/115696/). He was allotted only 5 minutes and spent most of it not on "what we offer" but "what they've built". Because once you hear about what Amazon customers have accomplished, you know that Amazon has added tremendous value without Jeff having to emphasize it.