Notes from Christian Heilmann’s Developer Evangelism handbook

• The Developer Evangelist Handbook
  • “If you are a clever company you also open your products to third party developers and release interfaces to the world” – http://developer-evangelism.com/handbook.php#defining
  • “If something new comes out of your company that should get out to developers take it and access it like an outside developer would. Develop something with it, then document what you have developed and then start writing how you build the thing – and voilà – you’ve got half an article or presentation already finished.” – http://developer-evangelism.com/handbook.php#mindset
  • common niches of evangelism: “Writing code tutorials, Blogging, Public speaking, Training, Social web coverage” – http://developer-evangelism.com/handbook.php#role

• remove the brand
  • “As a developer evangelist you have to keep your independence.”
  • “Your independence and your integrity is your main weapon. If you lost it you are not effective any longer. People should get excited about what you do because they trust your judgment – not because you work for a certain company.”
  • ways to work w/ the competition: “Remain an independent voice”, “Become a specialist in a certain underlying technology”, “Keep your finger on the pulse” – http://developer-evangelism.com/brand-and-competition.php#competiton
  • “You can’t be a professional evangelist and bad-mouth the competition at the same time. We all are professionals and work on projects to make the web a better place.” – http://developer-evangelism.com/brand-and-competition.php#respect
  • “Acknowledge when the competition is better”
  • “Know about the competition”

• Work with your own company
  • “Your job as a developer evangelist is to listen to developers, understand their problems and communicate with management to try to sort the issues out.” – http://developer-evangelism.com/internal.php
  • “There is no “off the record”” – http://developer-evangelism.com/internal.php#companychanges
  • “if people ask you what is going on don’t say “no comment” as that implies you know something but are not allowed to say it. Simply state that you are not in a position to know yet but that you are investigating.”