Being an Evangelist

I just got reminded, that I work now for almost 2 years for Atlassian as an Ambassador. First I was very concerned working for the dark side (the Marketing departement) from a developers view. But it turned out that it’s pretty cool to be a bridge between the 2 worlds. Even though I would love to do more coding I enjoy the job so much! I know that a picture says more than 1,000 words so I created a video with a lot of pictures… what would be worth a 100,000 words. So here is my life the last 2 years in 3 minutes.

I learned a lot the last 2 years, more than I can put in a blog post. But here are some things I discovered to be important.

5 tips for becoming a kick-ass evangelist

1. Create slides that rock

Yes, your presentation style and your message is the most important think for a talk…. but a lot of people look at your slides and watch them later on slideshare. (6,600 developers saw them on a screen, 30,000 on slideshare). I discovered that creating great slides is my thing and I can spend hours working on just the details.

2. Practice, practice practice

…and if you think you are good and are sick of trying your presentation again: It’s time to practice more! Yes it takes one hour to do a total test… but if you speak in front of let’s say 300 people you better be really good prepared and don’t waste 300 developer hours!

3. Prepare your travels

Travelling is sucking your performance. Use time in buses, planes and train stations. I prepare my travel by downloading everything I need to get the job done on my laptop. Internet sucks normally everywhere, but at home or in the office. I normally do translation stuff, blog posts and abstracts for talks during travelling.

4. Make connections

Instead of waiting for the Internet to work at a conference, use the time to talk to people. Hang out in the speakers or attendees lounge, go to the speakers dinner and attend conference parties. I met so many awesome people everywhere I go, it’s amazing. The conference world is small and you will definitely meet people elsewhere. Try not to be shy to talk to your idol…

5. Use the power of social

I was amazed how a message can spread when I wrote my most popular blog post “Don’t use git” (20,000 views in one week). I don’t know which channel was the most successful or which retweet started the domino effect. I just post a new blog on LinkedIn, Xing, Google+, Twitter you name it. And I guess I’m missing also some opportunities, because I’m not aware of them.

Some statistics

Here are some statistisc from the last 2 years:

• I created 28 different slide decks
• I delivered 40 presentations
• I spoke in person in front of 6,600 developers (incl. 2 conference keynotes)
• I reached 4,000 online video views
• and 30,000 on slideshare
• I wrote 3,000 tweets
• I did 115 personal blog posts
• I had 70 flights

Thanks Atlassian for creating my dream job and my kick-ass team for helping me becoming a better ambassador!