I got on Skype with Craig Kerstiens, who I met at Heavybit's DevGuild event back in February.
We talk about evangelism at scale, how to setup a program, organizational design, the history of evangelism and a lot more. I kinda dragged the convo off course we nerded out on certain things I've been studying, I hope you find it entertaining.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
I got on Skype with Andrew Mager, formerly of Spotify and currently developer advocate at SmartThings.
We talk about the route to evangelism, living in different cities, ambassador programs, and what exactly is the difference between an advocate, evangelist, and dev relations.
He has good taste in music and books - you should follow him on Twitter.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
]]>I got on Skype with Jon Gottfried, founder of MLH and previously Twilio Evangelist.
He has a unique background, as a history major and then evangelist at Twilio, then founder of one of the fastest growing hackathon organizations in the world.
We talk about HackCon and what it takes to be an evangelist, beyond just code and social skills. Listen in.
If you haven't already, you should watch his Youtube video about the history of hackathons -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr6VPAe9CKU
Listen on Soundcloud -->
]]>I got on Skype with Rob Spectre, master of Carnivals and head of Evangelism at Twilio. He's spoken multiple times at HackCon, which is how I know him.
We talk about hackathons, how Twilio inspires and equips developers to change the world, Signal conf, and other great evangelists. It's an amazing episode with one of the OGs of evangelism. Listen and learn!
BTW - That pic is of him emcee'ing Twilio's $bash party at Fort Mason in San Francisco. That party was an unforgettable experience, but in true evangelism form I was so drunk I can't remember all of it.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
I got on Skype with Katherine Hague, founder of Shoplocker (acquired by PCH international). It was a great interview where we talk about content marketing, organizing events, travel, and more.
She talks at length about a site called The Blueprint, which is a mobile responsive interview series with founders of Hardware Companies. You should definitely do something similar in any business that you start.
You can find her on Twitter and PCH has an event coming to a city near you.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
]]>The audio quality on this one is really dicey.
I chat with Evan from Teespring, Eric from Scalable Press, and Trent from MindbodyOnline. They are sponsors of MakeHacks, which is a shipathon, a hackathon for shipping your zombie projects you've been meaning to get around to.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
This is a live in person interview. Very much 'inside baseball' about developer evangelism. Please excuse the delay in publishing - it was in an editing logjam since Feb 2015. We recorded it immediately after HackCon II, a hackathon organizer conference.
Jon Gottfried is a Twilio evangelist turned Major League Hacking cofounder, Cassidy works at Venmo, and Randall heads up AWS's evangelism efforts.
Listen here -->
Shownotes... someday!
We recorded an audio recap of John's trip to DevGuild. DevGuild is the only event I know of focused solely on Developer Evangelism.
In this 24 min audio segment we bring you a review of the event, describing what it was like to be an attendee. I also get on my soapbox and answer producer Dan's questions about issues like these:
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
More details:
About 150 people attended, and I caught up with former guests like Tim Falls, Matt Haines, Neil Mansilla, and Ossama Alami at the reception. I new people, including Craig Kerstiens of Heroku (his interview will be posted soon)!
Please leave a comment if you enjoyed the show, and drop off any other questions I may not have covered :)
]]>I got on Skype with Nick for SH's longest interview ever.
This is a must listen if you are just setting up an evangelism program or want insight into how SendGrid did it. There is so much to talk about - his background at SendGrid, perspective on how to measure evangelism, insights into the hacker community, and how he got involved in MLH, and musings on HackCon.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
Shownotes coming soon!
I got on Skype with Karan, who is one of the organizers of DubHacks. So far they are the largest event in the Pacific Northwest (home of Amazon, MSFT, and many other tech co's). They are affiliated with University of Washington.
I met Karan after he spoke at HackCon about mini-events. We have a good chat about his personal content initiatives and what they did differently with DubHacks. You'll enjoy this episode.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
Shownotes coming soon!
]]>I got on Skype with James Nocentini, who is an Evangelist for Couchbase. Couchbase is a NoSQL database company with presence in the Bay Area and in the EU/UK. Unlike many of our evangelists he is based in London. Please tweet him to congratulate him on his first successful podcast interview :).
Props to James for introducing me to The Internet History podcast - http://www.internethistorypodcast.com/
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
Shownotes - coming soon!
]]>I got on Skype with Eddie Zaneski of SendGrid to talk evangelist and the collegiate hackathon scene. Like a few of our other guests, he lives in Brooklyn. You'll enjoy this interview - SendGrid is one of the pioneers in modern dev evangelism and Eddie is awesome.
Fun fact - Eddie's social media profiles are among the first my team (inside the walls of a tech accelerator near UCLA) discovered when we first started exploring the hackathon scene back in summer 2013.
Listen here on Soundcloud:
Shownotes coming soon!
]]>I got on Skype with Julian who is an evangelist (and senior developer) at Gem, a blockchain startup in Venice Beach California. I feel proud to be featuring a startup from my hometown of West LA on the program.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
Shownotes coming soon!
]]>I got on Skype with Christian Jensen from Sinch. I think you'll enjoy this episode if you a spinout from a bigger company or you're launching a product with the support/resources of a larger organization.
Christian is originally from Sweden and worked at Rebtel, which spun out Sinch as a communication platform with an SDK. You may not be familiar with Rebtel, but their technology has existed for years in Stockholm as a powerful way for expats to call home to their country of origin. Sinch is bi-national and has an office in San Francisco.
Christian's approach to dev evangelism is a bit different than normal given his background and goals for Sinch. In case you are wondering how Sinch stacks up to Twilio, another popular communications platform, we had a good discussion of where their technology differs from Twilio.
Listen to the Episode here -->
Shownotes - coming soon!
]]>This episode is special because we get to hear exactly why one of the largest and most well known hackathons got its start in the first place. I got on Skype with Alexey Komissarouk, founding organizer of PennApps, which was first thrown back in September 2010.
Our conversation focuses on the the genesis of the event and what it was like to be a hackathon organizer before it was cool. We cover how he raised his first sponsorship dollars. We talk about how a desire by Penn CS students to apply skills learned in the classroom prompted the event. Finally, we speculate about why collegiate hackathons took off on the East coast prior to becoming popular on the West coast.
I hope you enjoy it. Please leave a comment here on Posthaven, or tweet me @jnconkle with thoughts and feedback.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
Shownotes coming soon!
]]>Welcome, new listeners!
This is a special edition of the show which will be useful for anyone who has an interest in sponsoring hackathons.
Producer Daniel turns the tables and interviews me about my experience at HackCon, an exclusive event for hackathon organizers. The result is an executive summary which focuses on the bits that matter for sponsors. In the next 36 minutes, you can expect insights and takeaways from the most interesting talks & breakout sessions.
I flew 3000 miles from California to Brooklyn and spent 2 days learning and networking to bring you this information.
Thanks for listening, and if you have an interest in hackathons as a developer evangelism or recruiting channel, please email me at john@stacked.events or tweet me twitter.com/jnconkle to say hi :).
HackCon is put on by Major League Hacking. If you don't already know MLH, they are like the NCAA of college hackathons, they sanction hundreds of events in the USA, plus a few in Canada, Mexico, the UK, the EU, and Asia. Attending HackCon were 230 organizers, 8 sponsors including Twilio and Thiel Capital, as well as the entire MLH team.
Today is a special episode, a mini-dive into the idea of the future and what education will look like in years to come.
Regular listeners know that I ask each of my guests where they think the future of education is headed. It's an important and fascinating question which will affect us all. I want to dive more deeply into that question, because I feel that hackathons have a place.
I happened to meet the perfect guest while he was visiting Los Angeles and I invited him on the program. Blake Masters is the co-author of a #1 NYT Best-seller Zero to One, which he wrote with Peter Thiel. Blake got his start as an author by posting notes from Peter Thiel's class at Stanford called "Startup", CS 183. You may know Thiel as founder of Paypal and early investor in Facebook, Lyft, Stripe, Spotify, and Space-X.
After getting to know Peter better, Blake now works with him in various ventures. Thiel and Masters run the Thiel Fellowship, a program that awards grants to 20 students under 20 years old to leave school and build an ambitious project of their choice instead. And because of that, I'm very curious what he has to say about the future of education.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
Shownotes coming soon!
]]>I got on Skype with Craig Cannon, who is a co-founder of Cultivated Wit, the people who bring you Comedy Hack Day (CHD). His background is fascinating, including a stint at the Onion. He now lives in the Bay Area.
I first heard about CHD in a discussion with MLH co-founder Jon Gottfried, who said it was a highlight. That made me take notice, and I decided to attend in late 2014. I describe that experience in a previous episode (http://hackathon.posthaven.com/comedy-hack-day-native-advertising-sponsorship) Part of what makes CHD so special is that it's seamless - every aspect of the show was carefully produced, from entering the parking lot to the final demos.
Listen here -->
https://soundcloud.com/hackathonmaven/craig-cannon-cultivated-wit-comedy-hack-day
[Shownotes coming soon]
]]>I got on Skype with Cassidy Williams on another guest's recommendation. I was blown away by her enthusiasm for Venmo and personal journey. She made the leap from being unaware that students should do internships at tech companies to hopping around to a hackathon every weekend. She's landed in NYC as Venmo's evangelist and worked at events like PayPal's (parent of Braintree/Venmo) Battlehack.
I felt during this interview that the game has slowed down and I have levelled up as an interviewer. Let me know what you think - I'm @jnconkle on twitter.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
[Shownotes coming soon!]
]]>I chatted on Skype with Matt Dierker, who is on the organizing team of Hack Illinois. It's a prominent college hackathon which for the time being is unaffiliated with Major League Hacking. Illinois Urbana-Champaigne has notable alumni, including Marc Andreesen, and a large engineering program. Matt organized a complex structure for the Hack Illinois organizing team, and has previously interned at Facebook, Google, and Dropbox.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
[Shownotes coming soon!]
]]>I got on the phone with Rex St John, who is a Seattle-based evangelist for Intel Mashery. He spends a lot of time working on the Intel Edison, but Mashery also accounts for a big stable of API's including Beats Music and Klout. We talk about the distinction between public and private API's, developer experience, and touch on the future of hardware hacking at events.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
[Shownotes coming soon!]
]]>I got on Skype with Tyler Nappy of Mailjet to talk about transactional email, the evangelism scene in New York City, and being a TechStars alum. I met Tyler at HackCC in Santa Monica, a where I worked as a pinch hitter for their sponsorship team. Mailjet is a transactional email service which has a strong presence and financial backers in Europe.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
[Shownotes coming soon!]
]]>Via Mike Swift's referral, I got on Skype with Randall Hunt, who is an Evangelist at Amazon Web Services, based in New York City. I felt that this conversation was a turning point, because in our pre-show warmup he mentioned he'd listened to my entire back catalog of shows to prepare. Imagine how inspiring it was to get confirmation that my work is delivering value to someone who has been in the game for a while. Anyway, we talk at length about the evangelism scene, HackNY fellowship, and what it was like to intern at NASA. Plus, we chat about AWS products and how to be a friend to hackers.
Listen on Soundcloud -->
[Shownotes coming soon!]
]]>I got on a call with Mike Stowe of Mulesoft to talk about how they connect API's using an open source solution. He actually picked up programming without any formal CS education (he originally studied to be a nurse), relying entirely on the generosity and power of community - now he wants to pay it forward through his evangelism.
Listen on Soundcloud -->
[Shownotes coming soon!]
]]>I skyped with Nicolai Safai, an evangelist for MakeSchool. MakeSchool is a practical education curriculum for software developers and startup founders. MakeSchool is a YC Alumni company and is based in SoMA (they share an office with Apportable). They offer a summer program and now yearlong courses. Nicolai actually studied Neuroscience at UC Santa Barbara, but made the switch to tech via his long-time friendship with MakeSchool founder Jeremy Rossman.
Listen on Soundcloud -->
[Shownotes coming soon!]
]]>On Mike Swift's recommendation, I got on the phone with Ricky Robinett, evangelist from the communications powerhouse Twilio. Ricky is interesting to me because he has a somewhat unconventional evangelism game - his side projects have a way of grabbing attention.
Listen on Soundcloud -->
https://soundcloud.com/hackathonmaven/twilio-ricky-robinett
[Shownotes coming soon!]
]]>I got on the phone (for the second time!) with Neal Shyam of Challengepost to talk about the hackathon game. Neal has an interesting perspective because Challengepost is a platform to power any sort of developer challenge - in person at hackathons, or online as a longer form competition. Brands like McDonalds and Coke have used the service, and many hackathons organziers lean on it as an event webpage. It preserves submissions, several hundred thousand projects are indexed currently.
Listen on Soundcloud -->
Interview flow:
0:00 Brief overview of Neal's background
Mechanical Engineer at CMU
worked on engines at caterpillar
ended up in B school at NYU
0:48 - Brief overview of your ChallengePost
CP started as a competition platform
focused on building a community around hackers
CP is place for software developers and designers to show off their stuff
it powers registration, submissions, judging, sharing
Looking at CP’s data, you can check out each hackathon’s different set of sponsors - you can see the trends
2:45 - What does a dev evangelist do?
Evangelist’s main job is to keep hackers engaged
if they run into problems get them the help they need
regardless of your event’s location CP can help
4:18 - CP is a meta tool, what are unique challenges you have faced?
Civic Challenges are an interesting thing Neal has done work on that most evangelists never get into
Appquest is an example - ATT + NYC MTA
5:10 - What did you work on before you became a dev evangelist?
Got the opportunity to open - started up a plant in mexico
worked in adtech before as well
billboards are heavily regulated depending on the city you are in - LA they are prevalent, Seattle they are almost nonexistant and highly regulated
6:40 - How long has CP been running your Dev Evangelism program
have been operating for 5 years
about 2 years ago CP got involved in the hackathon scene
7:10 - what surprised you as part of this role?
Never expected to use facebook professionally was surprising
JNC’s interview with Dave Fontenot, learned about how to use FB for business
Hackathon Hackers FB group is a good resource
An Evangelist’s duty is to go where the community is
you have to be smart about which groups you are in and managing your notifications
PennApps project - tool to moderate the facebook feed - could not find in CP archives - please tweet me if you are familiar
10:44 - What is an API or product (not your own) that you love?
Textwrangler - does 80% of copywriting there
Cooking is a good metaphor for simplicity to other projects - instead of getting 100 tools, just get a good knife and a good pan.
Atom or Sublimetext for coding
Dev Evangelists need to be good writers - Neal does many copywriting projects - blog posts, wrap ups, marketing for a challenge, newsletters, etc
Evangelists can recycle your old content, link back to your old stuff - your new audience will never be the wiser - “evergreen content”
BufferApp is a good way to schedule posts
15:29 - What is your favorite hackathon format?
Competitive - pitch for big prizes (Salesforce, Disrupt, AT&T)
Collaborative - science fair expos, finalists demo (MLH)
Themed - (Space Apps, Comedy Hack Day)
what’s interesting about corporate hackathons
For evangelists corporate hackathon is almost the ultimate event
you can open the kimono very effectively
Westfield Malls did one in conjunction with Decoded for fashion tech
To do a good corporate hackathon, you need IP, problem statement, etc to be on point
Vooza spoof - contrary to what a lot of biz people think, hackathons are actually a lot of work
When leadership of a company is there, best results
19:05 - Tell me about a great event you’ve been to in the past year
it was different - a bit more than just a hackathon - it had more of a festival vibe
had a badge challenge - (similar to defcon badge challenge)
lounges - 3-4 different ones
darkroom - for sleeping :)
mini challenges by sponsors
just a solid mid-sized hackathon
23:20 - Throw a hackathon vs sponsor one - Which choice is better for a company who wants to get involved?
best thing is to sponsor one that’s organized by someone else - you should aim to be an incredible sponsor
put a lot of boots on the ground - be visible -
try to do a killer API session - optimize the developer experience -
soft tshirts are clutch :)
help regardless of the product - even if they aren’t using your stuff
26:10 - Throwing your own hackathon
do not outsource a hackathon!! - don’t get an intern to run it or bring someone in
Are you really ready to throw one? If you are …
hackathon.posthaven.com podcast is also :)
27:40 - Do you think hackathons will play a role in the future of education?
they are self directed - will be a great learning tool for students who have the internal motivation
opt-in at this point in the hackathon lifecycle
recognition and prizes - reward as many people as you can, versus rewarding a few high performers
hackathon seems to be a supplement to education, not a replacement
power of a hackathon is that it lets you quickly discover your strs, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, and to ship!
educators can absolutely use the hackathon model to supplement curriculum - you can’t force it, though
since they are viral, you need to be open to newbs and support learning
33:30 - Anything (product, API, idea) you want to plug?
Go to ChallengePost and create the portfolio - everyone wants to know what you are hacking on - gives you practice about talking about what you are doing
If you want to learn about an open source project - GitAtMe
PennApps winner which moderates FB comment spam - http://challengepost.com/software/mark-sweep
34:55 - Is there anything I forgot to ask that I should have?
Have seen a lot of accessibility related products - sign language, music, interpreters, etc - blurred lines between online and offline - this will continue to be a trend
@nealrs on twitter
GitHub and Challengepost
I got on Skype with Dennis Li of HackDuke, who now works at Coursera, a leading edtech company. He founded HackDuke, which has the theme of "Code For Good." They take the emphasis away from prizes and onto creating innovations with a social impact. He is not quite a developer evangelist, but he does represent Coursera at hackathons now that he works in Silicon Valley.
Listen on Soundcloud -->
[Shownotes coming soon!]
]]>I got on Skype for an interview with Mike Swift. Most people call him Swift. His background is as a Developer Evangelist, a HackNY fellow, Sendgrid and Rutgers alum. He got into evangelism before founding Major League Hacking with Twilio Evangelist Jon Gottfried in early 2013 - it now spans 3 continents. I'll be catching up with him in NYC at HackCon 2015, continuing my streak (also attended back in Feb 2014).
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
[Shownotes coming soon!]
]]>I spoke with Sebastian Park from Namecheap/NC.me about his background in Evangelism. NC.me is a program where student hackers can claim a free domain name to use as part of their side projects, while Namecheap itself is a domain registrar at massive scale. We had a rapport and I enjoyed the conversation.
Listen here on Soundcloud -->
[Shownotes coming soon!]
]]>