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.
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[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.
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[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.
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[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.
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[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!]