The Spider King

The struggle in today’s standards web is that we have a lot of information but no associated context. There are billions of web pages out there from movie reviews to events that cannot be used unless manipulated by brittle screen scraping methods. Today, fragments of HTML represent most of these data items.

But what if we could take these HTML fragments and mark them up in such a way that humans and code could recognize them? That is what Microformats attempts to do.

Microformats.org defines microformats as:

“Designed for humans first and machines second, microformats are a set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards. Instead of throwing away what works today, microformats intend to solve simpler problems first by adapting to current behaviors and usage patterns (e.g. XHTML, blogging).”

For example, I might have my name on this blog represented in HTML as:

<h2>Thomas Lewis<\h2>

I can add the markup to it so that humans understand it and code can identify and work with it:

<address class="vcard"><span class="fn"><h2>Thomas Lewis<\h2></span></address>

This markup defines that my name is a formatted name, I am the creator of the page and using the hCard format. This is a simple microformat and there are many more we can use such as hCalendar, hReview, and hResume. We can also handle link-based and location-based microformats as well. As you can imagine, you can come up with a microformat for any markup object.

Getting Started

I suggest familiarizing yourself with the Microformats site, then go out and immediately purchase John Allsopp’s Book Microformats: Empowering Your Markup for Web 2.0. In his book, he lays out the case for using microformats, then digs into each of them explaining them in a way a designer or developer can understand. He gives examples of websites using microformats and goes into greater detail around case studies on Cork’d (one of my favorite sites) and Yahoo! John does not stop there though, he provides guidelines for building your own microformat and design patterns for building them affectively.

The Problem

So now you may be asking yourself, if this is such a good idea, why am I just reading about it? Or a different question, why don’t I see a lot of microformats all over the place. My opinion is that:

1. There are not a lot of good tools out there to build them easily, especially in mainstream development/design environments. I am not going to point fingers but half the tools out there don’t work as expected (or at all). Also, it would be great to see environments like Expression Web, Visual Studio and Dreamweaver enable us to easily build microformatted content.
2. There are not many applications out there that allow you to manipulate them. There are many toolbars and add-ins for browsers that indicate the existence of a microformatted item, but have limited export capability. It isn’t easy to look up a review on a blog (e.g. mine) and import it into another site with reviews (e.g. Cork’d).

Even though there are adoption issues, microformats are a good thing and its usage will continue to grow and hopefully we will get great tools that will make it easy to create microformatted markup and applications that will allow us to integrate this in interesting ways.

Have you ever gone partying with a mythical Minotaur who is half-man, half-bull? It’s pretty awesome. He gets into all the great taverns, drinks the best mead and sings great songs about battles and yore. You are thinking to yourself “Wow, how cool is it that me and this Minotaur are partying it up?” Then the Minotaur takes out his battle ax and starts lopping off heads while laughing maniacally and then you realize that maybe its better just to be friends on Facebook. You now have some great stories of that night but you are quite perplexed by it all.

My first glass of 2006 The Prisoner was just like that. I remember the first sip saying to myself “Ok, this is different.” Each drink came with a variety of flavors such as tobacco and dark berries. The tannins were fierce (I just opened the bottle) as the Minotaur’s battle ax. But I held on to the ride and as the wine began to open up and breathe (a.k.a. Letting air mix with the wine) for an hour, the tannins subsided and it became smooth and velvety but enough tannin to give it structure.

I have to say, this is definitely a wine I will score highly, but with one caveat. This wine is not meant for those who prefer a very subdued wine like French wines or Rose. This wine is for those who are ready to experiment and “ride with the Minotaur”.

For my wine rack friends, if wine is very tannic (a.k.a. that dry mouth feel), let it air in the bottle or in one of those fancy-pants decanters and you will be surprised that the wine will change. I recommend not doing it with the cheap wines as you may actually lose flavor.

Wine Spectator came out with its Top 100 Wines of 2007 and the 2005 vintage made #17 with a score of 93 (pretty darn good). With the price of $36 dollars, it is now in the range that I expect it to be good and The Prisoner did not let me down.

I consider myself lucky that where I live a nice little Wine Shoppe decided to grace the bastion of suburbia. Since we live on the outskirts of the city, I keep a close eye on any retail space that opens up as any services out this way is a good thing. I go on epic rants when we get “yet another teriyaki place” or a tanning salon, which is of no use to me. Yes, I am selfish that way but I think our retail strategy should be sound and not go to the highest or cheapest bidder. But I digress…

I love this little Wine Shoppe because (1) its prices are reasonable for a small shop and (2) the owner treats me with tons of respect even though I have spiky hair and will wear heavy metal concert shirts on the weekend. She also will not take more than 5 minutes before she shows me either a great new wine she just got in or will have a glass of her latest pouring. With her showing me new things, I trust her guidance. She has turned me on to some great affordable stuff (like Layer Cake Shiraz) and I have liked everything she has chosen so far.

On my last little jaunt, she told me about the 2003 Alma Negra. It is a red wine blend with 60% made of Bonarda and the rest with Malbec. Bonarda is a grape that was typically grown in Piedmont Italy but like boy bands, has fallen out of favor with the scene but looks like Argentina is giving it a second life.

This wine is amazing. The first taste and the finish is great! The black cherry was smooth and not hostile at all. I didn’t let it air much because it didn’t need it. The bottle is almost indestructable with its thickness of the glass. I was really bummed that I was at the bottom of the bottle as this wine really delivered. So here is the official review:

2003 Alma Negra
Price: $20
Location: Argentina
Made of: 60% Bonarda - 40% Malbec
Feeling: Like having a bed with ample comforters to keep you nice and toasty but the air still a little cool on your face and makes you hit snooze on the alarm.
Recommendation: Pick up a bottle now so it doesn’t disappear and drink in the next couple years.

It is amazing as I sit here and write this to see a thick layer of snow outside my window. We are having some pretty insane weather.

Last week I had a birthday and one of my pals at work came into my office with a bottle of wine and said “I saw this and immediately thought of you.” It was a bottle of Tarantas 2003, a Red Wine blend of 70% Tempranillo and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon made from organic grapes. I was intrigued by the label, it was simple with a little twist of devil (much like the Casillero Del Diablo from Concha y Toro). Sidenote - I appreciate wine labels. I know that the sophisticate of wine drinkers say that you should not be swayed by labeling, but I think it is an integral part of the experience. Tempranillo is one of those grape varietals I find that most folks either like it or they don’t. I like the cherry and plum flavors that it brings.

When I took my first sip, I found it very approachable and not overpowering even though I have seen some reviews that say to give it some time to breathe. In fact, as it sat in the glass after 30 minutes, it really lost a lot of its punch and was rather flat. Upon eating a little nibble of food, I found that the wine really began to stand up (much like Italian wines).

So here is my review:

2003 Tarantas Red Wine

Price: $11

Location: Spain

Made of: 70% Tempranillo - 30% Cabernet Sauvignon

Feeling: Like being a tourist wearing a sombrero and having fun, but be sure that you don’t buy the sombrero and take it back home with you.

Recommendation: Buy a bottle while at the store getting groceries and drink while you are eating twice a year.

Friends of the vine, I want you to check out a couple of things:

Wine Library TV. At first I was a little reluctant to watch this as it seemed to be the “Web 2.0″ thing to say you enjoy. Also, I had heard Gary is “a high energy individual” to say the least and those types of folks sort of just make me feel awkward. I have to say I have really changed my mind because Gary really is passionate about wine and making everyone from the “wine racker” to the connoisseur excited and buzzed about wine. I have yet to run into him (although it seems we are always around each other but never get to make the connection - SXSW, wine shows, etc.) but I actually am looking forward to meeting him at some point as he seems like me to really want to bring wine to everyone, not just the Chateau Margaux crowd. He is going to be in Seattle next weekend so hopefully I will run into him. If you are a Twitter fiend, follow him at http://twitter.com/garyvee and prepare for “THE THUNDER!”

Next up, Taste Washington! This is the Washington State big wine show and I have been going every year except one since I moved here. There are all kinds of classes and tastings and fun to be had, but the big event is the Grand Tasting. This is where hundreds of wineries show up and offer tastings of their new wines, old favorites and some emerging varietals. Also, there are a lot of the best restaurants that provide amazing nibbles to pace yourself from all the tastings (shout out to the Purple Wine Bar & Cafe for their appearance this year). I sprung for VIP tickets which allows you to get in earlier without so many folks there so you have an opportunity to talk to the vintners and find out more about some of the smaller wineries in Washington. I really, really, really suggest that if you live in a 100 mile radius of Seattle, that you get tickets to this event. Also, don’t show up late as when the wine is gone, it is gone! I also recommend getting to know some of the smaller wineries. I remember one year of talking to a winery called Vashon Winery. This was a small operation and the gentleman pouring the tastings was more than happy to answer all of my questions. In fact, he was willing to drop off my wine order directly to me or leave it for me at my local wine merchant. Hope to see everyone there, enjoy the wine!

I have spent the last 2 weeks at MIX08 and SXSW. I won’t get into the whole Zuckerberg interview thing as it has been played out. I think the crowd was out of line and it tarnishes our community in the long term.

I was really glad I had the opportunity to attend the Interactive portion of SXSW. Having been involved in MIX08 planning and working on other Microsoft events, I was curious as I had heard a lot of great things about SXSW. There are a ton of blog posts and news about SXSW so I won’t go into gory detail and just give you 2 simple things.

One, the keynote with Frank Warren who discussed his website postsecret.com (NSFW sometimes). This is a site where people can send in anonymous postcards with their secrets. Think of it as an online confessional. He posts 20 every Sunday on the site and it is amazing to read. Some are touching, human, and scary at times; but you get brutal honesty. He spoke how it started as an art project and has grown to something bigger. He shared some of his favorites with compassion and sincerity and included ones that were written by attendees who dropped them in boxes outside the keynote room. There was even a marriage proposal during it! Also, folks got up and asked questions and even shared their secrets. It was great to see something like this after seeing the other side of humanity from the previous day’s keynote.

Two, in the expo there was mimobot, who design designer USB flash drives. My favorite was rayd8 (pictured), but the guy before me bought the last 4GB rayd8! I was bummed! So I am asking my significant other to get me one for my upcoming birthday. They have all kinds of series like Halo, Star Wars and the famous Japanese Domo series. Not only did they give a show discount but also gave you a choice of a “Design Your Own” mimobot or a “Surprise” mimobot. I even saw one 20ish year old woman squeal when she saw them. It was great to see a company take the functional USB flash drive and make it something fun.

I recommend checking out mimobot and postsecret.

Hopefully you already have your ticket to MIX08 as it is SOLD OUT! I have been fortunate to be a part of the “MIX Core Team” since the first MIX conference back in 2006. I started out as a Next Generation Browsing Experience content track owner and today it has been given over to better hands. I now focus on strategy and logistic issues as well as co-owner of The Signal and Show Off with my partner in crime, Mike Swanson. Thought you might like to know some more about the conference.

MIX08 is run by a “volunteer army”. Currently MIX is not someone’s full time job (although it tends to be as we get closer). The MIX Core Team is a group of 10+ folks who drive a lot of what you see from the keynotes to registration. We begin meeting not too long after the last MIX event. There is also another group of 20+ people who are the Virtual Team but still have great amounts of responsibility from The Sandbox to The Pit. Everyone is critical to the success of MIX. This does not include all the product teams, marketing teams, non-Microsoft speakers and more who make the magic happen.

MIX08 has a good Twitter back channel. At the event, we all keep an eye on Twitter. In fact, we have a person whose sole purpose is to be on Twitter during the event. This allows us to see real-time what issues may pop up (”at mix08, social network panel audio is staticky”) and we can help to resolve them quickly. Also, it gives us an idea of what you like and what you don’t like. Make sure to follow http://twitter.com/mix08 and of course we will be checking Tweet Scan. Feel free to follow me as well at http://twitter.com/tommylee.

MIX08 will host its first ever MIX UX, a three-day user experience track that debuts at MIX08 which is dedicated to exploring and evolving the practice of user experience. Some folks have gotten confused thinking you must have a black turtleneck and horn-rimmed glasses to get in. On the contrary, anyone can check it out. I suggest you listen to Episode 9 of The Signal and you will hear a lot about it.

You can have your own session at MIX08. We have Open Space which gives you an opportunity to talk about whatever interests you with a group of folks. You will need to sign up so do it early when you get there.

MIX08 has the official parties (like the Tao party) but you can also find more after-parties. Keep an eye on the social networks and event hubs, but also keep your eyes open during meals, when walking around etc. because some cool companies will probably be handing out invitations.

The MIX08 team mentioned above has an after-party. After the event is done, chairs are put up, stages are disassembled and everyone is beginning to head home, the MIX08 team will have an event of their own to celebrate a great MIX08. The interesting part about this after-party is that only 1 person on the team knows what we will be doing. Last year one of our stops was to see Big Elvis (you should totally go check him out, he was awesome and we had a great time; but show up early as seating is first-come, first serve).

My MIX08 Gambling tips. I hope not to shock you dear reader, but there is gambling in the building we will be at. I am not a hardcore gambler because I have an accountant as my significant other and they demand a good ROI. I have been to Vegas 6 times and I have only lost once (due to not following my rules). I win between $150 and $300 each time. These rules work for me but may not work for you so be warned!

• Only play slots or roulette.
• Don’t play old school slots with the Bars and big number 7’s, play the ones with video screens and some kind of cheesy gimmick like “Faerie Forest”. These tend to have special bonuses where if you get 3 frogs in a row, you then get a screen with 5 lily pads and you pick one and there is an additional amount of credits you receive. You would be surprised at how quickly they add up.
• Play the 5 or 10 cent slots, that way losses are kept low.
• When playing such slots, don’t cheap out on 1 line bets, make it 15 or 20 lines.
• When you win big at the slots, cash out. If you are losing, only go $5 in the hole.
• If your significant other is next to you, give them a kiss on the cheek and hand your winnings to them.
• Play roulette at a slightly busy table; if it is empty, keep walking.
• Always know how much you are willing to lose, never find yourself at the ATM.
• Always play one chip on 0 and/or 00 or between.
• Pepper the board, you gotta hit a number (32 to 1) or you won’t make traction.
• Stay clear of the drinks (or you will find yourself at the ATM).
• DO NOT just play to “kill time”. You will more than likely go up and then go back down.
• Watch the board for patterns, I know that it really just gravity that decides it, but somehow the patterns of the numbers it hits help me to pick the right #’s.
• Once you hit big, only go down 2 times and then cash out. It is better to walk out with fewer winnings than go back to $0.
• Pay attention to the game, not the people sitting there who may be pleasant on the eyes. I have seen guys go from having $300 in chips to nothing because they were talking up the person next to them.
• Smile. This is supposed to be fun. If you find you can’t sleep at night, come downstairs in your jammies and watch pour souls with scowls on their face as they chase the dragon. Don’t be that guy!

Hopefully you learned something from this. I am totally stoked to be going next week and I hope to meet some of you there. Enjoy!

I like taking cooking classes as it gets me away from the daily software business grind. My significant other and I get excited when the new classes are available from PCC, a natural market. Their class program is called PCC Cooks. Of course, when I saw that they had an Italian wine tasting class and food pairings “I was in”.

The class was ran by a gentleman named Robert Peterson who was had a passion for Italian wine and was very familiar with Italy. He gave some fundamental information such as Italian wine terms such as Secco (dry), Fattoria (a large wine estate) and Appasimento (the process of drying grapes before crushing). We discussed designation grades such as Vino da Tavola and DOCG.

There were about ten folks in there and I was the youngest and many had been to Italy on holiday and I received some great travel advice.

We got to taste a wide variety of affordable wines that were available at PCC:

1. Canella Prosecco - $16
2. 2004 Alois Lageder Portico Dei Leoni - $17
3. 2006 Martorana Insolia - $15
4. 2004 Guiseppe Lonardi Ripasso - $21
5. 2003 Terre Del Grico - $26
6. 2005 Baroli Barbera - $19
7. 2006 Martorana Contrada Ragabo - $11
8. 2004 Cappanace Rosso Dela Maremma - $19

All were pretty good and in line with their price tag. But the clear winner was the 2006 Martorana Contrada Ragabo. It is a Sicilian wine with a good nose, awesome finish with a hint of black olive to it, which would go well with garlic pasta. It is like a dog that cuddles up next to you and lies down and you begin to feel warm. The feeling of that warmth is a lot like this wine. Plus the price is really unbelievable for what comes out of the bottle.

Now you may be saying to yourself, “Uh…wasn’t this supposed to be a wine tasting with food pairings?” Absolutely! One of the things I enjoy is you learn about the cuisine of a country through these classes. It isn’t the stereotypical spaghetti and meatballs and pizza. To me, the most interesting dish was a surprisingly simple Celery and Parmigiano Salad which was light but flavorful.

I also picked up some tips such as:

• You can do food pairings according to region by selecting local food to go with wine in that area.
• Barolo needs some years on it to reach its peak.
• Italian wines traditionally go better with food than drinking by them by themselves.

Now if only my favorite Italian will invite me to a proper Italian meal out on the town!

Celery and Parmigiano Salad
(Serves 6 to 8 People)

1 Bunch Celery (8-10 stalks)
1 Cup Toasted Walnuts or Pine Nuts
1/2 Pound Chunk of Parmigiano Reggiano or Grono Padana
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
Juice of One Lemon
Salt and Pepper

Wash and trim celery (leaves are ok to leave in), then chop into bite-size pieces. Lightly toast walnuts or pine nuts in a hot fry pan. Chop walnuts into 1/2 inch pieces. Chop the hard cheese into 1/2 inch pieces and combine with nuts and celery. Add a little salt and coarsely ground pepper.

For your dressing, use your best olive oil with juice of one lemon. You want a ratio of about 2/3 lemon to 1/3 oil. Taste and add a little salt to the dressing and stir it in.

Recommended to add a chopped carrot (Dungeness Farm) with the celery.

I find myself thinking lately more about Experience in the oddest places. This post is about two experiences I had. Please don’t take this as a rant as I will continue to patronize both establishments in the future.

My first experience was at a Starbucks. I was in the mood for a venti shaken iced black tea. At the same time I was thinking about this. I was trying to figure out which side of the fence I was on. The barista called my order and I picked up my tea and got in the car and headed home. I got home, did my usual and sat down to enjoy the tea. I took a drink and as the tea covered my tongue and headed towards my throat, I felt a very uneasy feeling. It was as if something was not right. The tea had looked perfectly normal, what could be wrong. It…was…sweet.

Now many of you know that I am a Texan so it might surprise you that I would give the “sour face” to sweet tea, but I just don’t like it. It is fine for others but not for me. I couldn’t drink it and was very disappointed that I had not tried it when I was at Starbucks. I was never asked if I wanted it sweet, it was the default that I wanted it sweet. Now, I am sure Starbucks did some user research and it probably turns out that more people want sweet tea instead of unsweetened. I would say that it is better to default to that which can be easily remedied by adding sugar since I can’t take the sugar out of it without consulting an alchemist. When thinking about this, it seems like I have a pretty good scenario to compare it to.

My second experience is with Jamba Juice. My spouse loves Jamba Juice and was super-excited when my family bought a $100 gift card for them. So as you can imagine, I am there quite often. As with any food service, I am always curious about their processes. As someone who worked at Wendy’s for years back in high school and college, I know they all have systems to get you your food as fast as possible.

At Jamba Juice, I question this process sometimes. I went this week and there were probably around 10 folks waiting for their drinks and another 5 waiting in line to order. So it was pretty busy and I would imagine everyone would be knocking out drinks as fast as possible. Here are the things that confuse me:

• Why is it that the manager would rather cash out the drawer instead of helping customers in line or getting drinks out? I have seen them do it on multiple visits while everyone has to wait.
• Why do they always ask about my plans for the day/night/weekend? I am sure I look like I got a party going on every night, but I can’t imagine a 16 year old is really interested. I don’t want them to be rude, but they really don’t have to engage in small talk instead of knocking out juice.
• Why is the manager not jumping in where the process is backed up? If the backup is at the blenders, then jump in and blend! Too many times I see employees bunched up on a station instead of creating a good workflow or the manager is talking to them about when they can go on break.
• Does the music have to be so loud? Now I am no old fogey and listen to heavy metal on 11. But the music is usually too load and with the whirring of the blenders the decibels are off the chart!

I am probably more nit-picky than others since I grew up on both sides of food service, but I think the experience is important even when buying a drink.

As I said, this is not a rant as I really like both and 95% of the time they knock it out of the park. I think the answer to the question of this post is that yes, experience does matter in food service. The good part is that both companies could easily fix these issues, and you got one super-happy customer.

One of the primary things our technical evangelists do on our team is help organizations adopt pre-release technology. Yes, pre-release. Now the question you may be asking is why would anyone do such a thing? Software development can be challenging enough without risking using technology that has not been completely developed. Then how is it that Fortune 500 and top web sites are willing to take the risk? I have worked with a lot of different types of well- known organizations and here are a handful of the types that tend to adopt pre-release technology.

Early adopter organizations who are technology aggressors. Remember when the bottom fell out on the tech industry a few years ago? You may remember the dot-com bubble burst, many layoffs, outsourcing and kids weren’t signing up for Comp Sci degrees anymore. Many IT shops began scaling way back and were putting projects in neutral and not starting any new ones. The interesting thing is that there were organizations who looked at this time as an opportunity. Instead of pulling back, they invested more in their infrastructure and development. Folks were desperate, they were willing to unload machines for pennies on the dollar and were losing some of their best devs. These technical aggressors took the “buy low - sell high” approach vs. the panic. I attended some fancy-pants conference (you know, suit and tie and most folks attending had the word “chief” in their title) and learned about this “technology aggressor” term and it stuck with me as it described the types of organizations that were willing to build applications on top of pre-release software. They knew that by adopting new technology such as ours would help them gain a competitive edge over their competition.

Organizations who want to participate in the feedback loop with Microsoft product teams. One of the top evangelism techniques is to create a tight loop between early adopters and product teams. This is critical to the success of our products. Product teams at Microsoft are always looking for timely product feedback. When we survey organizations, one of the top reasons they give for being a part of an early adoption effort is being able to provide feedback to the product team. This gives them an opportunity to explain where they are going with their product or applications and the product team can understand how best to meet their needs. Many changes you see in the product cycle are due to feedback received. What I like is that more and more teams are providing ways of giving feedback without having to be a part of a program or group.

Organizations who want to take advantage of co-marketing with Microsoft. In our group, since we are responsible for evangelizing pre- release technology, we spend a great deal of time talking about the amazing things folks do with our upcoming technology. We work closely with them and try to provide many opportunities for them to show off the great work they have done. For example, my team owns the MIX conference focused on the web development community including creatives, technical and business folks. We are currently working with organizations that we will showcase using our technologies on stage during keynotes as well as the breakouts. They will also have the opportunity to talk to press and analysts who attend the show and other organizations like themselves. Then, more than likely they will be showcased at our around-the-world ReMIX events, case studies and interviewed at MIX Online (you are subscribed aren’t you?). On top of all of that, all the Microsoft offices around the world have evangelists who will talk to other organizations about what you have done. Can you imagine if you wanted more folks to find out about your services or web site in a more leveraged way?

Organizations who want to exploit new features. This one is pretty simple, we have built features that someone wants to take advantage of. Usually because it will make their software development faster, cheaper or better. For example, ASP.NET 2.0 came with a set of building blocks such as membership, profile and personalization. It was incredible because you could use these out-of-the-box building blocks which came with ready-made controls (such as a login control that could be dragged onto a page), business logic and database logic. You could even change the behavior of these building blocks to fit your scenario. Developers were very productive using the building blocks.

Organizations who want to invest in their team morale. Zzzzzrrrriiip! (Sound of the record skipping). What? Yeah, you heard me. This was not something I first thought of when I became a paid evangelist, but more and more as I spoke with project managers, CTO’s and the like, many of them used projects based on pre-release technology to retain their best employees. Having to fill an open position on my team, I know how hard it can be to keep great talent. These forward-thinking managers understood that the risk they took would be minimal vs. losing their best developers and designers to other interesting projects other companies may be working on, especially if the vertical they work in isn’t exactly sexy (like insurance and manufacturing).

These are just a handful of the types of organizations who are open to using pre-release technology. I mention risk a lot because there is some, but much of what evangelists and product teams do is risk mitigation via tight feedback loops, quick issue resolution, training seminars, online meetings, customer visits, and issue resolution labs. I might talk about this in a later post.

Hopefully you have a better understanding of some of the types of organizations willing to use pre-release technologies and what their motivations might be.

I have had a paid gig at Microsoft as a technical evangelist for 7 years. I have probably been a technical evangelist for much longer than that. I find that many evangelists come into the role not because they read the job description and decided on a career change, but (finally!) found a job that describes what they have been doing all along.Wikipedia describes technical evangelism as:

“A technical or technology evangelist is a person whose job or role is to promote technologies… An evangelist promotes the use of a particular product or technology through talks, articles, blogging, user demonstrations, recorded demonstrations, or the creation of sample projects.”

I think the statement skews too much towards marketing as that is not what evangelism is about. Evangelism is about communication, both talking and listening. Evangelists are passionate folks that want to demonstrate or discuss something they find interesting and want to share it with you. It can be a movie, a band or messenger bag. They will tell you how it works, what types of things you can use it for. They also will want to hear what you have to think about it. Evangelists usually take on the role of “The Voice of the Customer” at Microsoft.

I have an open position on my team for a Technical Evangelist who is excited about things such as ASP.NET, PHP, Expression Web, Visual Studio and web standards (yes, you heard me right).  You can view it here. So with every open position you have to figure out what characteristics you are looking for in the person you want to hire. This is why we have an interview loop, to see if someone has these characteristics.  Instead of keeping them to myself, I wanted to share them with you (especially if you are interested in my role):

1. Evangelists speak different languages. I am not talking about programming languages; I am talking about different audiences. Evangelists might speak to developers one day, then a CEO the next. Evangelists understand how to excite someone about the technology they are evangelizing by relating it to the person they are talking to. Do you talk about a gadget to your geek buddy the same way you talk to your spouse about it? Don’t mistake this for talking down to someone; instead you are relating the benefits of something to their interests.

2. Evangelists look at technologies holistically. It is one thing to know how a feature works, but why is the feature compelling or valuable? Sometimes this is referred to as “business value”. For a feature, an evangelist should know not just how it works, but what the value of using it is. Does a feature make development faster or is it cheaper to implement or does it have more uses than its competitor?

3. Evangelists should understand the world around them. Many evangelists I know are voracious consumers of information. Robert Scoble is on the insane side with around 800 feeds he keeps an eye on, but Evangelists need to understand what is going on in their space. For example, what are the trends right now in the web space? What are competitors doing? Who are the influentials who are driving the thinking around this space?

4. Evangelists are not dogmatic. Contrary to popular belief, there are Microsoft evangelists who once in a while use non-Microsoft products, gasp!!! If you can believe such a thing, you will be surprised to know that I actually use a MacBook Pro. I record a podcast on it, use Mac Office 2008, run Expression Media, and Microsoft Messenger for Mac on it. Then I Bootcamp most of the time into Vista, which works really well on the machine. Although I get ribbing time to time from other evangelists, it is understood that we cannot be myopic about the world and it forces us to look at things from a different perspective which can only make things better at Microsoft.

5. Evangelists love demos and code. Every evangelist I know loves a new demo or looking at some code. We build a lot of demos on our team, in fact you probably have seen quite a few of them at Microsoft events. Demos are probably one of the best ways to show what something can do and create buzz and excitement. I always recommend to folks who are looking for an evangelist position to create a digital portfolio of some kind that demonstrates your skills. It also goes to show that you can actually see a project to completion and learn from it.

6. Evangelists tend to be humble. This probably is a surprise to you. You would think that evangelists would have HUGE egos, but surprisingly many that I know are very humble. Most evangelists feel like they are in a constant state of learning. Here is some advice, be wary of putting the “expert” label on your resume. If you do, I can guarantee that the questions will become much tougher as we will want to understand the true depth of your knowledge. I have done tons of interviews and have yet to find someone we hired who called themselves an “expert”. Always think of yourself as a lifetime learner.

7. Evangelists are sometimes cynical but always optimistic. Evangelists are usually a psychiatrists’ dream. We can be very pessimistic at times and give product and marketing teams a lot of grief, but it is only because we know the potential of a technology. We tend to be optimistic that our products can truly be stellar. We will always question, prod and poke, but in the end it is our optimism that usually shines through.

Is there more? Of course there is. But let’s start with these. I would like to have you comment on what else you think makes a good evangelist. I also would like to hear what makes a bad evangelist (no need for names, we are trying to be constructive here). If you decide to interview for my open position, think about these characteristics and if you find yourself identifying with most of them, then apply for the position!