gregtyree.com

I started looking into the role of Technical Evangelist a month or so ago and still don’t feel it is the best description for what I think most large companies need.  The Tech Evangelist title has been around a while now, tracing back to Apple at least a decade ago and has continued to exist as a niche role in many large companies.   Other references mention the title Advocate but I am not sure it gets me to where I want.  If you take a quick look at the title Technical Evangelist is has a promising start -

Technology evangelism is sometimes associated with an internal employee assigned to encourage new ways of doing things within a large organization. [from Wikipedia]

The problem is that early on and even now it can be associated with a sales role -

During the late 90’s and early 00’s, when I heard the word “evangelist” used in the context of Internet technology it meant “salaried salesperson”. In most cases, when I met with an evangelist, I was meeting with someone who would make outlandish claims about the product, and spin up interest, and then send in his/her sales team to make the sale. [from a comment on Anil Dash's blog]

So that isn’t what I am looking for - I want this role to be seen as an expert and to stir up interest, but not someone out to sell you something.  It should be someone that is aware of what the products are capable of and understanding of the business needs - someone that ideally can understand how the business can use the products they have available and conversely how those products can be improved to better serve the business.  Someone that makes businesses feel like they benefit from the products/services they get from IT.

So we move to look at Advocate.  It can be defined as -

“a person who speaks or writes in support or defense of a person, cause, etc. ” [from dictionary.com]

It can sometimes relate to the legal world, where you tend to think of an advocate as someone arguing a point.  It you move past the word argue this describes pretty well the role I envision.  I have yet to come across anyone with the title Technical Advocate but the title does exist from a quick search.

So here at the end I don’t have a clear winner.  Tech Evangelist seems more common but Tech Advocate seems to best describe what in my mind is the role most any large company needs.  In the end the role is a mixture of each, but the impression of salesman is a strong one and I don’t want to come off that the role is biased and related to marketing.

I think I need to keep thinking.