How To Become A Microsoft Evangelist
2009 April 20
Maybe you already heard about the “Microsoft Evangelists“. These are good guys and girls helping technology people use the Microsoft stack. Generally they are good people. I tried to post a tweet in Twitter to see how people will answer my simple question: “How to become a Microsoft Evangelist”?
Unfortunately, only one tweeter responded to my question. And this is what he had to say (read the tweet from the bottom up) :
I have another way to become a true evangelist….Become a Microsoft Certified Trainer. You live, eat and make a living preaching Microsoft and their products. Some even call you an expert.
Just recently I thought; you know, becoming an evangelist is ‘the perfect job’. Play with new technology all day trying to do neat stuff, the write & speak about it. Sounds like my dream job. Even if at some point in the future you change your mind, you’ve got such a wicked resume, that your billing rate would double.
… but then I remembered some B.S. I’ve been told over the years by MS Evangelists; Multiple Inheritence is bad (MFC), M.I. is awesome (ATL), M.I. is bad (.NET)
… and I have to say, I wouldn’t feel comfortable misleading people like that.
It’s funny you ask that. It’s quite relevant to my personal experiences, so here goes…
Some people consider me as a Microsoft Evangelist. Having gone up and talked about Microsoft technologies several times, regularly speaking for Microsoft Philippines DPE (let’s spell that out: Development Platform Evangelism) on MSDN Sessions and having earned the MVP award, people could easily put me in a little pigeon hole branding me as a “true blue Microsoftie” who has “drunk the kool aid” and is a “marketing tool for Microsoft”.
In some ways, they’re right. Many, many times I *did* “evangelize” Microsoft technologies; many, many times I *did* promote their tools. Many times I told people about just how good this or that certain technology is.
On the other hand, they’re also wrong. Many, many times, I evangelized something that was totally counter to Microsoft’s offerings — I did an MSDN Session on NHibernate, for example — at the heels of the MS Entity Framework release (these are competing products, FYI). I do all my presentations and MSDN Sessions (including those that were used in Launch {2008} and Web Ramp Up (MS Developer Day 2009) — both BIG events held at SMX) using… tadah! Open Office Impress.
I have yet to match my mentor (Andre Cruz, cruizer in MSForums) who had presented using Linux machine running Mono, in the MS offices — but I might do that anytime soon. Any way I’m rambling already.
My point is we are people who are passionate about technology — and it just so happens that the career path we’ve taken focused on the Microsoft stack of technologies. We love them so much that we care enough to talk about them in front of audiences both large and small.
Does that mean we’re evangelizing for Microsoft? Maybe — sometimes. But not all the time. Does that mean we’ve drank the kool aid? Definitely not; we speak both for and against Microsoft at different times, in different contexts. What does it really mean? It just means we love technology, and we love talking about it.
You want to be a Microsoft Evangelist? Go participate in your community. Go speak about MS technologies both old and new. But do NOT be afraid to point out what’s good and what’s bad, what’s wrong and what’s right. Don’t ever sell yourself out and speak about things that you’re not rooting for. Don’t be afraid to admit that “this sucks”; better yet talk about how to go around things that suck with Microsoft tech.
And then you’d be a credible *Technology* Evangelist, if anything else.
preach the good news about technology; it doesn’t matter if it’s Microsoft-made or not. well the good moves made by MS lately (even in the open source space) make them worthy to preach about anyway