A slightly doctored image of John the Evangelist.
For the past three years, I’ve held the title of “Technical Community Development Coordinator”. It was meant to be an interim title for use while the job was being defined. While it does have some nifty features — it’s the longest title in the company and abbreviates to TC/DC, which I’ve milked for its resemblance to the band name AC/DC — it doesn’t quite adequately explain what I do.
The title “Technical Evangelist” is more suitable. It’s well-understood in our circles, since it’s had a long history (going back to the 1980s, which is ages ago in this industry) and a noble pedigree, having been started by Guy Kawasaki when he was at Apple, and continued by respected techie statesmen like Don Box and Robert Scoble. It even has a Wikipedia entry.
Yesterday, Boss Ken asked me if I wanted to switch titles, and after having given it some thought, I said yes. So henceforth my title shall be Technical Evangelist. Can ah have an Ay-men, bruthas and sistas?!
7 replies on “My New Title: Technical Evangelist”
Which is funny, because when my employer gave me a title, the only thing I asked was that it have four words because you, Joey, had four words in your title. I subsequently de-emphasized the ‘system administration’ phrase in my title and then took it out mostly because I didn’t end up doing a lot of it. So now we’re back on even terms! 🙂
So, I take it nerdy deeds cost more these days?
My nerdy deeds are still done dirt cheap!
However, without the TC/DC moniker, I can expand beyond the AC/DC repertoire. For instance, I can now quote Poison and say “Talk Nedy to Me”.
That is a wonderful title – and I think so for several reasons, including my admiration for Mr. Kawasaki. Ay-men, fa sho’.
If you’re up on appellational things churchical, wouldn’t you agree that Technical Apologist would be more apropos?
Probably not. Apologetics is a largely reactive field, being all about crafting defensive arguments, while evangelism is a little more active (I hate the non-word “pro-active”), concerning itself with education, the extolling of virtues, outreach and statemanship. I think that the latter descrobes my role a bit better.
Now if I were working for Microsoft, “apologist” might be an apt title.
Why is proactive a non-word?
Just curious.