Evangelism Brainstorming Sessions Rock!

As the Evangelist for madKast, I am always looking for new ways to promote madKast, reach out to bloggers, and keep our current users happy. Last night I had the pleasure of grabbing a bite to eat with Lijit's rockstar Evangelist, Tara.

It was interesting to learn that she, like me, had almost no previous experience in tech evangelism. She used to work as a teacher and in customer support; I used to work as a meteorologist. But we both agreed that our previous backgrounds outside of the tech space actually helps us communicate better about our respective companies' products since we approach them much as the lay person we're communicating with would.

We also talked a lot about our specific evangelism strategies. The bottom line is that as evangelists, we need to be in constant communication with our users. For instance, I e-mail every person who installs madKast thanking them and asking whether they have any questions, comments or feedback. When someone uninstalls madKast, I also e-mail then, asking why they removed it and what we can do better. Through this interaction with end users we can constantly try to improve our share widget and better cater to blogger's needs.

Tara also alerted me to several upcoming local blogging meetups, including The Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash and the Front Range Blogger Meetup. I, and Tara, will surely be attending both.

Finally, and something that's quite exciting to me, Tara and I discussed our joint desire to initiate some sort of local "Evangicamp," as Tara called it. We think it would be very beneficial to, on a monthly basis, have evangelists at various local startups (madKast, Lijit, Fuser, me.dium, etc.) meetup to throw around ideas and tips about how each of us can better promote our companies' products.

If you are an evangelist in a local tech startup, and would like to be included in the "Evangicamp" we're looking to start, please contact me at josh AT madkast DOT com!