Vaughn was a de facto<\/em> and de jure<\/em> evangelist in roles in the\u00a0past, but always secondary to his role in technical marketing and in the field.\u00a0It turns out one of the problems is that\u00a0evangelism<\/em> is often a matter of perspective. Evangelists will often use the power of their own personal technical experience and passion for the product to make an impact. As an official<\/em> chief evangelist, on the other hand, your job — or at least the perception of your job — is to give the official pitch of the company. That\u00a0pretty much takes a lot of the fun and a lot of the power of the personal testimonial\u00a0about giving your opinion about the technologies you’re working with. This is about evangelism as a side gig and employee of the company – influence – vs being an official spokesperson – advocacy.<\/p>\n

Vaughn reminds us that \u00a0we don’t need to have a title of evangelist to make an impact, and in fact he gives the recommendation that most of us shouldn’t take\u00a0that title. You can certainly leverage social media without the title, and you may make more of an impact in the unofficial conversation.<\/em><\/p>\n

We had a great time talking with our friend Vaughn about his journey. What’s also interesting is that working on job role and title fit keeps on being something you work on even at the executive level. Vaughn, ever the busy executive, talked to us on this podcast on the road on his phone, and in fact was walking\u00a0onto\u00a0the airport jetway<\/em>\u00a0as we signed off. Thanks, Vaughn!<\/p>\n