One of the aspects of my current job that I enjoy, is the transparent nature of my role. My job is to generate attention for
Mimeo and the Mimeo Connect
Cloud Print API.
Let me give you an example. In various roles I've had at companies as lead developer, director of technology, or just a developer I spend a lot of time researching new technologies.
kinlane-productions2
When I research new technologies I usually create some sort of overview document, a presentation and probably some sort of sample code or prototype.
In legacy positions I do all this hard work, and usually submit to my boss and maybe do apresentationto other teams. Often times, my work goes nowhere.
In my new role as an API Evangelist I enjoy a lot of transparency. I get to talk about my work as I'm learning. For exmple I wrote these blog posts yesterday:
- Programming with PDFs - I am building a list of APIs and Open Source PDF tools I want to use, integrate and create resources for my developers.
- Programming with Images Using ImageMagick - Similar to PDFs I want a full suite of tools and resources for empower developers to program using images.
My project work involves me doing a lot of research and testing, and I get to share this information in real-time. If the projects move forward I will blog about improvements as they happen. So my documentation and presentations often go public as I create them.
If a project doesn't go anywhere, the information is still out there. It is still on my blog and on my
Twitter account. This can bring added SEO benefit to all my projects and help me in the future, you never know when it will come back around.
In other roles where I don't enjoy the same transparency this information would never see the light of day.
