2015 Kentico Technical Evangelism Year in Review
As 2015 comes to a close, I wanted to look back on all of the activities in the Kentico community. Over the past year, I’ve had the chance to talk with some truly awesome people, discuss their projects and challenges, and hopefully help them find answers to their tough questions. In this article, I’ll be recapping on some of the highlights of the year and some of my favorite moments in the development community.
Joining Kentico has been a great experience for me. In this role, I get to talk to developers, create some cool proof of concepts and applications, and present on a number of topics. Always a fan of the cloud, I have created more than a few interesting web parts and modules, aimed at bringing in-depth knowledge to the community.
2015 By the Numbers
In my first year as the Kentico Technical Evangelist, I really wanted to establish a cadence to the technical communication for the company. I wanted to make sure there was plenty of developer-focused material available for any company that was working with Kentico. I also wanted to be sure to bring you this information on a regular basis to ensure everyone was up to date on the latest technical information.
To accomplish this, I reestablished the Kentico Developer Newsletter, contributed to DevNet Q & As, and wrote a whole bunch of blogs on all areas of the platform. Just how many, you ask?
2015 Stats
- 54 Blogs
- 9 Developer newsletters
- 11 Webinars
- 7 Conferences
- 6 User group presentations
- 6 Kentico 1-on-1 interviews
- 5 Roadshows
- 2 Kentico videos
- 2 Kentico MVPs
- 1 CMS Connected Show
- 1 DevNet contest
- 1 Kentico Improvement Program utility
- A whole lot of conversations with developers
As you can see, we definitely tried to step up our community involvement and presence. I was lucky enough to speak at conferences around the world and connect with partners from all markets and industries. It’s a great way for us to get feedback about the platform and incorporate this into our product vision and roadmap. These events also gave me a chance to talk with developers of all types and work with them on their issues, one of my personal favorite parts of being a Technical Evangelist.
Personal Highlights
It’s hard to pick a few highlights when the entire year was filled with amazing experiences. Whether it’s hearing about some custom Azure integrations for caching (obviously one of my personal favorites), to bringing a user group presentation to cities around the US, every event I attended ended with me talking with developers and helping them solve problems. One of my favorite moments was the CMS Connected Show I did back in June. While not my first “on-screen” experience, it was my first “live” event where I was engaged in an active debate with a competitor. I really enjoyed being able to present Kentico and let everyone know how scalable and capable the platform is for enterprise projects.
For communication, I enjoyed bringing the Developer Newsletter back and writing it each month for the community. I’ve always enjoyed writing (albeit with a HUGE number of typos that our awesome copywriters catch for me), and the newsletter is a great way to express my thoughts over the last month, as well bring the community all of the great content that has been published. I have strived to make sure they are filled with interesting articles, helpful blogs, and maybe a dash of humor and entertainment. Maybe I can turn the experience into a successful stand-up career.
When it comes to content, I enjoy writing all of the blogs that I do. I definitely would vote for my Integrating Azure Search with Kentico blog as my favorite one of 2015. Working with Azure Search was certainly a challenge, but one that I thoroughly enjoyed. I was glad I could get a functioning prototype for developers to download and hopefully utilize within their applications. These “Proof of Concept” projects are my favorite part of the job, and I always love getting a chance to help out the community. I’ve turned that one blog into four presentations, and counting, so it’s certainly a topic I like talking about.
Looking forward to 2016
As we move into 2016, I’m really excited about where the Kentico Development community is headed. We have a lot of exciting ideas coming to developers that should help spark collaboration and innovation. Look for more developer events around the globe, great user group presentations, and informative webinars to show you how to unlock and leverage Kentico functionality within your projects. If there is every anything you think our development community could improve, definitely let me know! See you in 2016!