rElearn

Guy Kawasaki is a legendary silicon valley investor, writer and technology evangelist. I recently mentioned that the creators of Pat Kenny had passed the secret of cloning to Guy Kawasaki during his Irish visit. That’s the only way to explain how Kawasaki gets to be in so many places at once and gets through such a phenomenal workload. One of his selves took the time to answer my questions recently. The technology behind the cloning is really good and you know it is a genuine Guy Kawasaki because he is an absolute gentleman. I asked Guy about technology evangelism, a subject of research interest to me, and also about his latest intriguing online venture - alltop.com:

Even though its sooo web one I still read plain old news aggregation site like Slashdot. Is this the key to Alltop.com?

No, the key to Alltop is for people who don’t know about Slashdot, Digg, Google Reader, Page Flakes, and Netvibes. It’s for “the rest of us” not the “tech of us.” You should think of it as an “online magazine rack.”

What are the characteristics of a good technology evangelist?

First and foremost that he or she loves the product/service. That’s the most important characteristic. Everything else can be learned: like how to demo, how to explain, and how to close. But if you have a sucky product and your people don’t like it, evangelism is almost impossible.

Who meets these characteristics?

You’d be surprised. There is no perfect background. My background prior to Apple was counting diamonds in the jewelry business. As long as the person “gets it,” he or she can be an evangelist. You should, in fact, ignore people’s work history and education if they do “get it.”

What’s the number one thing organisations need to do to foster technology evangelism?

Create great products. Everything in evangelism flows from there.

What is the least understood aspect of tech evangelism?

That it’s not fundamentally about the technology. It’s about the benefits of the technology and it’s analog outcome (that is, joy, peace of mind, power, creativity, security, etc.)

People are religious about technology like no other product class. Could this be because we “speak” into our phones and computers, unlike say to our clothes or breakfast cereal?

People are religious about many things besides technology: cars, clothes, sports teams—even beer. You are not seeing religions that do exist in many places besides technology.

How was the Guinness?

Very fun, and I’m not really a drinker, so that really means something!

I’ve read and recommend the following books by Kawasaki: (Next up I’m going to read the Art of the Start and the Macintosh Way)