API Evangelist has long been dedicated to helping the average business user understand all that is API. I saw early on in 2010, the potential of APIs, when used to empower the IT, or even shadow IT of the average business user. I think I've done well in this mission, except for one thing, the API Evangelist network is heavily focused on providing APIs, and much more lighter on topics and information around consuming APIs--something I will be working hard to shift over the next five years.
To help me tackle this, is my new partner Cloud Elements. I do not partner with organizations, unless they help fuel my research, and Cloud Elements is helping me pushing forward several areas including API aggregation, API reciprocity, as well as pushing me to profile 50 of the top business sectors. While these areas of my research will have lots of information for API providers, many of the companies, services, and tooling I profile in these areas will be about empowering API consumers, and even more importantly--all types of API consumers, not just developers.
Services like IFTTT and Zapier, make APIs accessible to the average business user because they allow them to move things around in the cloud using APIs. API service providers like Cloud Elements are allowing the average user to not just move things around in a way that protects their interest, and the interest of platforms (aka reciprocity), but they also all for aggregation, automation, and orchestration, of critical business "life bits" like documents, contacts, and images. This is why I seek out partners like them, to work in concert to better understand the space, but also tell stories that help average business user solve their actual problems. #winwin
You will hear me talk a lot about what Cloud Elements is doing in 2016. Partly because they give me money, yes, but also because they are giving me money to operate, and spend my time researching how APIs can be put to work by the average business, and telling more stories that focus on API consumption. 3Scale, Restlet, and WSO2 have helped me push forward my API provider focused research, and I look forward to helping balance the API consumer side of the scales through my partnership with Cloud Elements.
