The Fact That You Do Not Know Who I Am Shows You Live In A Silo

Don’t who know who I am? I am the API Evangelist. Ok, I know this post is dripping with ego. However, it is the last post in my week of API rants, and I’m just pumped from writing all of these. These types of posts are so easy to write because I don’t have to do any research, and real work, I just write, putting my mad skills at whitesplaining and mansplaining to work–tapping into my privilege. So I’m going to end the week with a bang, and fully channel the ego that has developed along with the persona that is API Evangelist.

However, there is a touch of truth to this. If you are operating an API today, and you do not know who I am, I’m just going to put it out there–you live in a silo. I have published around 3,000 blog posts since 2010 on APIs. I’m publishing 3-5 posts a day, and have consistently done so for seven years. There are definitely some major gaps in that, but my SEO placement is pretty damn good. You type API or APIs, and I’m in the top 30 usually, with the occasional popping up on home page. The number thing I get from folks who message me is that they can’t search for anything API without coming across one of my posts, so they want to talk to me. So why is it that you do not know who I am? I have some ideas on that.

It is because you do not read much outside your silo. When you do, you don’t give any credit to authorship. So when you have read any of my posts you didn’t associate them with a person named Kin Lane. You operate within your silo 98% of the time, and the 2% you get out, you really don’t read much, or learn from others. I on the other hand spend 98% of my time studying what others are doing, and 2% hiding away. My goal is to share this with you. I’d say 75% of my work is just referencing and building on the work of others, only 25% is of my own creation. I’m putting all of this out there for you, and you don’t even know it exists. What does that tell you about your information diet? It tells me that you probably aren’t getting enough exercise and nutrients as part of your regular daily intake, that will make your API operations be less healthy and strong–reading is good for healthy bones girls and boys!

Kin Lane doesn’t have this much ego, but API Evangelist does. The fact that you don’t know who I am shows you aren’t spending enough time studying the API space before launching an API. I’m hoping that you in your API journey you learn more about the importance of coming out of your bubble, and learning from your community, and the wider API community. It is why we do APIs, and why APIs work (when they do). I wrote this title to be provocative and part of my week of rants, but honestly it is true. If you haven’t come across one of my API posts, and stumbled on my blog at some point you should probably think about why this is. The most successful API providers and evangelists I know are tuned into their communities, industries, and wider API space, and are familiar with my work–even if they don’t all like me. ;-)

Note: If my writing is a little dark this week, here is a little explainer–don’t worry, things will back to normal at API Evangelist soon.