I was on a call for a federal government API platform project with my partner in crime Chris Cairns (@cscairns) of Skylight.Digital. We were back channeling in our Slack channel during the call, when he said, “I always imagine you participating in these things, finding topics you haven’t covered or emphasized from a certain angle, and then writing a blog post in real time.” He was right, I had taken notes on a couple of new angles regarding the testing, monitoring, and understanding performance of APIs involved with federal government projects.
The single conference call resulted in about seven potential stories in my notebook. I’m guessing that only four of them will actually end up being published. However, the conversation does a good job at highlighting my style for generating stories on the blog, which is something that allows me to publish 3-5 posts a day–keeping things as active as I possibly can, generating traffic, and bringing attention to my work. If you’ve ever worked closely with me, you know that I can turn anything into a story, even a story like this, about how I create stories. ;-)
Think of API Evangelist as my public workbench where I work through the projects I’m tackling each day. It is how I make sense of my research, the projects I am working on, and the conversations I am having. All of which generates SEO exhaust, which brings more attention to my work, extends its reach, and ultimately brings in more work. It is a cycle that helps me work through my ideas in a way that forces me to make them more coherent (hopefully) along the way, while also making them immediately available to my partners, customers, and readers.
Chris has been pushing this concept forward and advocating that we be public with as many of the Skylight.Digital responses and proposals as we possibly can, which resulted in me publishing both of our responses to the first, and the second Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) RFIs. He has also been pushing other Skylight.Digital partners to be public with their proposals and responses, which folks were skeptical about at first, but then it started making sense when they see the effect it has, and the publicity it can generate.
This approach to storytelling isn’t something you can do effectively right out of the gate. It takes practice, and regular exercising–I have eight years of practice. However, I feel it is something that anyone can do eventually. You just have to find your own way of approaching it, and work on establishing your own voice and style. It is something that I’ve found to be essential to how I do business, but also something I find to be personally rewarding. I enjoy working through my ideas, and telling stories. It is always the one aspect of my work that I look forward to doing each day, and I feel like something is missing the days I don’t get to craft any posts. I really enjoy that every moment has the potential to be an API story, it really makes each day an adventure for me.
