---
published: true
layout: post
title: API Success Requires Working Out in the Open
tags:
  - Evangelism
  - Advocacy
  - Education
  - Awareness
image: >-
  https://kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com/algorotoscope-master/eugenics-wb5l8MPD9GnLl.jpg
---
People assume API Evangelist is so prolific and performative out in the open on the web due to some sort of ego or narcissism, when in reality it is meant to demonstrate how you can achieve success with your API operations on the open web or within your enterprise. API success requires up to date and complete documentation, SDKs, and other resources, but is also requires demonstrating and showing what works and what doesn’t work because it is how us human beings learn, and we all tend to just emulate what we see around us each day in our work.

Self-service API documentation and resources is essential to keeping teams knowing what they need to know producing and consuming APIs, but it also requires us humans seeing other humans we respect and trust performing what is needed. This is how we learn. We can read it, but it won’t have near the impact of something we see our coworkers or people we lookup to doing. This is a fundamental reality of knowledge sharing in the world of technology that many people take for granted, or don’t see, and why API Evangelist is out here every day performing.

API Evangelist is in the business of surveying and assessing the public and private API landscape, then telling stories and engaging in conversations with people producing and consuming the APIs we survey and assess. The API Evangelist approach to work does not require any added steps in the process to make things seen by customers and the API Evangelist audience, it is published and available by default. This model of working out in the open will work for some on the open web, but for others it is what is needed to break down siloes within the enterprise.