---
published: true
layout: post
title: No More I, Just You, and We Are Here to Help
tags:
  - Editorial
  - Process
  - Conversation
image: >-
  https://kinlane-productions2.s3.amazonaws.com/algorotoscope-master/every-sunday-morning-JgpD9bo3DNLd4.jpg
---
With the recent reboot of API Evangelist, and the release of 4.0 of the website, we are going back to using some of what we feel helped us successfully build the brand in the first place. Version 2.0 of the website and brand resonated with folks partly because the author was somewhat abstracted away behind an opinionated persona that existed somewhere between the physical and digital world. Sure some folks know that the author is Kin Lane, a human being who used to show up to conferences, and whatnot, but most people who read, retweeted, and shared APIs stories they simply knew as the API Evangelist--this is a good thing.

Establishing a buffer between the physical and digital world, but also Kin Lane and API Evangelist, represented by a logo and series of cartoon characters provides a more comfortable distance for everyone involved--contributing to the overall illusion. To quote the infamous Reggie Watts, “I am a cartoon character, and you will never be able to be like me.” This space was carefully crafted in 2012 and 2013, and then scaled successfully until 2016 when the presidential election and life shifted the narrative a bit. Since then, there has been a lot of “I” published to the website during the version 3.0 phase of API Evangelist, but with version 4.0 we are reinstituting the no “I” policy as part of the storytelling.

If you want the ranty “I” stuff, you’ll have to head over to [KinLane.com](https://kinlane.com), but on APIEvangelist.com, you will only get “We” and “You”. We will still be strongly opinionated on things that matter, but it won’t be Kin Lane ranting anymore, it will be a more general, broad, and governance leaning view of things as expressed by the API Evangelist. It really is safer for everyone involved to operate in this mode, as we are less likely to freak out the normals, which could prevent them from being exposed to, and absorbing the digital bits of knowledge we are making available. We will make sure everything has a consistent tone now, so that everyones understand that doing the work is about them stepping up, but also that API Evangelist is here to help you along the way.