Category: It Happened to Me

A slightly doctored image of John the Evangelist.

For the past three years, I’ve held the title of “Technical Community Development Coordinator”. It was meant to be an interim title for use while the job was being defined. While it does have some nifty features — it’s the longest title in the company and abbreviates to TC/DC, which I’ve milked for its resemblance to the band name AC/DC — it doesn’t quite adequately explain what I do.

The title “Technical Evangelist” is more suitable. It’s well-understood in our circles, since it’s had a long history (going back to the 1980s, which is ages ago in this industry) and a noble pedigree, having been started by Guy Kawasaki when he was at Apple, and continued by respected techie statesmen like Don Box and Robert Scoble. It even has a Wikipedia entry.

Yesterday, Boss Ken asked me if I wanted to switch titles, and after having given it some thought, I said yes. So henceforth my title shall be Technical Evangelist. Can ah have an Ay-men, bruthas and sistas?!

Here’s something I’d been meaning to blog for a while now: Tom Reynolds, a Blogware user whom I met through blogging, has got a book coming out titled Blood, Sweat and Tea. It’s based on his blog, Random Acts of Reality, which chronicles his experiences as an ambluance driver in the London Ambulance Service.

Tom’s a sweet guy — it comes through in his writing, and even more so when you meet him in person (he flew from London to Accordion City to attend my birthday/engagement party in November 2004). Do youself a favour and go check out his blog and buy his book!

We had an even-crappier-than-usual experience flying to Boston on American Eagle, but I’m too busy to write it up right now. Luckily for me, Wendy’s written up her impressions of the whole thing.

Thanks to the articles about the Japanese bag of Doritos featuring the ‘Taits-Kun’ (“Tights Guys”) characters in some hot foot-on-nards action, this blog is now one of the top results for denki anma on both Google and MSN Search. As I found thanks to some commenters and a little Internet searching, “denki anma” literally translates from the Japanese as “electric massage” and refers to the act of holding a person’s ankles as they lie prone, stepping on that person’s crotch and shaking your foot from side to side.

If you really want to get creeped out, here’s a Japanese Google search for “denki anma”. Many of the links aren’t safe for work, and I remind you that you might come out a different person just by looking at them. There are days I’m certain that the Japanese make this sort of stuff up as part of a “who can freak out foreigners the most” contest.

Perhaps I should adopt “Denki Anma!” as a videogaming battle-cry, in the same sense as World of Warcraft players use “Leeeeeroy Jenkins!”. At the very least, I feel that I should post signs all over the office that read “Employees must wash hands after using the internet”.

In case you missed the articles about the Japanese Doritos, here’s the first one and here’s the follow-up.

In addition to being Bastille Day, it is also the third anniversary of my joining Tucows as its Technical Community Development Coordinator. So far, in the course of this job, I have:

• Held one job title — Technical Community Development Coordinator — the longest title in the company
• Worked in two departments: Research and Innovation under “Boss Ross” Rader until recently, and now “Looking for a rhyme” Ken Schafer in the Marketing department
• Occupied three desks, two in the downstairs section, and now I’m upstairs
• Gone on four business trips, during one of which I met Wendy
• Appeared on TV five times as an employee of Tucows
• Written over six…teen hundred blog entries on Tucows Farm
• Explained that the company is more than just “the shareware site” seven gazillion times

Three years later, I’m still enjoying it here. The place still passes the “snooze bar test” — the only reason I ever hit the snooze bar on the alarm clock on a workday is because I was up late the night before and not because I’m dreading another day at the office. At the start of year four, my job’s going to go through some interesting changes not only as a result of my changing departments, but also because of some exciting changes all ’round — not just within the company, but also our neighbourhood, the Toronto tech and creative communities and in our industry. It’s going to be an interesting time, and I’m glad to be here.