What are Technology Ambassadors? Technology Ambassadors (you have heard of them as evangelists or facilitators) are people who bridge the worlds of technology and users. They are technically adept enough to turn user needs into requirements that can readily be addressed by your technology resources. They also help facilitate the use of your existing resources by educating your users on the capabilities of your technology department.

You may be asking yourself why such a role is necessary, especially if you have inside sales teams, but users and technologists tend to speak their own languages. They can also tell when they are being "sold" something, perhaps something that may not match their actual needs. This is especially problematic if users felt they have been taken advantage of in the past.

Your ambassadors are more than inside sales. They are going to help your internal customers (and sometimes external ones) understand what you have to offer in terms of systems, services, and support. Technology Ambassadors can improve the adoption rate of new technologies as well as help train people how to use them. They also serve as best practices instructors and as a single point of contact for customers. In addition, they can be part of your self-service training effort.

Technology Ambassadors are a great link between technology and your end users, but many companies fail to take advantage of them. Either because they feel they are not needed, or they already have inside sales/trainers and do not see the value of having someone more technically adept perform similar services. Both technical and non-technical people can hold this view, but it can be quickly overcome by hiring a consultant to fulfill this role until a decision is made on a permanent hire.

For example, a technology ambassador keeps abreast of current trends in technology and what your future plans may be. When a Technology Ambassador talks to users they find out what their short-term and long-term plans are. They can then develop a strategy that fuses the two into a single plan of action that makes the most of future technology purchases. (Nothing is worse than making a big technology buy that your users reject!) You will also gain the trust of users who will feel that their needs are being heard and fulfilled. Done well, it will decrease calls to your support team.

A cautionary word about hiring someone for this role. They will need to bridge two different worlds, so they should be educated/experienced enough about technology to thoroughly understand your resources but also adept in the world of education/training so they present a neutral face to users: someone they can trust. You may be tempted to convert an existing technical role for this task under the assumption they can split the two roles, but in my experience this situation quickly devolves as neither role is a part-time job. In addition, when hiring for this role, be careful not to sell it as an ambassador role that is really a technical role with "customer service on the side".

A friend confided in me a recent experience they had with a job that was advertised as a technology evangelist position. They said they wanted someone who could explain technology to potential customers in an informative, educational, and friendly way in order to get around the fear some people have of technology. That fear of technology was limiting the adoption of new enterprise systems within the company as it matured from a small company to a larger one. The position was one my friend felt she was well-qualified for, having been a corporate trainer, sales professional, and a systems analyst in her early days. She kept abreast of current technology and was a fast learner, having picked up ERP and data analytics along the way.

However, when she got to the interview, she was asked about networking protocols and router interfaces, system administration esoterica (how to resolve conflicts in a Rocks environment), and cutting-edge artificial intelligence programming practices. She said it was obvious they wanted a network engineer, systems architect, or even a software engineer that specialized in AI. (I checked and the company has plenty of those!)

So why the disconnect? Well, two of the interviewers were very technical people. One was a network manager and the other was the senior data center administrator. Obviously, they were looking for someone they would be comfortable working with or hoping the new employee would be able to split time between evangelizing and being a network engineer or data center administrator. In my opinion, both of those jobs are "deep dives" that leave little time for "part time" endeavors. I suspect that their company already knew this as a result of trying to turn a current employee into an ambassador.

Oddly enough, it is often the more technical people who misunderstand the depth of knowledge that a Technology Ambassador must have in order to be effective. For example, a knowledge of networking sufficient to capture customer requirements does not have to be down to the network interface details. Customers don't care whether you need a QSFP28 adapter to enable their project. They may not even know they need a 100Gbps data pipe. Customers usually express their need in terms of their job requirements, which may not mean much to purely technical people. However, someone with a skill stack that includes a mix of sales, training, basic networking, system administration, and programming usually has the requisite knowledge to perform well in the Technology Ambassador role and understand what the customer needs in order to be successful and can translate that to precise technical requirements. They also have the skills to take technical specifications and explain to the customer how it will help them do their job more efficiently.

If you don't currently have a Technology Ambassador, bringing in a customer-facing employee with technical experience and training them in the specifics of what your company can offer customers (like 100Gbps networking) is straightforward and can be done in a short amount of time. What about converting an existing employee? That's great if you have someone who wants to do the job. However, it's a somewhat harder to take a (senior) technologist and have them devote 10-20 hours a week to working with potential customers. In my experience the people in highly technical positions like the fact that they rarely have to work with customers.

Whatever you do, don't take someone who is already 100% committed to a technical role and ask them to "squeeze in" time with customers. I've had my own experience with companies that think they can split a worker between two otherwise full-time jobs. Someone usually ends up being disappointed, and the employee rather than the manager usually bears the brunt of the unmet expectations. As a coworker once put it, "I'm split between manager A and B and they both expect 70% of my time."

There's no reason to put your employees through this, either in an interview or once they are hired. Realize that you need "bridge" employees that can span the technical world and the customer facing world. If need be, train new employees so they can give your full-time technical people the details they need from customers without the time-consuming requirements gathering and analysis. When hiring such employees, realize that the person you're looking for may not have the knowledge of a senior network engineer or veteran systems administrator. The time it takes to become an expert in such fields means they can't gain (or maintain) deep customer service skills in addition to those technical skills. A bridge employee, however, does have the time to learn enough about the technical details of your business to be an effective ambassador to your customers which will improve your bottom line.

If you want a network engineer, advertise for one. If you want a systems architect, advertise for one. If you want someone who can explain your technical offerings and gather requirements sufficient for your network engineers and technical architects to craft a solution without repeat trips to the customer, then hire someone with both technology and education skillsets. They exist, and they'll do a great job as long as you remember they can't do two full-time jobs at once.

Until next time, thanks for Talking Technology with me!