If you have not yet heard of the Chrome Community Evangelist for the Midwest USA, that may be because this position was established very recently and has not yet been extensively publicized or communicated to the tech community and general public in the Midwest. The short term goals for this position are to document Cr-48 and Chrome OS information and activities in one or several websites or online formats and, as a Chrome Community Evangelist, to connect with people both one-on-one and in groups to discuss and promote the Chrome OS and Chrome browser and to answer questions regarding Chrome. The long term goal of the Chrome Community Evangelist is to develop the value, reach and network of the Midwest CCE to the point where it makes sense for Google to convert the position to a full-time paid employee of Google.
The first person who got to test drive le Cahier Chromé (Chrome Notebook) today and to hear my passionate endorsement of the finer points of Chrome OS and the Cr-48 pilot program was my daughter, in the wee hours of the morning at Seth's Coffee. She went to college in northern California and, in many ways, became a true hippie, so she does not enjoy computers and the internet way of life nearly as much as do I. As a matter of fact, she would like to produce an indie film about what happens when all the 'computers' in the world stop working. After being shown the nice new Cr-48, she was sort of 'meh' and thought it was about as useful as a Mac. Her main reaction was that she was happy I was picked to participate in the Chrome Notebook pilot program and hoped I enjoyed using it and helping test / develop a new approach to technology and computers.
Erin, Scott, Jeff and Drew were the next people to catch my Cr-48 evangelism and marketing spiel, being a somewhat captive audience at the Friday Innovators gathering at Aspen Coffee & Tea in Menasha, Wisconsin, USA. Since the FI group is highly interested in innovation, they were all slightly envious of me having gotten a Chrome Notebook, and Drew asked for a URL to apply for the pilot program. Erin had applied to participate in the program as soon as he got the pilot program link from me on the day of the Cr-48 press conference. Overall they seemed to feel it was interesting and held lots of opportunities for innovation in general internet computing. Scott in particular, though, didn't feel Cr-48 had high value for him, or that the next few years would bring effective tools for him to do commercial-strength video editing and production through the cloud.
Whilst working with the Cr-48 at Aspen Coffee after the Friday Innovators meeting, I struck up a conversation about the Chrome Notebook with a sys admin from RR Donnelley. He didn't know much about the Chrome OS and wasn't familiar with the Cr-48 pilot program, but seemed interested when I explained it to him.
The random discussion (as a defacto Chrome Community Evangelist) with the sys admin from RR Donnelley caused me to think a bit about what might be a few effective ways to be a Chrome Community Evangelist in the Midwest. Along the lines of "people usually like their ideas better than yours," a community evangelist will most often have meaningful discussions with random strangers at a coffee shop, community wifi hotspot or other location when those random strangers initiate the conversation, or at least notice something about you that gives them a reason to talk with you. A community evangelist who is intentionally and actively interested in connecting with people in a public setting needs to develop creative and unique ways of putting themself in a remarkable situation, then follow up appropriately when their situation is remarked upon by the aforementioned random stranger. Most strangers in a public situation are unlikely to initiate a conversation with a community evangelist, so the evangelist will be most effective if they appear non-ordinary, or generate a visual or audio cue that causes the stranger to be willing to engage in a casual conversation. More about creating a "remarkable situation" and about generating effective "visual or audio cues" in a future post...
The final people exposed today to my Cr-48 enthusiasm were the dyed-in-the-wool tech enthusiasts and hacker / makers Luke, Erin, Paul, Bob, Mark at the DHMN monthly meeting at Hong Kong Buffet in Neenah, Wisconsin, USA. In midst of all the other DHMN conversations flying around the table whilst large quantities of rice, General Tso's Chicken, Kung Pao Chicken, and other typical Chinese buffet treats were consumed, I gave an overview of my Chrome Notebook experience thus far and answered their questions. The primary comment from the group was, "How come you got one -- I want one, too!" However, there was also the predictable hard-core geek comment that the Chrome OS would be way too limiting for all the different things this group of people does on a regular basis. A few of them are also convinced they do not want to store all or most of their data and lives on Google's servers or any other location in the cloud, thank you very much. They prefer to have their data and programs reside locally on their laptops, smartphones, netbooks, and home or colo servers.
Overall, my first day as the Midwest Chrome Community Evangelist was a successful and enjoyable one. I look forward to many more days as the Midwest CCE and am working diligently toward building and maintaining a large, vibrant, well-connected Chrome community in the Midwest.
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Put me on the list of people to talk to. I'd love to run the Cr-48 through its steps. Also, I wanted some feedback on how the data plan is working for you. It seems that Google is the first company to understand the concept of secondary incremental data usage.
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