CYBERNOMICS Technological Evangelist of the Month

Abstract

There are plenty of special types, but the basic impression is that an Evangelist is recognized as a specialist in a subject matter who is paid to elucidate, educate, navigate and motivate. The responsibility is analogous to that of an industry forecaster and requires many of the equivalent skills. The big divergence is that Evangelists are characteristically remunerated by a company that has a vested interest in the success of the industry or technology. The term “Evangelist” may clout some as awkwardly religious. However, the word was originally used thousands of years ago in ancient Greece to mean the reward given to a messenger for good news. Consequently the way the expression is used in the phrase “technology evangelist” is in reality closer to the imaginative sense than the religious “good news” that it was later associated with. Other widely-used terms include Technology promoter and Technology defender.