What is an influencer?
I've been on a team offsite event in the Midlands of England, in a pretty little market town with 900 years of history. Unfortunately, we were ensconced in a conference room (as usual), discussing various aspects of evangelism. One of these topics: influencers. But what is an influencer? Is it:
- An MVP who spends most of his time in newsgroups, offering support to anyone that poses questions?
- A user group leader, offering peer support, and an opportunity to network with others (either online or face to face) interested in a specific technology?
- Someone who comes to one of our events, becomes fired up by a specific piece of technology (after seeing a demo perhaps), makes the connection about solving a specific problem back at the office, and persuades the team to implement?
- Someone who comes to every single one of our events to enhance his knowledge about our product set?
- Someone who comes to some of our events, is neutral / cynical / critical about whatever we offer, but has wide ranging contact with organisations and customers?
- Someone with financial authority in a company who has his own ideas about cost efficacy and infrastructure requirements?
- Someone with technical knowledge / decision making authority and the ability to implement effective solutions?
- A freelance technical trainer?
- An independent consultant?
- A consultant working for a partner / SI / consultancy house?
You may find you're in one or more of the points above. Have I missed any group off this list? Should the list be shorter? Do we work with all in the list above in the same way? Do we single certain types out for "special" treatment. Do we ignore them? or focus on them? What do you think?
I'd love to know - after all, you probably influence something in your work environment. How would you like us to work with you?...
