Davey Shafik has continued his series of posts with advice about growing a community around your product/open source libraries. In his first post he talked more about how to engage the community. In this latest post he talks about the role of "evangelists" in community relations (and why he dislikes the term).

The role of the Community Builder is to sell you on the idea of the company and the product. Not necessarily to sell you the product. Often times what we’re selling are not bought without some decision making process behind them, so a sale is not going to happen then and there anyway. Provide the education, and build the trust, and the sale will happen.

Davey then talks about why he hates the term "evangelist" and how it seems to relate more to "fanatic" than "advocate". He then gets into what he sees as the role of an advocate, including the role honesty plays and selling the customer on the right product. He then turns it around and talks about the other side of the role - advocating for the customer back to the rest of the company. Finally, he talks about two other kinds of advocacy that should also be included in the role: advocating for the community/their input and for yourself (finding a product you can be passionate about selling).