9 Sept 2023
Timo Elliott - Innovation Evangelist at SAP - Episode 1
In this episode, Titus interviews Timo Elliott, an innovation evangelist at SAP, shares insights into his role and approach. He discusses the importance of creating interesting content that helps people understand things in new ways and dealing with challenges, such as negative perceptions of marketing content. Timo also emphasizes the value of understanding the audience's interests and creating genuine engagement. He shares his approach to social media and metrics, highlighting the significance of providing value and receiving positive feedback. He reveals his daily routine and sources of motivation, including conferences and outdoor activities while traveling for work. Timo concludes by sharing advice for aspiring or current evangelists, emphasizing the importance of passion, practice, and continuous learning.
00:00:00 - In this section, Timo Elliott, an innovation evangelist for SAP, talks about his role in presenting at conferences and using social media to spread the word about innovation, digital transformation, big data analytics, and more. He explains that his background in analytics and his experience in getting the message out led him to become a full-time evangelist. The most challenging part of his job, according to Timo, is creating interesting content that helps people understand something in a new way or deal with things differently. He also discusses the importance of understanding what his audience is interested in and what they care about, as well as the negative perception of marketing content and the need for valuable and practical information.
00:05:00 - In this section, the speaker talks about his approach to social media and metrics. He mentions that he doesn't use any special tools or hacks and instead focuses on return on interesting (ROI). He follows a small number of people on Twitter and prioritizes those who tweet interesting things. He doesn't believe in optimizing social metrics and prefers subjective metrics like receiving positive feedback from presentations and blog posts. He believes that being invited back to places is the biggest metric of success. The speaker emphasizes the importance of providing value and genuine interest in what he writes or shares, and believes that engagement and interest can't be faked. He also discusses his daily routine, which involves traveling for conferences during certain seasons and regrouping and catching up during others.
00:10:00 - In this section, Timo Elliott, an Innovation Evangelist at SAP, discusses how he stays motivated and passionate during busy times. He mentions that conferences and talking to people in the field are great sources of motivation for him. He also reveals that his number one tool is PowerPoint, as he uses it to create visually engaging presentations. When it comes to traveling, he uses TripAdvisor to find hotels near conference centers and relies on Google Maps for running routes. Timo shares that some of the most memorable experiences he has had are when he gets to participate in outdoor activities while on a work trip. Finally, he shares three pieces of advice for aspiring or current evangelists: stay passionate about the subject, practice regularly, and continuously learn to avoid stagnation.
00:15:00 - In this section, Timo Elliott, an innovation evangelist at SAP, discusses the importance of practicing and trying new ways of communication before every presentation. He emphasizes the use of humor in the IT industry to make serious points and mentions how he started drawing analytic cartoons that have been featured in various places, including the World Bank website. Timo also highlights the significance of patience when aspiring to become an evangelist, explaining that it takes time to build a solid following and establish credibility in the industry. He mentions upcoming conferences and invites interested individuals to check out his blog and website for more information.
