Technical Marketing and Open Source with Eric Hendricks

The Business of Open Source

Today I sit down with Eric Hendricks, the technical marketing director at Red Hat. Red Hat delivers open source solutions that make it easier for enterprises to work across platforms and environments. Eric begins the conversation by discussing his start as a technologist and how he decided to make the move to marketing. Eric then discusses the challenges of bringing marketing savvy into the devops space, including the unintended consequences of marketing buzzwords. I ask Eric about the relationship between marketing and open source, and Eric talks about how many of Red Hat’s community marketing efforts are driven through upstream communities. We then discuss the concept of the buyer in open source versus start ups, and how the difference is that the “big ask” in open source projects is emotional investment. Eric concludes the conversation by talking about the impact of his current role as a technical marketer as compared to the impact of a founder or IC.

Highlights:

• Eric answers the question “At what point did you start to see yourself and did other people see you as a marketer?” (5:53)
• The stigma around marketing and the problem with marketing buzzwords in devops (10:22)
• Emily and Eric discuss the shared vocabulary problem that can arise with newer concepts in tech (14:35)
• Eric talks about equipping his product’s “champions” with all the resources they need to communicate need and efficacy to potential buyers (15:39)
• Emily asks Eric about the relationship between marketing and open source (19:50)
• Emily and Eric discuss the concept of “the buyer” with open source (25:14)
• Eric answers the question: “how are you able to have more of an impact in your current role than you would as an IC?” (29:30)

Links:

• Personal website: www.itguyeric.com
• Company website: www.redhat.com
• Twitter: @itguyeric
• Company: @rhel
• Podcasts: RHEL Presents, Into the Terminal