API Evangelist Conversation with Kin Lane

Hello there, my name’s Kin Lane, I’m the API Evangelist, and this is the first pilot episode of my new podcast that I’m calling API Evangelist Conversations. I’m going to keep this round pretty low production, and it’s going to be just as the title says, just going to be a bunch of conversations with people I know, people I’m working with from across the API space. This round I’m going to prioritize API producers and consumers over API service providers and tooling providers. I’ll be talking across the spectrum, but I’m going to prioritize folks who are on the ground floor doing things. To work out the kinks in my new podcast and how it all works, I’m going to interview myself for the first two episodes and just work out how I’m going to produce this and how I’m going to distribute it and get all the kinks worked out, and then I’ve got some other folks lined up who are pretty interesting that we can have a conversation with starting with episode three. So let’s give it a whirl, let’s see how this is going to work. Who are you?

I’m Kin Lane.

What’s your role?

I’m the API Evangelist.

Where do you work?

I work at API Evangelist LLC.

What industry do you work in?

I work in the API industry, which spreads across almost any business sector.

Are you an API producer, consumer, or something else?

All the above. I produce APIs, I consume APIs, I sell services and tools to the API space, and I’ve been analyzing the space ever since 2010. I personally think it’s really important to be both an API producer and a consumer, thinking about both sides of this equation. I’ve also learned a lot building services and tools for the space, which has really helped me understand the dynamics of selling to the enterprise as well as being sold to when you work in the enterprise. My views as an analyst is really where I think I shine the most, bringing a unique perspective of the space, but it’s also where I cause most problems and I tend to piss some people off.

What is this API Evangelist Conversation?

API Evangelist Conversations are a continuation of the conversations I enjoyed doing at API Evangelist from 2010 through 2019, as well as taking what I learned across the 125-plus episodes of my Breaking Changes podcast at Postman. I learned a lot talking to people, and I realized how dependent I am on these feedback loops for what I know. So I’m looking to recreate this, but this round I’m looking to keep things short, concise, and more focused on micro conversations, but also the macro awareness generated by documenting these conversations. I’ll be producing transcripts and other aggregate data from across these conversations that I have and use them to drive my storytelling and the services that I’m offering as the API Evangelist. I’ll be prioritizing producer and consumer practitioners as well as service and tooling providers, but I’m going to prioritize the folks who are on the factory floor actually producing or consuming APIs.

Why do APIs matter?

APIs literally power everything around us. They are behind all of those little icons on our phone, they’re behind the web and mobile applications we depend on for our businesses, they power transit, our buildings, our cars, televisions, they touch every aspect of our personal and professional lives. We all make thousands of API calls a day, and they digitally and physically guide us through our day. APIs matter like electricity, water, sewer, and other utilities matter, but they’re more universal. APIs matter to us professionally and personally, and everybody should have an awareness of them, and professionally you should expand this awareness. Whether you’re a business or a technical person, your awareness and control over APIs will definitely control your career, business, and your personal life.

Do you use OpenAPI?

I do, it’s central to all my relationships with technology. OpenAPI describes the surface area of all the digital resources and capabilities that I depend on. OpenAPI made sure I have a plan and that I’m in alignment with everyone I work with. I know most people see OpenAPI simply as a configuration for your documentation, but it’s much more than that. OpenAPI is one of the most important things to happen to the world of APIs and technology in the last decade or so, and it isn’t for the reasons most technologists believe. OpenAPI really helps us with APIs, documentation, SDKs, mock servers, and sandboxes, but also just as a YAML or a JSON contract, with the YAML addition being a pretty critical olive branch to business stakeholders. I use OpenAPI as the technical contract for any API relationship I’m engaged in at the producer or the consumer level.

Do you use JSON Schema?

I do, it’s one of the most important API specifications in my toolbox. It’s more important than my own specification, APIs.json, and even OpenAPI, as they both depend on JSON Schema. It’s one of the most important API specifications in my opinion because it defines and validates everything. It allows me to move forward confidently as long as I take the time to define the JSON Schema for whatever digital object or process I’m working on. Every piece of information and every process in my world is defined as a JSON Schema, then I use AJV and other services and tools to validate this along the way. JSON Schema is one of the most ubiquitous yet invisible API specifications out there, which enterprises depend on but are largely unaware that it exists and how to properly configure it.

What’s your biggest challenge with APIs?

It’d have to be API education and ensuring that all the people understand that APIs matter and that they are literate in at least the API basics. I regularly encounter numerous smart and very well-meaning, as well as some not-so-well-meaning, who are in the business of producing and consuming APIs, but they don’t even have those fundamentals like REST, JSON, YAML, and the other building blocks you need. Enterprises don’t properly invest in API literacy. Venture capital forbids their portfolios from spending money on the education surrounding APIs that’s needed. There’s a massive vacuum in the space when it comes to API literacy. This results in a noisy mix of information, disinformation, and misinformation out there, and they’re really just trying to generate page views. If companies would invest in the fundamentals of web and API literacy, everyone would be better off for it.

What’s a priority?

It’d have to be making money. I just quit my job, I’m living off my savings, I have a number of partners I am talking with to sponsor my work, but I will need to keep my business running. There are sources of money like venture capital I could choose, but I’ve seen this lead to the fragmented API space that we all live in and experience today, so I’ll be avoiding getting loans or accepting venture capital. I’ll be focusing on building out my partnership network first and then landing the clients that I need from my API contract services. This is how I’m going to make ends meet. I’m confident I can do it, but I would like to use this platform of these API Evangelist conversations to help bring attention to the wider API space, but also to potentially sell my services. I wouldn’t say making money is the priority for me, but making sure my API Evangelist work is sustainable this round is a priority for me.

What’s not a priority but you wish was?

Building tools. I wish I had more time and honestly more ability to build industrial-grade micro tools for the API life cycle. I would like to make more tools that are purely local and really make sense to the enterprise who are adverse to everything running in the cloud. I would like to make more tools that stitch together and do many things in concert but then can be run individually. I think that API services and tools tend to get too bloated and become Hotel California over time, meaning we can never leave. I’m a big fan of small desktop and web tools that do one thing and do it well and are free and open source. I would love to spend all my time here building the tools I need around APIs.json, OpenAPI, and JSON Schema, but really I don’t have the time, discipline, or the proper skills to do it. I can hack together simple JavaScript widgets and backend APIs, but I only know enough to be dangerous.

What keeps you going each day?

It’s hearing and telling stories. I like listening to what people encounter during their day when they produce and consume APIs and even build services and tooling for APIs. I like writing down and distilling these stories, and I learn from these stories and I turn them into little blog posts. I like speaking in honest terms and not the usual marketing blah blah blah that you often hear in the space. I like being genuine and honest, and I like being a little personal to help let people know that I’m human and that I empathize with them. But I also really like diving into the technical and assessing the business and politics that swirls around this technology. I find the way that APIs are used across industries to be endlessly fascinating and full of learnings. This honestly is what keeps me going after almost 15 years of doing this hustle. Appreciate you stopping by.

Happy to be here. All right, that was an interesting interview, a little stiff, a little awkward, but I promise when I have actual real people here it’ll loosen up a bit and it’ll be a little bit more banter. But I am going to try to keep them under 15 minutes, 10 to 12 minutes is really the sweet spot, I feel. I want to keep it focused on a handful of questions, five to 10, and they’ll be personal, but we’re going to just keep short, concise conversations about what people are seeing on the ground within the enterprise. So thanks for bearing with me, hopefully that wasn’t too awkward. I’m going to do one more episode where I interview myself, stay tuned for that, and then I promise we’ll get back to the regularly scheduled programming where I’m talking to interesting folks doing interesting things with APIs.