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Why Marketing and BD Professionals Should Learn to Code

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Re: Why Marketing and BD Professionals Should Learn to Code

#11

Post by jgreenough »

Sufrostico wrote: post #7

For DBA's should be a must, for automation purposes, backups, custom reports, etc, etc... And for Marketing it's just kind of scary... some of those guys start by saying: "I know how to program and that feature could be ready in a day or a couple of hours"

This type of conversation begs the "put-up or shut-up answer" and if it works you get a new feature. the real trick is actually dealing with long-term support for something that might have started out as a hack. Features and short-term tests usually need to be refactored for long-term health. If you don't do the work up front be prepared to do a bit later, just make the choice consciously.

Re: Why Marketing and BD Professionals Should Learn to Code

#12

Post by Gustomaximus »

I agree with most of this. I work in marketing and knowing Excel better than most (hardly coding I know) and a little bit of VBA and I get a lot of efficiencies where others can't. I'm now leaning some basic web programming at the moment. It helps open the mind to what can be done which in turn should make me a better marketeer when it comes to making plans. Plus it is good to know if engineers are being asked to do too much or if someone is just work shy... when invariably we ask people to do too much.

On the flip side I think it would be great for the engineers to spend some time in marketing and close up that divide to work better together. Often I see both sides try to keep each other out other their business when much value can be had when marketing gels with engineering.

Re: Why Marketing and BD Professionals Should Learn to Code

#15

Post by Daniel_Newby »

bloggergirl wrote: post #2

Not being able to code will be, in 10 years, like not being able to parallel park. People will look at you like, "Really?"

Half the population is below IQ 100 (in America and Europe). For these people, learning basic algebra is like pulling teeth. Coding? Forget about it.

Re: Why Marketing and BD Professionals Should Learn to Code

#16

Post by laconian »

jgreenough wrote: post #11
Sufrostico wrote: post #7

For DBA's should be a must, for automation purposes, backups, custom reports, etc, etc... And for Marketing it's just kind of scary... some of those guys start by saying: "I know how to program and that feature could be ready in a day or a couple of hours"

This type of conversation begs the "put-up or shut-up answer" and if it works you get a new feature. the real trick is actually dealing with long-term support for something that might have started out as a hack. Features and short-term tests usually need to be refactored for long-term health. If you don't do the work up front be prepared to do a bit later, just make the choice consciously.

NOnononononono.

If it "works" superficially it will be considered good enough by management. High fives all around, the checklist is ticked off, and everybody moves on -- except for the poor developers have to maintain the mess.

Nimbleness doesn't mean creating crushing technical debt that has to be solved immediately by somebody else. :)

Re: Why Marketing and BD Professionals Should Learn to Code

#17

Post by kapilkale »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #12

I agree with most of this. I work in marketing and knowing Excel better than most (hardly coding I know) and a little bit of VBA and I get a lot of efficiencies where others can't. I'm now leaning some basic web programming at the moment. It helps open the mind to what can be done which in turn should make me a better marketeer when it comes to making plans. Plus it is good to know if engineers are being asked to do…

I wouldn't regard Excel as "hardly coding". It depends on the difficulty of what you're doing. If you're using it as a data structure to organize numbers, then that's obviously not coding. But complex Excel data modeling feels like coding.

I did this a lot at my last job. Some portions of the spreadsheet function like tables and calculations on data. Others control input variables. Yet others would just display the data in charts and graphs.

Sound familiar?

Re: Why Marketing and BD Professionals Should Learn to Code

#18

Post by Dn_Ab »

bloggergirl wrote: post #2

Not being able to code will be, in 10 years, like not being able to parallel park. People will look at you like, "Really?"

Someone a long time ago, possible H.G. Wells, said "Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write". He was right. This would suggest that most citizenship is effected inefficiently.

I suspect in 10 years at least, things will go similarly for programming. But maybe in 30,40,50 years; better diets,better environments, nutritional junk food, better education, designer children, gene therapy, drugs, implants, whatever will push mean IQ out of its current local maximum.

Re: Why Marketing and BD Professionals Should Learn to Code

#19

Post by jerednel »

Sufrostico wrote: post #7

For DBA's should be a must, for automation purposes, backups, custom reports, etc, etc... And for Marketing it's just kind of scary... some of those guys start by saying: "I know how to program and that feature could be ready in a day or a couple of hours"

I work in marketing->e-commerce and I think it's a great idea to learn to "program". By no means am I a good developer, but I have played enough with Rails and PHP and deployed a couple of simple apps to production environments and I feel like I know enough to understand how to put together a coherent business requirements document.

I think if not programming, at least process modeling or class diagrams should be learned.

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