What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing • Hacker News Board

Re: What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing

#31

Post by RobSpectre » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 6:13 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #27

corin_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually in my experience, a lot of the best people in marketing are very much "idea guys". Some of them along the HN-hated template of "well just get some coder to knock it up" (being good at marketing doesn't automatically mean you understand anything about what technical people do..), some of them realise this isn't realistic or sensible.

Actually in my experience, a lot of the best people in marketing are very much "idea guys". Right, marketers can (and probably should) be "idea guys", but not all "idea guys" are marketers. Most "idea guys" (in my experience) don't know much about anything at all. It's that distinction that I think real, professional, talented marketing people should try to make... otherwise they risk getting lumped in with the chump…

I think the thing I'm coming around to is that an understanding of the core domain is pretty important to doing a job well. If I was in construction marketing and knew how concrete worked, I'd be advantaged over someone who didn't. If I was in plumbing marketing and knew the pros and cons of copper pipes, I'd be advantaged over someone who didn't.

Someone who is in the technology business at any level or capacity who understands technology has an edge over people who don't. In startup tech in particular, I'm seeing the ability to code as particularly advantageous regardless of where you hang your hat on the company floor plan.

Programming is the rainbow sprinkle that puts your sundae over the top. (blatantly trying to make @shit_hn_says here)

Re: What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing

#32

Post by RobSpectre » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 6:15 PM UTC

DanLivesHere wrote: post #21

If you're a coder, build something and figure out how to take it to market. Then, and only then, you'll understand marketing. If you're a marketer, try and build something. Then, and only then, you'll understand development. There's no better way to learn than to fail miserably.

I hear you here Dan, but I have to admit seeing it done right is pretty powerful as well. Working with Danielle Morrill and Lynda Smith in particular strongly accelerated my understanding of this business discipline.

I think there's room in the universe for both approaches.

Re: What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing

#33

Post by RobSpectre » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 6:16 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #13

I cannot stress how useful this is. When I came to the SF Bay Area I was working for Intel, but I too felt that some day I wanted to run my own company. My job at Intel was an engineering job but I spent all day interacting with the marketing group and the design engineers as a liason. I realized I had some built in assumptions about how 'easy' marketing was and I didn't even know what they did. When I was recruited…

Killer story Chuck. You should write a post of your experience. That stretch in Sun's history is always something that fascinated me - never get tired hearing stories from that period.

Re: What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing

#34

Post by RobSpectre » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 6:23 PM UTC

Nowyouknow wrote: post #16

kerryfalk wrote: post #14

I was a bit hesitant to click the link, but I'm glad I did. "As it turns out, the ones who do it well are rare and far less visible because - like good programmers - their work is a lot harder to notice." This sums my experience perfectly. It takes a long time to be able to understand who is good at something and who is not. Pardon my language but many marketers are charlatans. When I first started in marketing I tho…

"I believe great marketers are like methodical scientists. They can put aside their own biases and test their hypothesis and analyze the data. Beyond that, they can look at the data in front of them, identify what they need to know more about, and discover things they did not expect. Through this they can affect change that improves the entire organization." GREAT quote. Bravo. Way to put into words what I struggle t…

+1, but to be fair to the discipline, I think there are fair number of posers in any important line of work. Programming is plagued by the same affliction, as anyone who has ever had to fill head count will tell you.

Re: What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing

#35

Post by RobSpectre » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 6:31 PM UTC

Nowyouknow wrote: post #2

That was a great little read. Whenever I try to explain to my developer friends why my job is important, I'm usually shrugged off rudely. This guy gets it, experience is the only way to learn WHY marketing is so essential. My humble request to developers: Stop being dismissive of marketers, they are an essential part of the equation.

Thanks. :)

Re: What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing

#36

Post by RobSpectre » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 6:35 PM UTC

jonnathanson wrote: post #23

Nowyouknow wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ENTIRELY dependent on company culture and this goes back to the lack of performance measurement for marketers. Everyone involved in the process is looking over their shoulders. If a company values marketing and gives their marketers "free reign" as it were, all is right in the world. When marketers are micromanaged, that Game of Thrones comparison is spot on. The passive aggressiveness in the industry is suffocating.

The problem isn't so much that marketers don't have concrete and measurable KPIs. They do. But at many companies, marketers affect those KPIs only indirectly. For instance, if you work in marketing for a B2B sales-driven company, it's very hard for the marketers to quantify their performance (whereas it's fairly easy for the salespeople to do so, even if some credit deserves to be shared). Similarly, if you're workin…

Really like this analogy. I'm coming around to the metaphor that engineering is the fire and marketing is the gasoline.

Still not sure if it applies universally, but generally acknowledge it can be the catalyst for a great product to get widespread adoption.

Re: What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing

#37

Post by RobSpectre » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 6:36 PM UTC

aorshan wrote: post #19

I can absolutely attest to this. Rob came to a hackathon I participated in a few months ago at the University of Miami. He did a great job and really made Twilio seem totally awesome. He was great to work with and really pushed my team to reach above our potential.

Thanks yo! I just wore my UHack shirt the other day at the Red Sox game and a couple Hurricane alumni gave me a high five.

Had a great time.

Re: What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing

#38

Post by edghf » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 6:36 PM UTC

I'm a writer and editor. I've done marketing and financial writing, and the job I'm starting in two weeks will require me to do technical writing. I've also started learning to code, because I'm interested in it and because it's an important part of how important systems in the world work.

There are common attitude problems on both sides of the the technical/non-technical fence. From the non-technical side, there's a sense of unfairness, that people with the interest to pursue technical subjects are guaranteed 80k/year jobs right out of college, that they are stuck-up and dismiss the ideas and opinions of people with fewer credentials, etc. Like most stereotypes almost none of that is true. My coder friends are some of the most generous, respectful people I've ever met. It's much harder even for someone trained in CS to get a job than it looks from outside. HN is largely technical--you know that there are reasons for how technical people behave even when it might seem strange to outsiders.

The most common mistake I see technical people make about non-technical people is in the area of algorithms and specifications. To but it simply: in a lot of disciplines, there aren't any. The common misunderstanding is that there are formulas you can use, or rules you can follow, to get the result you want in non-technical disciplines. There are huge numbers of artifacts in the world that aren't empirically measurable. Take a pair of jeans and say, "Is this OPTIMAL?" The question is as nearly meaningless as makes no difference. Look at a wedding bouquet, or a corporate event, or a logo. The people who make these things are constantly making choices informed by their education, experience and perception, but those choices aren't based on data that's easily quantified. At best, you start to notice patterns that work and patterns that don't work, which is something that I think can also be said about software development.

Re: What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing

#39

Post by knes » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 6:37 PM UTC

Thank you for giving a little bit of reputation for our trade of skills around here :)

Re: What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing

#40

Post by evanmoran » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 6:39 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #20

Good stuff. I guess, as hackers go, I was always a little weird, in that I always found marketing fascinating. But over the past year or so (and especially the past 6 months) I've been diving into marketing big time , studying as much marketing (and, to a lesser extent, sales) material as I can, and starting to do things like putting together a tentative marketing plan for our startup. Wow. The OP is right, this stuf…

This is really thoughtful. Thank you.