Re: Where do we belong?

Subject: Re: Where do we belong?
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2001 18:39:08 -0700

Andrew Plato wrote:

> Like it or lump it - marketing and sales are perhaps one of the most critical
> aspects of ANY organization. They are also A LOT closer to management than you
> are. If the market does not know about you, or does not know what you do -
> nobody will buy your products. Yes, marketing can be full of morons who lack
> even basic human skills, but they also are in a vital area of the company. One
> you can help. They need you as much as you need them.

This is a point well worth making. Too many tech-writers make a
knee-jerk rejection of marketing. I'm not sure why: because they're so
insecure that they need someone to despise? Because, feeling that
programmers don't respect them, they want to pass the misery along?
Whatever the reason, the feeling that associating with marketers
contaminates came out several times in this thread.

Writers who have this attitude are seriously limiting their prospects.
Although the type of marketing staff that programmers call marketing
droids imagine that they can use the same techniques to sell everything,
successful marketing of a technology requires a knowledge of that
technology. That's inescapable. For many buyers, technical specs matter.
At trade fairs, they don't want booth babes with a cutesy spiel; they
want someone who can give them the facts. Yet, at most companies,
there's a gap between those who know the technology and those who know
how to market. A technical writer is often the logical person to bridge
this gap. Of course, the writer has to know the technology in depth
(something many writers seem to think is unnecessary), and know how to
write copy (something many writers despise, having never had to do it).

However, those who can bridge the gap can help provide an alternative to
the hype-driven marketing they loath. They can also produce more
effective copy for their company. And, in doing so, they can add variety
to their jobs, or even open up a career path for themselves. I can only
hope that despising marketing provides some emotional comfort, because
the writers who despise it are also rejecting all sorts of personal and
corporate advantages.

--
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

"Any view of things that is not strange is false."
-Neil Gaiman, "Soft Places"

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