Wednesday, April 22, 2009

quiz: do marketers and programmers talk?

Please respond in the comments.

Yes - our marketing guys and our developers talk all the time, and have a deep appreciation for each other's perspectives on creating and selling products.  That's not to say that they're best friends, but they have an active dialog going on.

Maybe - I think they know that the other guys exist, and I think they've been known to say hello and share brownie recipes.  Occasionally.

No - our marketing folks and our developers get along like turkeys and wood chippers.  In fact, I don't think I've ever seen them talk to each other.  I'm not sure they even speak the same language.

4 comments:

Ken Pomper said...

Even though all product managers are ex-engineers, the engineers quite apparently have their BS detectors up when anyone even vaguely smells of "marketing" approaches, who are frequently confused with "sales." Other than that, relations are quite cordial.

Anonymous said...

No. Nada. Non. I work as a programmer and its not that I don't want to speak to Marketing folks, I do ! (I aspire to work in Product Management someday :) ). But, somehow all requirements from Marketing is conveyed to the Engineering super-boss which then trickles all the way down to us lowly programmers.

Ranbir Chawla said...

My 'VP of Dev' view point - I'm lost, as is my team, without our Prod Manager.. they don't exist on a separate 'team' - simply another role in a better organism.

So yep, we live to be together and we love to listen and then make it happen!

Jeffrey Huth said...

A little late to the post...Three weeks really.

In our org, PM (my group) reports up through CTO which also runs development. Marketing has different reporting structure. The only interaction with Mktg is via my group so no, programmers and marketing do not mix. Product management are the "tweeners".

Whether or not product management is in the right place is a whole different debate.

Jeff
http://jeffreyhuth.blogspot.com