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The Case for Marketing Technologists

Scott Brinker over at the Chief Marketing Technologist blog recently interviewed me about my experience going into Marketing, then IT, and back to Marketing again as a part of a series in which he is covering "Marketing Technologists" across various organizations. (Thanks, Scott!)

On a related note, in an article on February 7th from VentureBeat about Microsoft potentially cleaning house to make room for more technologists on the Executive team, this particular quote from an Analyst in the article resonated with me:

“You see the engineering team ascending because Steve is realizing that there is a need to execute on a vision and in order to do that you have to actually understand how software is built,” said Wes Miller, an analyst at the Kirkland, Washington-based research firm Directions on Microsoft, in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “It’s a whole other thing to be able to say, ‘I’ve been at Microsoft, I understand software, and what you are saying will or will not work.’”

The underlined portion is of particular interest to the Marketing Technologist - in order for Marketing departments to execute on a vision, an understanding of the technological underpinnings for that vision and the end-user experience it delivers is vital.

The Era of the Marketing Technologist

More importantly, you don't have to be a software company like Microsoft to require this expertise. For more in-depth discussion on the topic, read Scott's post on The Rise of the Marketing Technologist.

Making the Case for an Embedded Marketing Technology Team (E-Business)

In my interview, I make the case that Marketing departments should even have their own technology arm - at our organization we call it the E-Business team. E-Business drives multichannel sales, new customer acquisition, brand recognition and loyalty, and customer retention. For more on E-Business, read on.