Re: Need help please

[Sandy Harris <sandy -at- storm -dot- ca>]

Nancy Mignone wrote:

> At the risk of someone trotting out a canned, "humorous" response, let me
> begin -
> 
> We are a new company, and I have a problem. My problem is the head of
> marketing, a VP.
> This gentleman is very creative and intelligent. He also considers techncial
> writing as a subset of marketing.

To some extent, this is fair. What you write reflects on the company, and
he's got a valid concern.

> For example, at the moment marketing is developing a white paper on software
> architecture. I've never worked in a shop where that documentation type is
> done by marketing.

If you need a white paper on your software architecture, why isn't the
architect writing it?

Here, it depends heavily on his style and his technical competence. Many
marketing experts are not competent to write on such topics, and often their
attempts make their products look incredibly bad to sophisticated readers.

There are exceptions, marketing people with a good grasp of both product
design issues and the customer's business issues. If this guy is one of
that rare species, you're extremely lucky. Become his acolyte; it could
be a really good career move.

There's a really excellent book called the Cluetrain Manifesto that deals
exstensively with the changes in business practices, especially marketing,
required to cope with a connected world. I'd suggest you read it and then
loan him your copy.

http://www.cluetrain.org/

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