Re: Merging marketing pubs with tech pubs

["Hutchings, Christa" <cwhutchings -at- HOMEWIRELESS -dot- COM>]

Beth -
For what it's worth, I am part of the Product Management team here,
which belongs to Marketing. I report to the Director of Product
Management, and he reports to the VP-Marketing. We are a
marketing-driven company, and our Product Management group has total
control over the design of our products. Product Management determines,
in conjunction with the marketing group, what products are needed to
meet a market niche and then writes the functional specs for
Engineering. This structure is working pretty well here because our
Product Management group is not only highly technical but also has a
good understanding of where the industry is going and they interface
well with both Marketing and Engineering.

At most of my previous jobs, I belonged to Engineering and would have
rebelled if they had tried to put me in Marketing. I have found,
however, that the product management folks here understand much better
than the engineering folks I have worked with at other companies about
the importance of looking at product and document design from the
end-user's perspective.

I don't think I would be happy being under the direct control of
marketing, especially if I was having to do marcomm writing, but so far
it's working well to belong to Product Management. Is it possible for
you to recommend something similar at your company?

Regards,

Chris

************************
Chris Welch-Hutchings
Senior Technical Writer
Home Wireless Networks, Inc.
mailto:cwhutchings -at- homewireless -dot- com






-----Original Message-----
From: Elizabeth Kane [mailto:bkane -at- ARTISOFT -dot- COM]
Sent: Friday, August 28, 1998 2:36 PM
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject: Merging marketing pubs with tech pubs


     I could really use some feedback from you today...my company is on
the
     verge of putting tech pubs under marketing, and calling the dept.
     Marketing and Technical Communications.
     And I'm feeling very uncomfortable about this.

     We've always been the Technical Publications Dept., under the wing
of
     the Engineering Dept.

     Between attrition and reductions in force, I am now the only person
in
     Technical Publications (as senior TW). The marketing dept.'s
director
     just resigned, and there are only two people left in that dept. --
a
     webmaster and a marketing assistant. Since I've been helping out
     marketing by providing editing services and some graphics file
     handling, they thought maybe we belong together. They're thinking
of
     putting the marketing assistant in charge of this new M/TC dept.,
     which kind of bugs me. She's not a writer; there is no marketing
     writer or graphics person.

     I'm not really interested in writing ads and press releases.
Although
     I was in PR at one time, over the past few years I've become really
     attached to the engineering side -- tech writing, usability
testing,
     interface design...you get the idea. I am really comfortable being
     part of engineering.

     Can anyone tell me what you did in a similar situation, or what you
     would do when faced with this change?
     In a way it makes sense to have all publications coming from one
     dept., but I'm not an "ad" kind of person.
     I am so totally swamped with tech writing work I have no time for
     marketing stuff anyway...
     Thanks very much,
     Beth Kane
     bkane -at- artisoft -dot- com in Tucson


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