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Subject:RE: Caught between tech writing and marketing From:"Giordano, Connie" <Connie -dot- Giordano -at- FMR -dot- COM> To:"'Emily_Cotlier -at- cardlink -dot- co -dot- nz'" <Emily_Cotlier -at- cardlink -dot- co -dot- nz>, TECHWR-L <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 23 Nov 1999 08:54:52 -0500
Emily,
I may be in a minority, but I find that doing both tech comm and marcom is
the best of all worlds. I take a lot of (foolish?) pride in the knowledge
that I know more about the products than anyone else. I also have the
opportunity to be the one who makes sure the right and left hands know what
the other is doing. I love the chance to be able to participate in both
product development and product direction.
Your success in doing what I like to think of as total communications
depends on several things: your ability to think strategically, your ability
to understand what drives each audience and respond accordingly, your
rapport with both engineering and sales types, and probably most
importantly, your ability to delegate. If you have additional team members,
give them the opportunity to work on the kind of projects you've already
mastered. If you don't, then you have to learn to be diplomatic in
compromising on deadlines, and to learn to love coffee!
The challenge is to make sure marketing is telling prospects what the
product does and how it can benefit them, and to make sure development and
support tell customers what the product does and how to use to benefit them
and their work. When I get it right it's way cool. When I miss the mark,
it's time to go out and try again.
Make sure you go to the right meetings with QA, engineering, tech support,
and marketing. One or two tries and you'll figure out which ones won't help
you stay in both loops. Pace yourself, and get objective feedback (that
Marketing Manager would be a great place to start).
Have fun,
Connie Giordano
-----Original Message-----
From: Emily_Cotlier -at- cardlink -dot- co -dot- nz [mailto:Emily_Cotlier -at- cardlink -dot- co -dot- nz]
Sent: Monday, November 22, 1999 6:40 PM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Caught between tech writing and marketing
Emily writes:
I am a technical writer who is working under the aegis of a marketing
department, all of 3 people including me, at a small company of 60 people.
This happened because of internal politics (and my own self interest, since
the Marketing manager is that precious rarity, a good manager). As time
goes on, though, and our IT division improves in management, I am starting
to feel a conflict between involvement in IT and involvement in marketing
projects. I'm working on it from my end, but I'm wondering; are other tech
writers working in both the tech writing and marketing areas of their
companies? And do they feel torn?
