I come from a marketing background, and I have to say that sometimes the negative view of marketers is completely deserved. All it takes is some kid in business school to watch The Social Network and decide he needs a "code monkey" to build his awesome idea. He becomes the "idea" guy, tries to find someone to give 10% equity to build everything, and gets ready to snort cocaine in Palo Alto.
But if you've ever worked with a truly talented marketer, it's an incredible experience. The way they can take something, craft the messaging to it's JUST RIGHT and find the proper channels to market on - it's a beautiful thing. But for someone who doesn't come from a marketing background, it's very hard to discern.
I'm sure there are really bad hackers (or do we still call them "hackers?"), but if you're a marketer it's hard to tell the difference.
Generally disrespect comes from a lack of willingness to understand what actually happens on the other side. I think it should be mandatory for every marketer to learn how to code - even if it's some basic HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Hackers should all have to try and acquire customers, and see that it's not all sending out a couple of tweets or emailing a TechCrunch columnist. Whether you consider the other side a "code monkey" or a "non-technical idiot," you're in big trouble. It takes two hands to clap, and both are immensely difficult to accomplish.
You have to specialize, but you also have to understand.
He becomes the "idea" guy, tries to find someone to give 10% equity to build everything, and gets ready to snort cocaine in Palo Alto.
I think marketers would be well served to do some self-marketing and figure out a way to spread the word that "idea guy" != "marketer". As you say, a truly talented marketer is something special. Most random "idea guy" types know bugger-all about marketing.
Actually in my experience, a lot of the best people in marketing are very much "idea guys". Some of them along the HN-hated template of "well just get some coder to knock it up" (being good at marketing doesn't automatically mean you understand anything about what technical people do..), some of them realise this isn't realistic or sensible.
Actually in my experience, a lot of the best people in marketing are very much "idea guys".
Right, marketers can (and probably should) be "idea guys", but not all "idea guys" are marketers. Most "idea guys" (in my experience) don't know much about anything at all. It's that distinction that I think real, professional, talented marketing people should try to make... otherwise they risk getting lumped in with the chumps.
Some of them along the HN-hated template of "well just get some coder to knock it up" (being good at marketing doesn't automatically mean you understand anything about what technical people do..)
So this is where my opinion may be biased by my technical background, and where I may go against the grain a bit... but I think really good marketers (of technical products, that is) should have at least a modicum of technical knowledge, and should understand exactly what their product does (if not the deep details of how it does it), and should be able to articulate - in some detail - how their product addresses a customer problem. To my mind, not being able to do that, as a marketer, is shooting yourself in the foot.
When it comes to marketing technical stuff, I'm on the fence. As someone who works in marketing, and whose inner geek loves tech stuff, I agree with you in principle - however my experience has shown me plenty of people who really know little about what they're selling and yet do a fantastic job. Possibly the reverse of this experience is that maybe they're better at short-term sales, worse at actually giving customers what they want and therefore worse at keeping customers, I suspect this is the case.
But anyway, when I was talking about good marketers who don't understand tech stuff, I didn't mean people who are marketing the same tech products (such as Twilio). For example I was speaking to a client this morning, a fairly important guy in a company that makes certain types of consumer PC components. Ask him about several areas, such as PSUs, and he knows everything, in so much detail. But my conversation this morning was helping him work out who in his company he needed to speak to about creating a small landing page, and how to get the subdomain he wants. He doesn't know the meaning of any of the following: "DNS", "IP", "sub-domain". Great at marketing, great at understanding the products he markets, but if he had an idea that involved any coding, he wouldn't have a clue.
I think the thing I'm coming around to is that an understanding of the core domain is pretty important to doing a job well. If I was in construction marketing and knew how concrete worked, I'd be advantaged over someone who didn't. If I was in plumbing marketing and knew the pros and cons of copper pipes, I'd be advantaged over someone who didn't.
Someone who is in the technology business at any level or capacity who understands technology has an edge over people who don't. In startup tech in particular, I'm seeing the ability to code as particularly advantageous regardless of where you hang your hat on the company floor plan.
Programming is the rainbow sprinkle that puts your sundae over the top. (blatantly trying to make @shit_hn_says here)
But if you've ever worked with a truly talented marketer, it's an incredible experience. The way they can take something, craft the messaging to it's JUST RIGHT and find the proper channels to market on - it's a beautiful thing. But for someone who doesn't come from a marketing background, it's very hard to discern.
I'm sure there are really bad hackers (or do we still call them "hackers?"), but if you're a marketer it's hard to tell the difference.
Generally disrespect comes from a lack of willingness to understand what actually happens on the other side. I think it should be mandatory for every marketer to learn how to code - even if it's some basic HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Hackers should all have to try and acquire customers, and see that it's not all sending out a couple of tweets or emailing a TechCrunch columnist. Whether you consider the other side a "code monkey" or a "non-technical idiot," you're in big trouble. It takes two hands to clap, and both are immensely difficult to accomplish.
You have to specialize, but you also have to understand.