Why Programmers Might Want to Learn Something About Marketing

Posted on February 4, 2008, 10:53 am, by jamiegrove, under Business, IT, Programmers.

If you’re a programmer, you might want to put in some time with books like Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres and Competing on Analytics by Tom Davenport.

Why?

Here’s something for you to think about…

In 10 Years, Marketing Will Be Taught In Engineering School:

Technology is removing all friction from the marketplace. Marketing will really be about figuring out how to most quickly and effectively tap the feelings of the market for the benefit of the product. This will go from a process that currently takes months or years, to one that happens in hours and days. All messaging and product feature sets will be rapidly optimized using the next generation of marketing techniques and technologies.

[Via: Why does everything suck?]

I have no doubt that Hank Williams is right.

Though heavy on the tech side of things, I’ve floated around between IT and Marketing for most of my career. However, it’s been awhile since so many books about marketing to algorithms have hit the shelves. Search is obviously the big reason and that makes me happy. I’m happy because search actually works and is quantifiable as opposed to the personalization craze circa 1998-2001.

The change is here and it is real.