Marketing is a nine letter word- but there is no need to be embarassed by it

In my "younger days" I used to say that if you didn't know what you wanted to do in life, you got a degree in Communications or Marketing. At the time I was a young, cocky web developer with the world at my fingertips. It wasn't until I got my hands into marketing/advertising that I realized the power (and the extremely broad use) of the "M" word.


At a dotcom in the early 2000's, I considered myself a complete technology guy (my title of CTO even screamed "I'm technology, hear me roar"). I thought Marketeers were Mouseketeers. To me, the marketing department set up ice cream socials and sent out the yearly company branded coffee cup. Yet I had always been consumed by advertising and secretly had a desire to try my hand at it.

After the dotcom I helped create imploded, I moved to a company that needed both my technology and creative skills (since I had been collaborating with the Marketing Director of my last company and secretly enjoyed every moment; I had some marketing chops, I just didn't want to admit I was one of "them"). After nine months, the call came down from the CEO; I was now the Director of Marketing, and the fast growing department that had until that point, been unnamed, was now the marketing department.


I kicked. "Why can't we be the New Media department?". I screamed. "I am *not* a Marketing person like the long list of undecided college grads that I so despised. They were not like me. I was results oriented, they were warm and fluffy. I embraced technology, they needed more branded coffee cups.

And almost like that, I ended up deeply entrenched in International Advertising and Marketing. This blog is mostly self-serving - a way to get my thoughts about everything from alternative energy, to architecture and technology. And like most posts in the blogosphere, it will probably fall upon deaf ears, except for the occasional visit from Slurp or Googlebot.

Marketing is not a dirty word, or a career for the undecided. It is a beautiful collision of business execution and art; product exceeding hype and hype exceeding business expectations. It is where my brain roams and it can be wonderful and frustrating all at the same time. Welcome to my brain. :)