Why Developers Need Marketing Now More Than Ever | Keynote at Gluecon 2019

Many in today’s developer world look down on marketing. I mean, after all, the marketing team is usually “not technical.” And they’re not developers. It’s 2019 and while we try to promote inclusiveness of all types, inclusiveness doesn’t seem to apply to marketers. Why? Is that OK? Who does that hurt? I grew up in engineering and spent the first 15 years of my career as a developer or an engineering manager of some type. So now that I’m in marketing, it surprised me when one of my engineering colleagues blurted out “But it’s a technical conference!” when he learned one of my talks was accepted to a technical conference.

This keynote is about why developers really need marketing. About how good marketing managers can make it so visitors to your website don’t leave empty-handed, confused about what your technology actually does or why it matters. About how the ability to translate technology into what-users-actually-care-about can make your project be the one that takes off. About why Dormain Drewitz said at Monktoberfest: “I work in product marketing. My preferred programming language is English.” Finally, this talk explores how to be sensitive to the bias against marketing that pervades some of our teams—and how to instead embrace teamwork best practices employed by sailors, where everyone in the boat has an important role to play if you are to win the race.

Transcript

1. @clairegiordano WHY DEVELOPERS NEED MARKETING, NOW MORE THAN EVER Claire Giordano @clairegiordano @citusdata @microsoft
2. @clairegiordano CONUNDRUM In creating this talk, I ran into a conundrum @clairegiordano
3. @clairegiordano If developers really need marketing, why disparage marketing so much? @clairegiordano
4. @clairegiordano It’s 2019 & we all support Diversity & Inclusion. Right? @clairegiordano
5. @clairegiordano EXCEPT NOT FOR MARKETING @clairegiordano
6. @clairegiordano Why doesn’t inclusiveness apply to marketers? @clairegiordano
7. @clairegiordano Why doesn’t inclusiveness apply to marketers? Is it OK that it doesn’t? @clairegiordano
8. @clairegiordano Developer > Engineering Manager Product Manager > Product Marketer Hi, I’m Claire—and I’m a Principal PM Manager at Microsoft, by way of the recent Citus Data acquisition, where I was VP of Marketing. @clairegiordano @citusdata @microsoft Sun Microsystems Citus Data > Microsoft Applied Math / Computer Science
9. @clairegiordano @clairegiordano I ran across this tweet from Matt Asay before I submitted my talk proposal to Gluecon, and it reinforced the need to have this conversation.
10. @clairegiordano “ We live in an Internet age, which means we live in an age mostly built by engineers- ergo, we live in a very engineer-centric world. And what engineers love to tell us is that marketing shouldn’t matter. Only the product should matter. If you need marketing, that’s only because you haven’t designed the product well enough. This is what we call “Window dressing marketing”. Marketing as an appendage. Marketing as an afterthought. Marketing that doesn’t matter, in other words. And that’s what most marketing is. And most of it is quite rightly ignored. I don’t know about you, but we can’t afford to have marketing that’s ignored. Our marketing has to matter. Our marketing has to get people to care, or else we're out of business. Source: Gapingvoid Creative Design Group The day after I submitted my Gluecon talk proposal, this Gapingvoid newsletter landed in my inbox. Further reinforcing the need to talk about this.
11. @clairegiordano In researching this talk, I discovered this 2018 Velocity NYC keynote by Michael Bernstein. Turns out lots of us are having the same conversation! @clairegiordano
12. @clairegiordano People form “Tribes” around shared interests
13. @clairegiordano If we’re not careful, tribes can also build walls between groups // Who does that hurt?
14. @clairegiordano Have you ever sworn at the complete & total stupidity of the driver next to you? @clairegiordano
15. @clairegiordano @Clairegiordano ? @clairegiordano
16. @clairegiordano @Clairegiordano 1 1. Is there a bias against marketing? 2. Are there lessons for us in sailboat racing? 3. Why do we (developers) really need marketing? @clairegiordano
17. @clairegiordano DO DEVELOPERS HATE MARKETING? qYES qNO @clairegiordano
18. @clairegiordano DO DEVELOPERS HATE THESE THINGS? qYES qNO blogs documentation video how-to’s t-shirts stickers? conferences downloads reddit stackoverflow google search @clairegiordano
19. @clairegiordano MAYBE DEVELOPERS HATE BADMARKETING? qYES qNO @clairegiordano
20. @clairegiordano Sign up for our newsletter and we'll send you a great set of content each month, no spam, no marketing, just interesting content. “ qYES qNO @clairegiordano Does the question above promulgate bias against marketing? Does this question implicitly equate marketing with spam?
21. @clairegiordano “BUT THEY’RE NOT TECHNICAL” @clairegiordano There’s been a lot of conversation the last 6 months about “gatekeeping” and keeping people (including marketing folks) from having a seat at the table. Who gets hurt by this? Do our users pay the price?
22. @clairegiordano @clairegiordano
23. @clairegiordano @clairegiordano
24. @clairegiordano
25. @clairegiordano Have you ever anonymized the work of an individual by referring to them as a group? E.g. “I can’t believe what marketing said…” @clairegiordano It’s a lot easier to build walls and to devalue the work of other teams when you don’t think of the other teams as individuals but rather as amorphous groups, like “marketing.”
26. @clairegiordano @Clairegiordano 1. Is there a bias against marketing? 2. Are there lessons for us in sailboat racing? 3. Why do we (developers) really need marketing? 2 @clairegiordano
27. @clairegiordano 12-year-old-me says thank you to designers of this beautiful Sunfish. Source: www.laserperformance.us @clairegiordano
28. @clairegiordano I think we have something to learn from these sailboat racers.
29. @clairegiordano Skipper (or Helmsman, or Driver), and Bowman, and Main Trimmer, and Trimmer for Jib and Spinnaker: all have an important role to play. The team communication & collaboration wins or loses the race. There is no room in a winning boat for walls, divides, and disparagement.
30. @clairegiordano
31. @clairegiordano
32. @clairegiordano When you race sailboats, every role matters
33. @clairegiordano @Clairegiordano 1. Is there a bias against marketing? 2. Are there lessons for us in sailboat racing? 3. Why do we (developers) really need marketing? 3 @clairegiordano
34. @clairegiordano If you build it, they will NOTcome @clairegiordano Apologies to the movie Field of Dreams, but build it, and they will NOT come. There is real work to tell the story about how you can help users—and to help users to discover your offering.
35. @clairegiordano “MARKETING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN CODE IN THE ADOPTION OF SOFTWARE.” —Michael Bernstein, Velocity NYC 2018 @clairegiordano This is the bold claim made by Michael in his Velocity NYC keynote. Is it true? I do love the quote. But based on the sailing example, marketing & product & engineering & docs all need to be in the boat together.
36. @clairegiordano People whose preferred programming language is English bring you the power of persuasion HT Dormain Drewitz, Monktoberfest 2018 @clairegiordano
37. @clairegiordano A positive 1st impression on website colors your users’ experience that comes after… @clairegiordano
38. @clairegiordano Good product marketers bring a ton of empathy to the table Source: Gapingvoid Creative Design Group @clairegiordano
39. @clairegiordano @clairegiordano Documentation is one of the BEST forms of marketing. Here is a screenshot from Heroku’s Dev Center, known for their developer-friendly documentation.
40. @clairegiordano Database constraints in Postgres: The last line of defense Data has a certain gravity and inertia. Once it’s stored it’s not likely to be actively moved or frequently modified. At least not for your one source of truth. Protecting that data and ensuring it’s both safely stored but also correct is worth the time investment because of the value it has. Going further, your database schema and models are going to change far less than your application code. Because it changes less frequently the case By Will Leinweber ➜ CITUSDATA.COM/BLOG READ OUR BLOGS?
41. @clairegiordano Can I use math to persuade you that it’s worth welcoming marketing into your boat? @clairegiordano
42. @clairegiordano 1.01365 = 37.8 0.99365 = 0.03 Source: https://tomtunguz.com/1-01365-37-7/ @clairegiordano Love this blog post from Tomasz Tunguz (Redpoint) about the impact of getting 1% better every day (or declining by 1% every day.) What if you all embraced your need for marketing every day over the next year?
43. @clairegiordano Thank You @clairegiordano @citusdata @microsoft