<story><title>What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing</title><url>http://brooklynhacker.com/post/29901112213/what-a-hacker-learns-after-a-year-in-marketing</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>austenallred</author><text>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 &quot;code monkey&quot; to build his awesome idea. He becomes the &quot;idea&quot; guy, tries to find someone to give 10% equity to build everything, and gets ready to snort cocaine in Palo Alto.&lt;p&gt;But if you&apos;ve ever worked with a truly talented marketer, it&apos;s an incredible experience. The way they can take something, craft the messaging to it&apos;s JUST RIGHT and find the proper channels to market on - it&apos;s a beautiful thing. But for someone who doesn&apos;t come from a marketing background, it&apos;s very hard to discern.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m sure there are really bad hackers (or do we still call them &quot;hackers?&quot;), but if you&apos;re a marketer it&apos;s hard to tell the difference.&lt;p&gt;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&apos;s some basic HTML/CSS/JavaScript. Hackers should all have to try and acquire customers, and see that it&apos;s not all sending out a couple of tweets or emailing a TechCrunch columnist. Whether you consider the other side a &quot;code monkey&quot; or a &quot;non-technical idiot,&quot; you&apos;re in big trouble. It takes two hands to clap, and both are immensely difficult to accomplish.&lt;p&gt;You have to specialize, but you also have to understand.</text></comment>
<story><title>What A Hacker Learns After A Year In Marketing</title><url>http://brooklynhacker.com/post/29901112213/what-a-hacker-learns-after-a-year-in-marketing</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>kerryfalk</author><text>I was a bit hesitant to click the link, but I&apos;m glad I did.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&quot;As it turns out, the ones who do it well are rare and far less visible because - like good programmers - their work is a lot harder to notice.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This sums my experience perfectly. It takes a long time to be able to understand who is good at something and who is not.&lt;p&gt;Pardon my language but many marketers are charlatans. When I first started in marketing I thought the charlatans were the ones who were good (incompetent people [me at that time] are the least competent at recognizing those who are good). Now, after a decade at it I can firmly agree with the statement above and I think it bodes very well for the author.&lt;p&gt;I believe the 2nd point is the most important to understand when trying to get good at marketing. The rest is ancillary to doing a great job, but having the data is essential to knowing &lt;i&gt;what&lt;/i&gt; to do.&lt;p&gt;I believe great marketers are like methodical scientists. They can put aside their own biases and test their hypothesis and analyze the data. Beyond that, they can look at the data in front of them, identify what they need to know more about, and discover things they did not expect. Through this they can affect change that improves the entire organization.</text></comment>