Career Change Part 2 -- Marketing (Page 2)

It's still a management issue. If management was good at their job they would have both sides talking. Managers should not come from marketing or engineering, they should be managers because they can work in both worlds and facilitate cooperation. If a marketing person can't see the value in engineering, they shouldn't be a manager outside of marketing. If an engineer can't relate to people and understand the need for marketing, they shouldn't be managing outside of engineering.

There is also hard science to marketing. I think people like Meh would fit well into that world. As your experience has shown, small companies often forget about the hard science of marketing because the people who are good at the touchy feely part of it are often lacking in the science side of it. It's difficult to find someone who can do both, and small companies can't afford two people so they go the known route which is a touchy feely creative marketing person.

Edited by graceful_dave 2011-02-02 11:40 AM

I think she'd make a good manager

This thread reminded me of a video made by some Microsoft employees (engineers?), making fun of their own marketing.  I'm sure a lot of you have seen it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0


Edited by spudone 2011-02-02 11:34 AM

Whatever you do, do NOT get into IT support - it's not all that as they make it out to be.

I hate computers, and would never bother, don't worry Fill!!

You can boil ANYTHING down to a management issue.

An engineer messes up calcs.  A management issue.  They should have never hired him.  A bit far reaching however.  Departments need to be able to police themselves w/o management having to hold hands.

And Meh is right about most engineers not making great managers. Of course you can also say the same of most accounts, marketers, lawyers, doctors etc.  Effective management is a skill set that few people have.

Really I seriously thought about getting out of Process Engineering/Continuous Improvements and getting into this.

16 years of process engineering I am ready for a change and not sure how to foster it. Or more worried that the grass looks greener on the other side and it never really is.

But I know that Salary in my level is not really increasing in the Automotive world.  Sorry for the hijack. Very interesting thread as I think many of us would love a career change now a days.

An engineer messing up a calculations isn't a management issue. The same engineer messing up repeatedly with no action taken to correct is a management issue.

But your issue wasn't within a department (unless I'm missing something) it was across two departments. It is upper management's job to facilitate cooperation between departments.

Also, "management" is sort of a broad term. What managers are we talking about?

Yeah, I'm thinking we are not all talking about the same thing.

I better go back to ordering my subordinates to do my bidding Muahahahaha!

I see your point Dave.  I just don't think you can blame it all on "management".