Keeping Marketers and Programmers From Killing Each Other

I've worked in several marketing departments with a diverse array of goals, strategies, tactics and objectives. However, one thing has been constant. Marketing and IT don't get along. It's too bad. These departments are mutually responsible for taking the Internet, which is the epicenter of business growth and turning it into cash. Unfortunately, what you'll find at ground zero of the future of American business is a gridlocked group of marketers and programmers that can't get much done.

I feel I can shed some light on both sides of this issue. I started out as a dim witted, marketing spinster and am now slowly becoming an arrogant, know-it-all developer with a bad attitude. Right now I have reached parity. I am 50 percent marketing BS artist, and 50 percent arrogant developer. I'm like Jean Luc Pacard after spending a few days with the Borg. I have begun to see the side of the developer. I've looked into their twisted, singular consciousness and am beginning to understand their plight.

I'm going to cover the perceptions, dos, donts and rules of engagement for both sides of this decade long battle in effort to form a lasting peace.

The Perspectives

The perspectives below are colorful and in some cases may be exaggerated, but are really not that far from truth for many companies.

The Marketing Perspective

Marketers know what they would like to have done and view IT people as the line backers of the business - sitting in the backfield waiting to block, slow down, and complicate their seemingly easy projects. Marketers believe their IT projects take forever to complete, and after they are done, the stuff doesn't even work half of the time. While marketers deal with lagging time lines and broken stuff, IT people rub it in with a arrogant, know-it-all attitude that even a mother could resent.

Many marketers think they ended up with the meanest, most incompetent IT team in the world, but trust me, a lot of them are like that. For reasons I'll explain in a minute, their behavior may be warranted.

The Developer Perspective

There is a reason marketers don't just roll up there sleeves and right the damn code themselves. Because they can't. IT people are the smartest ones in the company. The people keeping everything going. Programming and development takes years of practice, it's time consuming, meticulous, and a couple of false moves will roast your website or application. A developer may spend 15, 30 or 100 hours working on a project. Hours of coding, tweaking, coding, fixing, and coding some more. FINALLY, they finish the project, and can almost exhale a sigh of relief and accomplishment. Just before they do, some short haired hippy called a "marketer" (only because they have an eye for color and can write a grammatically correct sentence) gives them a laundry list of nit picky, BS reasons why they're not done yet. On top of that, they demand to know why this simple project is taking so long, and remind them that there are 30 other projects waiting. Despite the IT's superior intellect and vast knowledge, they're stuck implementing the directives of a giant featherless parrot that keeps repeating the words "user experience" and "target market."

Rules for Management

Zero Tolerance For Bullshit - Here are examples of the BS coming out of both departments:

• IT BS - "No, we can't do that. It won't work. Doing that will break the website unless we spend the next 9 years redeveloping the whole thing."
• Marketing BS - Stretching the truth of statements like "it's better for SEO, that's not our target market, it's good for branding and it's bad for usability."

I've seen this happen, management even catches it sometimes, but they still put up with it. I have no idea why. It's unacceptable. It's called asymmetric information. What would you do if you found out your doctor or lawyer where BSing to you? When asymmetric information exists, honesty is non-negotiable. Pull your marketers and IT people in and let everyone know that any BSing based on asymmetric information will be taken very seriously. If you do catch it, unleash the fury. Everyone must be working from a common set of facts. A culture of truth must be established.

Rules For Marketers

1. Get Mad At The Right People - Like I said, development isn't easy. Developers are slammed with projects and there is constant pressure on them to work faster. The reason your projects aren't getting done as fast as you would like is probably because your management team is skimping on you. Developers and programmers are expensive. Try getting mad at management and demanding proper staffing instead of sitting around water cooler talking smack on those incompetent IT people.
2. Don't Give Specifics When Critiquing Work - 90 percent of the time the developer didn't half ass it because they suck. They stopped because they had been working on the thing for 70 hours and would have shot themselves if they spent another minute on it. Instead of nit picking their work with specifics try this: "It's coming along nicely - take a break from this for a bit and then lets put the finishing touches on later." Or just tell them to "tighten it up." Avoid specific nit picking when possible. This is not productive and will only make things worse. They already know what needs done, they're just hoping you won't notice ;)
3. Stop Assuming You're Good At The Internet - Business schools do not teach anything useful about Internet marketing. They teach 30,000 ft. concepts that are helpful if you're making decisions at a strategic level, but are rarely applicable to the trenches. Many non-internet marketers feel they can apply these concepts to web marketing, but this isn't the case. The Internet looks easier than it is, and things are not as they appear. For example, can you explain why ugly landing pages often convert better than pretty ones? It defies conventional marketing wisdom. Knowing marketing fundamentals is great and can make you a good marketer, but being a good internet marketer requires hours of additional, independent study. Until these hours of independent study occur, marketers should be careful with what they decide to critique.

Rules For Developers

• Stop Lying - I have been lied to by IT people at least 50 times in the last 3 years. The lie is always the same. It goes something like this, "No, we can't do that because the website is dynamic and the code is all weird and stuff because the last developer was autistic and had asperger's." 90 percent of the time this is BS. IT people pulling this kind stuff deserve every bit of ill will directed towards them.
• Humility - IT people on average are smarter than marketers. It's a fact. It goes back to college. Many marketers are attracted to their field because it's somewhat easy and seems fun. Computer science is a difficult degree to obtain. That being said, IT folks still need a reality check. Pick your battles, and learn how to sound smart without being a prick. The irony of copying an attitude while letting people know how brilliant you are is that it's a stupid thing to do. It makes people hate you. Show everyone how smart you really are by adding some finesse.
• Stop Assuming You're Good At Marketing - I've worked with 30 developers, and 50 percent of them thought they knew a lot about SEO. 49 percent of them were wrong. There are few things more dangerous than a programmer that thinks they know SEO. Programmers also often think they know a lot about design and usability, and usually don't. Although it seems like marketers just memorize lines like "target market" and "user experience" some of them actually know what they're talking about. Programmers are actually surprisingly bad at marketing. Here's how you can tell if a programmer is good at marketing - they're the CEO of their own company. Programmers that know how to market are priceless. They can spot a marketing opportunity and just build something ti fill it. On the other hand, if you're over the age of 30 and still working for someone you may be a great programmer, but you suck at marketing. Start deferring to the marketers more.

Next Steps

If you've read this and it sounds familiar I hope I've helped. If you've read this and don't recognize your own IT or Marketing department, run to their offices immediately. Get down on your knees, hug their legs, and say, "thank you for being such a wonderful person. I love you with all of my heart. Don't ever, ever, ever leave this company. We'd never make it without you"