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"Hart, Geoff" (if that is indeed his real name) wrote:
[Sorry, couldn't resist. The Web-based email interface I use when I'm away from home always puts quotes around people's names.]
>After posting my previous comments, I realized I forgot one rather important
>point. From all I've heard, the world of Marketing is a far more political
>one than the innocent, sheltered, warm and fuzzy world of techwhirling. <g>
>I'd be interested in hearing confirmation or contradictions from those who
>have firsthand experience in such environments; here, we have no formal
>marketing group, and do our marketing ad hoc, so my perceptions are
>second-hand and thus likely to be exaggerated.
>
As I wrote to Jane off-list, the workaround that I implemented is this: Instead of functioning as _part_ of the marketing department, I set up an independent communications services group under the company's internal operations structure. Marketing is my biggest customer, but they are just a customer. I report to the director of operations, not the VP of marketing. The arm's-length relationship has proved beneficial to both groups, precisely because it affords clarity and avoids political in-fighting. That's not to say that there is never any friction; but we do not have daily confrontations about who controls the commas. Marketing decides what they want to say; my group exercises some degree of autonomous control over how it gets said. We negotiate the differences civilly, as partners. The other big advantage is that I can allocate resources to provide services to other departments, too, instead of having 100% of our time devoted to marketing's whims.
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