Marketing Technology

You've seen the commercials.

A stark white background and a simple piano ditty. They start the same. "Hello, I'm a Mac." says the cool young guy. And the nerdy one replies, "And I'm a PC." And they all end the same - with PC humiliated and Mac looking oh, so smug. It's a great series of commercials that simply and cleverly drive home the advantages of Macs over PCs. And as a Mac guy myself, of course I think they're brilliant.

But here's the rub. These two could just as easily have started the commercial by saying, "Hello, I'm a designer." with the instant reply "And I'm the client."

Who's laughing now?

For the majority of my career as a designer, I've worked for engineers. I've developed ads targeted at engineers selling products developed by engineers who work for companies run by engineers. In fact, if I could attribute the success I've had to one thing, it's an ability to communicate effectively with engineers and translate their messages into something that's accessible to the rest of us mere mortals. In fact, it's such an important aspect of what I do that a recent self-promotion we created for our firm is built upon the simple phrase, "We speak Geek."

So, what are my secrets to working successfully with technology companies?

1. Do your homework and ask smart questions.

2. Get excited about what they're excited about. If you can't get worked up over parallel processing and interoperability, then you shouldn't be working with technology companies.

3. Show them their world as they've never seen it before.

4. Pay attention to details and have a good reason for every decision you make.

5. Keep one foot grounded in their world. Designers like to work with analogies and metaphors, but if we push it too far, the message loses all relevance to the engineering audience.

6. Know who the intended audience is. The subject may be technical but who are you talking to? We may recoil at all of the acronyms and technical terms but if that's the language of the intended audience, you better learn the language and use it. If the message is aimed at the layperson, it's our job to serve as the translator.

Do these things and before you know it, some of your best friends will be PCs.