Well I’m going to kick off this section of our website with a realistic viewpoint on the relationship between Marketing and Development by instilling this tale with some of my own personal experience in the industry.  I case you aren’t familiar with me, I’m Scott Brooks, the co-Founder and Director of Web Development here at User First Interactive.  My personal vision for this company was to create a business centered around really understanding how the users of the websites I’ve continued to create over the years were actually using them.

I hope you’ll excuse me, because I’m going to take a strong departure from the traditional bite size blog post and really take time to tell the whole story in it’s embellished entirety.

Like many of you driven entrepreneurs out there, I too had a fire in my belly;  that type of fire that keeps you up late at night with the excitement of a future you yourself can create.  The sheer exhilaration I’ve experienced while ideas have sprung up from my inspirations puts one in a state of sheer bliss as the future seems to be opening up to you.   It’s an amazing feeling and I think one of the possibilities of these dreams, the hope embodied in them, is the biggest reason why we all strive to create something new and original… hey and making a buck doing something that you really believe in, well that’s just the icing on the cake!

So even though I am a developer, an engineer of the web, I too understand where the idea people in Marketing are coming from.  They live in an environment where coming up with the newest, catchiest way of getting your attention is part of their job.  Innovation is an expected byproduct of their efforts, so I can see why many of them, are so fixated on following the current trends and working so hard to one them and be the next big sensation.   Although I  have to say…  I don’t envy that kind of pressure.

So now comes the rough and tumble part of the story… but with an ear to my colleagues’ plight.  These marketers must try something new, to make the sale, to impress the client, to impress their boss, or to impress their colleagues.  So in the heat of the moment, while brainstorming with the client on a project a seemingly genius idea creeps into their heads.  “You know we could do THIS!”  And the crowd roars with agreement!  “What a splendid idea!”  The meeting ends with hands being enthusiastically shook as everyone leaps out of the conference room to make it happen.

Now the dream, the idea you’ve just put you and your company on the hook for is now held before the fiery eyes of the dreamer’s true nemesis… the developer (dun dun dun!  Hey, what can I say, I like a little dramatic flare).  “So we told the client we could do this.  How long will that take”.  Which for those of you on the broadcasting end of this conversation is when you see the developers face contort ever so slightly as his eyes glaze over in deep thought.  “uuuuuuuuhhhhhhh, wait, so you want to do what exactly?”  Being the standard response, since hell, before you start spinning your wheels a mile a minute, you might as well clarify what the heck their asking you to build.

So the conversation continues and usually ends one of two ways:

1) Developer type A - Mr. Smarty Pants, who of course quickly replies, “We don’t do that kind of thing here.  It’s just not doable.  [insert high level technology reason that may or may not be relevant]“.  Traditionally I’ve found these developers  to be EXTREMELY well versed in the basics of whatever language they use and can rattle off 100 specifications about the platform they use, but rarely are they comfortable stepping outside of that box of convention.  Eventually, if you as the marketer are resilient enough, you’ll find an example or some blog post online that confirms that something like the idea you had has been done… and he’s back on the hook.

2) Developer type B - The “I wonder” Guy, who’s probably come across some site that he’s seen that did something similar to what you’re speaking of and thinks, well let’s try to figure it out!  … I’m that guy and I tend to get myself in deep quite often…  thankfully I’ve been throw in the deep end hundreds of times ever since I started my career as C++ developer back in 1996.  Here’s the code, now figure it out and make it better!  That’s what I’m good at.  A child of the ever changing landscape that is the internetz.

So whether you’ve got Type A or Type B working with you at your workplace, essentially the result, for us developers is the same.  We are now on the hook and here’s the process that goes through our heads:

1) Can our development support this?  Sometimes the IT business decisions made, that seemed like a great idea at the time, have pained you into a corner.  If you haven’t heard the term, these are call “legacy systems” and the reason their called that is because your business has built it’s infrastructure off the best particular choice at the time and committed to working that way.  Over the years… ha… even months in this industry, the technology changes and new and better ways of creating websites come along.  But here you are with the system from 2-3 years ago wondering… “well cripes, even if it’s possible to do, can WE do it?”

2) So if the idea passes this hurdle, the next thought that crosses our mind is, with the current workload I have now, can I figure it out before the deadline?  And thankfully, my recent history with agency work, we were asked for our input on how long we thought creation of website elements would take… I wish I could say that happened everyone.  The fun part about this step is that usually we’re being put under the gun, right on the spot, to come up with a number.  And considering that it’s quite obvious that we at the company have never built anything like this before, well coming up with a number is really 1 part intuition and experience, and 1 part understanding standard project timeline expectations.  The formula shall never be revealed, so don’t bother asking  ;-).

3) Lastly, and most importantly………. Is there enough coffee in the kitchen to keep me awake long enough to pull this off!?!?!?

So as you can see, there’s a reason why some in your development department have grown that tell-tale throbbing vein in their forehead.  In the end, if you sell it, we’ve got to at least TRY to build it.  I’ll save the ramifications of trying to push the square peg through the round hole story for another post.  But by now, as a marketer, you should really understand why your developers really want to be involved in the client kick-off / selling process.  It’s better to head off any overblown client expectations before you have to give them the bad news and have to dash all those beautiful dreams you shared, and throw them to the wind.