Why write a blog?
With so much content already out there, what could I possibly contribute that would be new or valuable?
These are the kinds of questions I’ve struggled with before starting this. But, in the end, I just said “go for it, and start writing”! Why not? If tree falls in the forest, etc., etc.
After all, many years of real-world experience does add up to something that can’t be found in textbooks or journals, and maybe some of that experience might help someone, at very least to not make the same mistakes I’ve seen in my travels. So, away we go!
How did I get here?
My particular career path has been fairly unique, at least I think so. While I have an engineering degree (Imaging Science, RIT), early on I decided I didn’t want to do engineering full-time. The example I always use is, if I were a mechanical engineer, I could go to work for an auto-maker, for instance. But, as a new engineer fresh out of college, nobody is going to let me design a car. The way I saw it, my first job might end up being designing something as mundane as a wheel cover, and that is just too boring in my mind. I’m a “big idea” person, and I want to design the car! Well, that isn’t going to happen for a long time, so, being the impatient sort, I ended up working in sales and marketing for small high tech companies.
My first job out of college was to do all sales and marketing for a small DOD subcontractor, who had invented an image scanner under a government contract, and desired to sell it in the commercial market. So, I was effectively the first “commercial” person in the company. Talk about being thrown in the water to learn to swim, I had to learn a lot very fast, and “sell ideas” to technical people, both internally and externally. But boy did I learn a lot in a very short period of time.
Why small companies?
I loved the small company environment right away: “big fish, small pond”. In a small company, everyone feels like they are contributing in a major way; and they are..they HAVE TO in this kind of environment! That means if the hiring people are doing their job right, you end up with exceptional people who are willing to wear many hats and are open to learning. It’s a very stimulating environment, albeit generally hectic. For me, this was also consistent with my choice of not doing engineering, it’s a way of always being in the big picture. Certainly there are a lot of benefits to working in larger companies, like security, better defined roles, better long-term vision, etc., but I just thrive in chaos and the excitement that comes with the small company environment.
So, I spent my career in small, high-tech start-up companies, chasing that excitement. The high-tech part of it allowed me to continue using my engineering skills, and to gain lots of new technical knowledge. I stuck with “leading-edge” technologies, or what we sometimes referred to as “bleeding-edge” technologies. These technologies are always a gamble, and I’ve been through both success and failures. In all honesty, you generally learn a lot more from the failures than the successes, but that’s probably a topic for another day.
The challenges, and some advice…
Technical sales and marketing is especially challenging, because you need to first completely understand the technology you are working with, and then you need to figure out how to differentiate and communicate that differentiation to both technical (user) levels and executive (CXO) levels. It is never enough just to have a better mousetrap, you have to make the market aware of it and create demand; the old fallacy of “if you build it, people will beat a path to your door” is a simple recipe for failure. So, for someone like me, it’s the perfect career, balancing and exercising both sides of the brain, technical and creative!
My first piece of advice if you’re just starting out is seek out and engage with mentors. These are the people who will help you the most, and guide you the best. In a small company, at first, it may seem like everyone’s a mentor. But if you pay attention closely, you’ll soon find the people who can really help you. These people don’t always stand out at first, and may be the quietest ones in meetings. But, what you will notice is that when these people talk, everyone listens and respects their input. That’s because they have a successful track record amongst their peers of being knowledgable and insightful. They tend to ask questions that make everyone stop and think hard about what’s being discussed. Latch on to these people and learn as much as you can.
By the way, mentors don’t have to be at the same place as you are working, but that certainly helps, as they know the full story, and can give you the most immediate help. You also want to begin networking externally early on also. When you go to conferences or trade shows, look through the programs and make a point of going to some of the talks that look interesting, or that you think could help you in your job. If someone’s talk resonates with you, make an attempt to reach out to that person and tell them why you enjoyed their talk. At worst, you’ve helped their ego, but, at best, you might form a relationship that will help you in the future!
So, that’s a brief background on how and why I ended up here, for what it’s worth. I’ll be taking on more specific issues in upcoming posts. I welcome your comments!
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