I don't mean to sound adversarial but I heard something incredibly intriguing recently which underscored what I am realizing is an incredible paradigm shift in the technology world. Either that, or I have been living in a small box of technology for the last few years.
Recently I was pitching a pretty comprehensive web solution for a client. It wasn't a cheap solution, but it was well worth the investment. The client was quite impressed with the process that would have been used to qualify the budget that they were about to spend on this web project and suggested that their IT staff should hear the pitch. Not surprisingly, an IT staff member looked at the proposal, looked at the processes we were looking to execute to qualify the requirements, and then looked at the sticker and promptly freaked out. His observation was that a simple website didnt need any of this planning and analysis crap and that all they really needed was a nice design and some coding to get up and running (I'm paraphrasing, here.)
"That is why I always say that websites should be owned my the marketing department and not the IT department." This was a comment from a marketing friend whom I was sharing my day with. Wow. I had to pause for a second. Was it my pride? Have I gone over to the dark side? Have the marketing folks hi-jacked my precious technology?
You see, I was that IT guy not too long ago. I built websites, used web services, marveled at the simplicity of the prototype library, scoffed at the Jesse James Garrett AJAX bandwagon with my buddies who were used to using the XMLHTTPObject in the Microsoft IE 5.0 DOM (though it wasn't nearly as useful as it is now, because nobody cared about javascript then...). I think Container Managed Persistence is brilliant. I still use NHibernate to this day. I am a software geek at heart, and I daily get at least 10 ideas on how to make the world a better place.
Now, I find myself in a world where I am seeing that websites really are more than "...a nice design and some coding...". They are for many the first point of contact for a brand. They really do make or break the potential of a relationship with a given consumer who stumbles upon the site. Now I'm conflicted. Maybe they do need to be owned by the marketing folks. In fact, knowing what I know now, I feel dumb for ever thinking that they didn't. But at the same time, I don't think I am ready to let that go. I don't know if I am ready to trust the website in the hands of marketing...
You see, it was people like me who 'invented' websites. And we didn't necessarily do so to sell stuff. We did it to make communcation easier. Just like Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, and Google; All of these great inventions, that are now turning into nothing more than high tech billboards. We are in an age of hyper-information, and I am a bit freaked out. Why? Because we can communicate on many levels now, and more and more, the message is becoming buy this...buy that. Don't get me wrong, I understand that in order for these technologies to flourish they need a business model, but when you can tweet into my pocket in a moments notice, and I have to determine whether you are an everyday joe or an interactive strategist, I can't help but feel a bit exploited.
Things are a changing technologist friends. We truly are becoming a commodity. I used to draw a funny picture of a Hand holding the World with a Flea on it. The Hand was the Technologist, the World was Technology, and the Flea was the Marketer. The world is getting smaller, and the flea is getting fatter.
Don't believe me? Just look at the sheer volume of technology consulting now listing "Interactive Marketing" as one of their service offerings instead of web design.
But wait, there's more...
interactive marketing