There’s an interesting presentation, post and comment thread on Mashable at the moment regarding the idea of a new job role within companies – Chief Marketing Technologist.
Scott Brinker, president and CTO of ion interactive, presented the idea at the Pivot Conference, and although I often think there are far too many titles and buzzwords already in existence, there may well be a compelling enough case for this one…
The three missions Brinker outlines for the CMT are:
- Translating Strategy into Technology
- Choreographing Data and Technology across Marketing
- Infusing Tech into the DNA of Marketing
There are already people doing these jobs, and plenty of comments to that effect on the Mashable post. It’s similar in some ways to the roles I’ve had, except this example places much more emphasis on the technical and engineering skills of the CMT – I’ve tended to learn as much as I can, and do as much as I can manage without breaking things, but ultimately leave the heavy lifting to people far more talented on the technical side. Plus in my case, there’s probably the need for an additional letter, becoming CMCT – Chief Marketing and Content Technologist, to include my skills and experience in creating content in a way which hopefully engages people, but also works for SEO etc.
Plus I don’t think choreographing data and infusing technology should be limited to just the Marketing Dept unless you’re in one of the biggest global companies. You need to be able to work with all departments, and infuse the value of data, technology and integration throughout the company for it to work effectively. Otherwise you’ll have powerful marketing with no backbone…
But I do think there should be a recognition of the need for digital and technical skills in marketing which bridge the gap between traditional marketing, social media/co-creation, data and analytics, and internal collaboration. Certainly more than being seen as ‘the geeky one’ by the rest of the marketing team.
The other argument would be to do away with traditional titles altogether, and either just learn what everyone does (As practised by Gore), or just letting people call themselves whatever is simplest and most descriptive. In my case, the best I’ve come up with so far is Digital Content Creation and Distribution Specialist, which isn’t ideal, but at least encapsulates some of the fact I can go from sourcing and creating content to ensuring it’s published on the right type of platform, appears on the right screens, and is given the best chance of popularity via social media, search, advertising etc. CMT might be a better alternative than the world’s largest business card.