I started this morning writing a long post about my second 30 days in my new Technical Marketing Manager (TMM) post with The Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT). I found myself explaining how a TMM is similar to a Product Manager (PM). It probably deserves a post of its own. So here it is.
Some of you might be wondering why I take advice from a product management blog (On Product Management) when my job title is Technical Marketing Manager. So what does a Technical Marketing Manager do?
In a sentence I see it as taking overall responsibility for marketing the product of a hugely technical organisation; something that is much more than the 4 P’s.
I see my current role as sitting on a spectrum of similar roles spanning from Technical Product Manager, Solution Specialist, Product Manager, through to Analyst, Product Marketing Manager and finally Technical Marketing Manger. I’m probably a much better communicator than technologist, therefore the marketing aspect just feels like a better fit.
Ultimately all varieties of PM need most or all of the following skills:
- Just doing it
- Domain experience
- Communication skills
- Decision making ability
- Environment scanning
- Business understanding
- Technical experience
- Negotiation (both internally and externally)
- Selling
- Networking (of the human variety, not 802.x)
Hat tip to onpm again for the skills list. I’ve added a few of my own.