Hey All!
I feel like I’ve caught everyone up on some of the stuff that I have been doing since I have been at TransTech. Over the next year or so, there is a lot that I would like to see happen (at least from a Marketing standpoint). As I mentioned yesterday, right now I am working on pricing. Since I have been here, I have learned that Marketing involves 4 key areas: Price, Product, Place, and Promotion. I have developed a strategic planning document that addresses these 4 areas for TransTech. I think that most folks think of Marketing as the Promotion side, and, certainly, that is a big part; however, the other 3 areas are very important, but tend towards the less-flashy, strategic side.
I am learning that, in an industrial manufacturer, there is a lot of information that gets captured. In order to get to the meat of pricing, I have had to really learn product lines as well as how the manufacturing process occurs and how the data is captured and stored (since I am not an engineer, I feel like I have gleaned I lot of information, but still only scratched the surface). Once I figured that out, it has been a matter of organizing the data and determining what is salient and what is just neat to know. While I have been working on pricing, I have also been doing a few other things including researching the industry, contemplating our internet strategy for the coming year, and addressing some customer service issues for which CARs had been issued (I have learned that CARs are Corrective Action Requests which are pretty standard in the manufacturing realm . . . as a side note, I am impressed that CARs deal not only with the problem at hand, but also focus on the root problem that caused the CAR to occur in the first place . . . so you wind up with a fix for the current problem, and, hopefully, such a problem does not happen again). In future blogs, I will address some of the projects I am working on, what I am learning, and chronicle what is happening within and outside of TransTech; but I need to blog about blogging for just a second . . . for my own sanity.
I think I need to address the “why?” of writing a blog (if for no one else but myself). Inevitably, I am going to offend some bloggers out there by saying this, but, I have not ever written a blog because I don’t think people care enough to read it, nor (if I’m honest) do I think they should. I understand that blogging has turned into big business, and the goal is to get a whole bunch of followers – don’t get me wrong, I’d love for that to happen – and sell advertisements. The whole medium, at least from a writer’s standpoint, seems, at best like mass editorial or, at worst, like literary and informational prostitutions. In previous generations you sort of had to earn the right for your voice to be heard. In a more democratic setting, that looked like the editor got to create his or her editorial. In a less democratic setting, the voice belonged to the chosen member of the aristocracy to communicate the chosen message. Blogging breaks both of these constructs for both good and bad. I fear that blogging has turned communication into a cult of popularity. If you know what you’re doing and you can use the right tags and connect with the right people, you can rocket your blog to the top in no time, and then it becomes a product of mass consumption. People are afraid not to like it. Lastly, blogs make it much easier to simply add to the noise. Our society (at least in America) has become far less discerning in recent years, but, in a sense, we have also become ultra-discerning. What I mean by that is that all information is often treated as equal (less discerning), and the discernment factor is far more individualistic (greater discernment). Thus the reason for reading something is not because it has any sort of merit on its own, but because I like it, or, worse yet I should like it (i.e. because it is popular), and, while those are two very different sentiments, the focal point is still the same (the selfish I – either individualistically hedonist or weakly self-conscious). It was an incredibly difficult task to teach research methods to incoming freshmen at Auburn University, because they held all information as equally valid. It was not uncommon for them to cite a dubious internet sites or blog as a credible source in a research paper . . . a habit we worked hard to break. I say all of this to go ahead and air out my difficulties with blogs. Now, as I said, for my own sanity, I will attempt to address these issues:
- People Don’t/Shouldn’t Care Enough to Read It – I am not necessarily writing this blog to be read. I find writing therapeutic. I have kept a hard-copy journal in the past, and I certainly don’t intend for that to be read. Writing helps me to work through things (like my attitude towards blogging). If no one reads this, I think I will be okay with that. With that being said, I will probably not get nearly as transparent in a blog as I would in a typical journal, because there is the possibility for people to read it. Secondarily, there are some folks who might actually enjoy this blog (mainly those people who I mention in the blog, or who are deeply connected to TransTech in some way). As with social media, I find that people like to keep up with themselves, their friends, and what’s going on around them. For that reason, some folks from TransTech and connected to TransTech may actually enjoy reading the blog. In that way it serves as sort of a digital chronicle (much like a photo album . . . a medium different in some respects but similar in some respects to a journal). Lastly, it is my understanding that the more often I can get some key words out there (like Pantograph, Pantograph Overhaul, Third – 3rd – Rail, Conductor Bar, Overhead Catenary Systems – OCS, Arthur Flury, Shoe Gear, AKAPP-Multiconductor, REDI-BAR, etc.), the better we will fare in search engines like Google and Yahoo when people are searching for us . . . is that a shameless plug? Absolutely! (but might as well be honest about it).
- Lack of Qualification to Be Heard – I am the Marketing Manager for an industrial manufacturer of transit and industrial power transfer systems (shameless plug). It is my job to promote TransTech and ensure that TransTech is heard within the markets. My title does not make up for the fact that I am still pretty wet behind the ears in this role, but I will try not to do anything pretentious. I will write what I know, and, if I don’t know it, I may even write about the fact that I don’t know.
- Fostering a Popularity Based on Selfishness – This is the real rub for me. If this blog never takes off, then I can continue to claim my first assertion – I’m not writing this to be read. If it takes off, I can only promise to continue with my second assertion – I’ll write what I know . . . even if it doesn’t tickle the ears of my readers and make everyone feel good (although, as a corporate blog, I do have a separate goal of increasing knowledge of our company and product, which I feel I have been pretty straightforward about).
- Adding to the Noise – That can’t be avoided, I’m afraid. However, I could argue that any published media has been published for the purpose of being consumed . . . and there are many diets. What is intellectual candy to one individual may be intellectual broccoli to another (which I suppose I address in my third assertion . . . this medium is, at its base, a medium to be consumed – mostly at the individual level).
Well, if you are reading this, thank you for indulging my philosophical side for a bit. I needed to work through that before going too much further. I need to get to work on some other stuff before I am out-of-the-office for a week (Thanksgiving and then training . . . I’ll have my laptop and smartphone, though, so feel free to get in touch). I wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving! –11/23/11
A very nice post.
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