Scott Brinker

My recent article in InformationWeek — on why the marketing technology genie isn’t going back into the IT bottle — has stirred a few lively responses. Caron Carlson, editor of FierceCIO — got to love that name, especially walking into a debate about the future of marketing technology — responded with an editorial to her readers, Are you ready to let marketing handle its own IT? One of her concerns is my suggestion that, while …

Governance vs. management in marketing technology Continue Reading »

InformationWeek just published a guest article of mine, Why Marketing Should Run Its Own Technology. While I’ve been advocating greater technology leadership to marketers for a while, this is my first attempt to “reach across the aisle” and make my case directly to the IT community. Always up for a lively conversation, I don’t pull any punches, describing three structural differences in this new era of technology-driven marketing that I believe will limit IT’s ability …

Why the marketing technology genie isn’t going back into the IT bottle Continue Reading »

Earlier this week I had the honor of presenting at Pivot, a new conference in New York City hosted by Chris Shipley (see 5 reasons to be excited about Pivot). My talk: The Case for a Chief Marketing Technologist. It sparked a number of interesting conversions, both at the conference and around a wonderful article that was written about it on Mashable, Should Your Company Have a Chief Marketing Technologist? I’ll follow up on some …

Advocating marketing technology leadership at Pivot Continue Reading »

It’s been a great few weeks for the “chief marketing technologist” meme: the CMO Strategy editorial in Advertising Age, an article in Marketing Sherpa, and an amazing post by Mitch Joel of Six Pixels of Separation — which spurred a lively discussion in its comments! — with follow-up mentions by Eric D. Brown, Steve Johnson of ProductMarketing.com, SmallBizTechnology.com, IAB SmartBrief, two mentions (one, two) on CMO.com, and a ton of comments on Twitter. First and …

Marketing technology shouldn’t be divided in two Continue Reading »

The CMO Council and Accenture just released a new report, Driving Revenue Through Customer Relevance: Aligning the CMO and CIO to Achieve Agile Intelligent Marketing. We should start by noting that Accenture makes its money through IT consulting. Based on the executive summary I reviewed, it strikes me as less of a blueprint for the future so much as a contentious relationship counseling session. The report begins with a noble goal: The CMO Council believes …

Align or redefine the CMO and CIO? Continue Reading »

Advertising Age just published an article of mine, The Case for a Chief Marketing Technologist, in their CMO Strategy section. This is a sneak preview of the session I’ll be presenting at the Pivot conference in a few weeks. The article begins with a refrain that is familiar to readers of this blog: We have entered a Golden Age of marketing technology. There are now thousands of software applications built for nearly every aspect of …

CMO Strategy: Establish a Chief Marketing Technologist Continue Reading »

“Technology is just a tool.” This is a popular refrain in discussions around marketing technology. Marketers invoke it as a way to emphasize the marketing over the technology. And IT invokes it as a way to categorize marketing technology as the same as any other kind of technology. Since marketing and IT are both a little uneasy about the explosion of marketing software, it’s a nice bromide. I agree that technology is just a tool. …

Technology is just a tool… but are you skilled with it? Continue Reading »

When I heard that Chris Shipley was producing a new conference focused on the modern dynamics of brand marketing, I was instantly intrigued. First of all, it’s a terrific topic. While other events have tackled aspects of this — such as a plethora of social media events or shows on state-of-the-art advertising — I believe there has been an unfulfilled need for a more holistic, strategic and integrative view. This is the promise of Pivot, …

5 reasons to be excited about Pivot conference Continue Reading »