Scott Brinker

Who is a chief marketing technologist?

March 16, 2008 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / 9 Comments

What is the role of a chief marketing technologist? Short version: a chief marketing technologist (CMT) is the person responsible for leading an organization’s marketing technology. A company may or may not be a “technology” business, but in today’s world it needs to deftly leverage technology in its marketing to: optimize its marketing strategy and tactics; interface with its audience through digital channels. In a wired world, marketing must be technology-savvy for a business to …

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Great marketing visualization tools

March 13, 2008 / Marketing Data / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

As I’ve previously remarked, I believe that good, innovative visualization of marketing data is one of the more underutilized techniques in a marketer’s toolbox. One of the key roles of the marketing technology team should be to enable and infuse fresh perspectives of activities, initiatives, and results to the rest of the marketing team in creative ways that unveil useful patterns and opportunities. Sarah Perez over at ReadWriteWeb just posted a fantastic list of The …

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Brand and the semantic web: 5 parallels

March 9, 2008 / Marketing Data / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

I recently posted some preliminary ideas about semantic marketing, what the role of marketing could be in the semantic web. One of the most interesting notions that occurred to me is how the concept of brand will be extended in the semantic web. What will constitute semantic branding? This intrigues me because on the surface “semantic branding” sounds like an oxymoron. What we popularly think of as brand seems much more suited to human experiences …

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Marketing and computer science

March 5, 2008 / Marketing Software / By Scott Brinker / 4 Comments

I believe that the future of computer science — or at least a branch of it — is in the marketing department. And vice versa. Marketing departments need to hire computer science grads. Computer science researchers need to work on marketing problems. And there’s a golden age of prosperity awaiting both disciplines in this collaboration. Let me explain with three points. Point #1. I had the privilege to hear a talk from Christos Papadimitriou at …

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Marketing in the semantic web

March 2, 2008 / Marketing Data / By Scott Brinker / 9 Comments

What should be the role of marketing in the semantic web? Should there be any? According to the W3C, the semantic web is about common data formats that make it easy to integrate and combine data from diverse sources. It’s about mapping ideas expressed in human language to data in a way that facilitates automatic processing, where software can programmatically comprehend how different pieces of data are related. It’s a web behind the web of …

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Marketing and the distributed web

February 29, 2008 / Marketing Software / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

Paul Dunay’s recent post, Marketing Needs to Prepare for the Distributed Web, succinctly heralds the sea change from silos of online marketing technology and content to a far more open model. He gives examples of wikis, blogs, widgets, social networks, and other syndicated content that now live beyond the borders of a company’s primary web site. “If Marketing has become, or is in the midst of becoming, more distributed, then we must prepare to become …

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Visualization in marketing analytics

February 28, 2008 / Marketing Data / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

A recent ReadWriteWeb article on VisualComplexity.com caught my attention the other day, triggering some thoughts about the underutilized potential of visualization in marketing analytics. Generally speaking, marketing isn’t hindered by a lack of data these days. To the contrary, the challenge for many marketers is the exact opposite: they are deluged with data. It’s a syndrome marked by being up to your eyeballs in reports and dashboards, but feeling short-changed on meaning and insight from …

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Martec analogous to marcom?

February 25, 2008 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

Every profession has its vernacular, the insider lingo that serves as both a shortcut and a sort of secret handshake. Acronyms and abbreviations are often the epitome of such jargon, inscrutable to those outside the club. (“Fix the DNS with the new IP for your SaaS CRM ASAP — think of the SLA!”) But some rare abbreviations bring grace and beauty to an otherwise jumbled stack of industry terms. One of my favorite has always …

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A blog for marketing technologists

February 24, 2008 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / Leave a Comment

I have spent most of my working life at the intersection of marketing and technology. I’ve been on both sides of the fence, with a background as a software engineer and platform architect on one side and many years of experience in product marketing (and enough corporate marketing to be dangerous) on the other. I’ve consulted separately with marketing departments and IT departments, for small start-ups and the Fortune 500. But by far the most …

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