This is a good take on one of the many areas that companies need to change process in as they grow. Bad communication can hamper and destroy a company just as much as bad hiring, bad vision, bad money management.
I about the process in this write up though. There is communication and there is discussion. The article is framed in a way that suggests top down communication process needed to change so that a larger company could be sure that everyone is on the same page and aware of what they need to be aware of. Both examples then however name check the idea that feedback is expected at the least, welcome at best.
How are we meant to read this paragraph:
> “Marketing says we’re an observability platform, not a tool.” It isn’t enough that our CMO said the words in All Hands. As a representative of Marketing, it’s important to me that our product, documentation, engineers who are speaking at conferences, and customer success people get the language consistent. That means I need to show up at department meetings and talk to people in their perspective. Next Monday I’ll talk to all of Engineering very briefly, and later to the docs team specifically.
It reads as if marketing has made a decision by fiat for the rest of the company to toe the line. No judgement there, that may well be how the company chooses to operate. What then is the need for "talk to people in their perspective"? Is various department perspectives going to change the marketing language, or is it just to placate everyone that they were heard? Why does the perspective taking not happen _before_ the decision as input on if the language should change?
I read this as just saying "Our propaganda department has a new memo about the approved way to refer to our product, but obviously nobody internally listens to them -- their job is to communicate to potential customers, and so typically don't have anything to say to employees. Since they claim it to be important that everyone use the same jargon, even internally, they'll need to do a roadshow to whip everyone to the same page."
That seems fine. The marketing department's job is to do exactly stuff like this.
I about the process in this write up though. There is communication and there is discussion. The article is framed in a way that suggests top down communication process needed to change so that a larger company could be sure that everyone is on the same page and aware of what they need to be aware of. Both examples then however name check the idea that feedback is expected at the least, welcome at best.
How are we meant to read this paragraph:
> “Marketing says we’re an observability platform, not a tool.” It isn’t enough that our CMO said the words in All Hands. As a representative of Marketing, it’s important to me that our product, documentation, engineers who are speaking at conferences, and customer success people get the language consistent. That means I need to show up at department meetings and talk to people in their perspective. Next Monday I’ll talk to all of Engineering very briefly, and later to the docs team specifically.
It reads as if marketing has made a decision by fiat for the rest of the company to toe the line. No judgement there, that may well be how the company chooses to operate. What then is the need for "talk to people in their perspective"? Is various department perspectives going to change the marketing language, or is it just to placate everyone that they were heard? Why does the perspective taking not happen _before_ the decision as input on if the language should change?