Learning Something New
Deep Packet Inspection?
Content-Aware Network Devices?
10Gb per second testing capabilities?
…oh my…
When I was on the agency side new clients were coming at you at a ferocious pace. One week you are dishing with InformationWeek about application security and the next you are pimping The Howard Stern Show about the opening of a brewery (true story, but you it must be told over a beer, that you buy me). That is certainly a wonderful aspect of agency life, but I had forgotten how much deeper you must get when you go corporate. It is not only a necessity to you, but certainly the folks you work with, inside and out, will expect you to be fairly intelligent concerning your company and, in my case, the technology.
One question I always asked candidates during an interview was how they ramped up on new clients. 99% of the time I would get the stock answer of “Reading the web and magazines”. Sure the answer expanded over the years to reading blogs or maybe Twitter, but the typical candidate would hardly mention the most important constituency to talk with; the user! The user is a critical person to get to know when trying to learn about any new product. Diving into how they use the product and why can answer so many different questions and give you the appropriate information on how to further communicate with the user.
Fortunately for all of us actually talking with users has become a lot easier with the advent of social media. We can talk with them on Twitter, in Ning, on Facebook, using easy tools like SurveyMonkey and in our online community (soon to be public!). All of this data has not only helped me educate myself, but quickly give informed opinions on all of the work we are doing whether it be messaging, website copy or a news release.
Beyond users, how do you learn about a new product (technology or not)?
–Kyle Flaherty
