I have been a marketing professional for 9 years. Working in Australia (theatre/art industry) for 6 years and in California for 3 years. 2 years here have been in a civil engineering company doing print, writing and a bit of e-marketing. I swapped over to technology firm this year where I'm establishing their marketing department and creating their e- and regular marketing routines.

How did you get started in this field?

By accident, because I could write and design some friends asked me if I could do publicity for their company, then another friend asked me the same thing and finally the Sydney Opera House asked. By the time I came back to the states, I realized I was a marketing professional.

What college (if any) courses have been most helpful for your career?

Locally New Horizons has helped me get my Adobe/Macromedia/Frontpage skills together. I earned my AA in 91, which meant I had a degree in cut & paste, marker rendering and other manual tricks. I've been computer literate since I was 14 but didn't know design software too well. Fortunately I was able to convince my civil engineering firm to have me trained in Adobe and then I had my current firm pay for my Macromedia training. It's great to understand the software your designers are using and it allows me to do a bit of design too. I have also taken numerous writing courses outside of my degrees. These have been short story, articles, playwriting and screenwriting courses, which have all taught me how to focus on the subject and get the most effective information into the smallest amount of space.

What are your specific responsibilities?

• Developing the marketing plan,
• analyzing the market and aiding in determining the direction of the company and its product,
• managing all content & design construction of the website,
• contacting and maintaining relationships with the press,
• maintaining relationships with our clients & partners,
• devising and producing advertising campaigns,
• oversighting all TSA print material
• ...and more

Describe a typical workday and workweek. What do you do during a typical day?

• Panic.
• Review piles of work.
• Take a deep breath.
• Write a bullet list of things to accomplish that day.
• Panic.
• Focus on first item:
• Contact design firms re: website redesign RFP
• Contact clients regarding getting more files for our client page of our website.
• Realize we're having e-mail difficulties and none of the e-mails to our customers have gone out yesterday.
• Fix that.
• Talk to a few of our engineers about where files are at on the web and where they should be.
• Talk to our web host and determine if there's more value we can get from their service.
• Go back to list and see where I got off track that day.

  I'd say it breaks down to:

• 1 hour communications
• 2 hours website work
• 2 hours contact with clients and partners
• 1 hour with engineers here discussing product (it's very technical and I'm still learning)
• 1 hour reviewing text (all web content and print content is being updated)
• 1 design work

Name 5-7 job skills that are needed for your job.

1. Knowledge of marketing industry (advertising, newsletters, press)
2. High level software capabilities (HTML, Adobe suite, Macromedia suite, Front Page, Allaire suite, office suite, etc...)
3. Design style
4. Research / Projection / Decision Making
5. Humor / Persistance / Ability to convince other people your ideas will work
6. Organization / Management / Production / Interpersonal communication skills

Are you in a team oriented position?

Incredibly, it's a small company with a majorly flat playing field where I am expected to manage and coordinate our marketing efforts. Because of the high tech nature of our product, the managing partners expect me to need their help or the engineers help and all make themselves available to me. This is amazing as engineers don't often have a warm spot for marketers.

Do you have flextime? Vacation time? Work at home? Telecommute?

Our benefits kick! 4 weeks paid vacation an 1 week off between Christmas and New Year's. Get your projects done and it doesn't matter where you work from or what hours you work. It's all really up to you.

How many hours per week are expected or warranted for peak performance?

45

Are many evenings or weekends required for your job?

None, but I usually work 45 hours a week.

How much travel is involved with a job in your field?

None. Most of our sales are made by engineers and a specialized sales group who are extremely familar with the product. My role is to make the company look good and professional. There is talk of some travel to meet partners and/or clients when we have strengthened our marketing relationships with them but, for the most part, I'm not into it.

Could you give me examples of projects that you are working on?

Could you describe your work settings? Offices, machinery, resources etc.

Funked out warehouse, I got to pick the paint colors. Fat computer with loads of software and we outsource all our physical production

What personal qualities do you think are necessary for someone to be successful in this occupation?

Diplomacy (marketing can be a bum rap in the wrong crowd), strength, knowledge (everyone has an opinion about marketing, it's important to know why something works or doesn't) vision, design eye, strong english skills, the ability to work in a team and a lot of charm.

What is the major challenge you face at work?

Understanding the technology we sell and the market we sell to. Constantly learning what technology we can utilize to better promote our market.

What aspects of your job do you find most rewarding (pros) ? Least rewarding? (cons)

PROS: the people I work with, being able to manage projects as well as doing a bit of design, learning about the technology industry, learning about the digital economy and how to use it to our advantage, the people I work with (still), staying on top of new developments

CONS: A lot of things to stay on top of, contantly changing software, technology that is trying to advance rapidly but has faults to iron out before it's really achieving what we know it can (i.e., websites are fundamentally best in HTML only), pressure, deadlines, working in an industry that is more interested in coding than color of an ad (so sometimes you feel frivolous).

Are you confronted with difficult decisions or situations in your position?

We're working out web advertising and site campaigns and the hardest thing there is that, despite reports, opinions, etc... there is very little real 'proof', particularly in our niche market as to what will work. So, we end up finding out what we can and then making our best guess. We then use the information from our own approach to decide what to do next time.

Do you have a lot of interaction with a certain occupation? I.E. media, engineers, etc.

Computing engineers. Which can be difficult. The ones we have here are AWESOME guys but they still, invariably have that: marketing vs. real work attitude. I've caught one, who's a good friend of mine, rolling his eyes at something I said. We had a good laugh about it. I'm upfront about their disdain for marketing and have slowly been earning their respect by listening to them and not strictly focusing on design and marketing issues. After all, we are trying to sell to computing engineers, so if I can be responsive to ours, I might be responding to others.

What is the Female to Male Ratio in your position/field?

Marketing is quite female oriented but high tech is very male. I am the ONLY female in my company.

Has the field changed since you first started your career?

High tech marketing didn't exist when I started! At least not on the internet.

Describe the changes taking place in your field. Project future trends?

The development of banner advertising and strategic e-partners has been a huge alteration in the last few years. As far as I can see it's all about figuring out the best way to use the internet to get our message across. It's a whole new world in the digital economy.

Turnover rate?

Haven't noticed any here. In civil engineering there was a huge exodus as people went to high tech.

Do you think women avoid technical careers?

No. I think it's more that they are not encouraged to pursue them.

What do you think can be done to encourage girls to get more involved in the technology field?

By starting in Universities.

Do you believe that women will be in more technical jobs in the future?

Absolutely. We already see it now.

Do you have any advice for women and girls that are interested in going into the field?

Well, I don't consider marketing that technical, except now it's become that because of technology. The hardest thing about marketing is making a company/product look good and, if you work in engineering, not having the respect of your peers. If someone wanted to get into this field I would advise them to be very good at what they do. To learn more than they can stand about the world of marketing and then implement those ideas into whatever industry they are in. The number one reality out here is that we are now 'life-long learners'.