The Real Digital Divide: Blue Ocean Strategy for Techies & Marketers

There's a lot written about the "digital divide" -- the separation of those who have access to technology and the Internet, and those who don't. While there are many examples throughout the world it's tough to imagine that even the very poorest of people don't have any access to the Internet. At least in the US, virtually every public library has public Internet access at no cost. Other countries seem to be comparable.

However, the authors of VIRE: Value Innovation in the REquirements Gathering Process raise a more substantive, real, and divisive digital divide. Specifically, the authors focus on the divide between "business people" -- marketers, finance types, and C-level executives -- and the engineers, product developers, and creative tech support teams.

Putting it succinctly I remember a conversation with a traditional MBA. We discussed the fact that if felt like the engineering groups were speaking English and the marketing groups Mandarin Chinese. She disagreed only to the extent that she knew both English and Mandarin, and thought the vocabulary differences are easier to negotiate and less disruptive than the gap between marketing and engineering.

The whole conundrum reminds me of an urban myth. Apparently, during the development of the Macintosh, each morning Steve Jobs would have team leaders sit together for a status meeting. Jobs would sit in the middle of a table with engineers on his right, marketers on on his left, and every else -- supply-chain, sales, finance, etc... -- on the other side. He made it clear: he was the Nexus between engineering and marketing, and everybody else was "on the other side."

Back to VIRE, I asked the authors why they didn't use the six-path framework of Blue Ocean Strategy/Value Innovation to guide in the development of the requirements. VIRE lays out a great framework for the use of the Four Actions Framework, but barely mentions how the requirements to be ERRC'd (Eliminated, Reduced, Raised, & Created) are gathered. Their answer: coming up with the core requirements is the job of marketing, not the engineers the IEEE-published VIRE was focused on.

Depending upon one's definitions, the modern software business is about 30 years old. It's time for a long overdue introduction...

Engineers, meet marketers. Marketers, engineers. Neither of you is better than one another; neither more specialized, smarter, or more vital to the success of your company. Work together, and great things can happen. Erect barriers and great things may happen anyway, but getting there will require unnecessary angst. Ignore one another's annoying habits -- dressing up or down, a disposition towards or against politics (both IRL and in the office), and respective tastes in things. Work together, try to grok one another, ignore the weird quirks: everybody will be happier and you'll be more likely to unleash blue oceans.

To find blue oceans requires brilliant marketers and brilliant engineers, working closely together. If you don't understand something, ask. If somebody asks, answer. If a manager sees either side making disparaging comments about the others inability to "get it," make them patiently explain or throw them off the team.

Let's use Blue Ocean Strategy to bridge the digital divide between marketing and techies, unleashing then navigating blue oceans the world over.