Autodesk Insiders
As the world’s affinity for getting information via the web expands, so does the membership of Autodesk communities and the number of interactions that they foster. most of my days in the Waltham office, but also spend time in the Manchester and San Francisco offices. My typical day consists of an endless supply of Microsoft Office, conference rooms, and my mobile phone. Describe the challenges that you and those you work with face.
The challenges that I face are very closely related to the challenges that our customers and prospects face. When a prospective customer is evaluating one of our products and needs certain criteria or information, I’m working to make it available to them. When a user wants to learn about the new features in the Subscription Advantage Pack, I’m working to make it as easy as doing a search. When a user hits a deadend, I’m working to help him or her find the solution and the resources that are available.
Marketing Manager and responsible for training our Sales channel, it would take longer. How do you interact with the product teams, quality assurance, and support people?
Any release will amass large stores of information during the design, development, and QA process. My group gets increasingly more involved with the product teams as that process approaches completion. During the period leading up to a release, the marketing group works with the product teams to transfer release information into our go-to-market strategy and onto current and prospective customers.
Can you say how many people work with you, or perhaps how the work you do is shared?
One of the reasons my job is enjoyable is because I have the opportunity to interact with a wide variety of people on any given day. This morning, for example, I was working with Autodesk Finance and Procurement to negotiate the terms of a contract with a vendor. At midday I was working with Sales and Marketing teams to prepare for the upcoming One Team Conference. This afternoon I’m working with Steve Stafford from AUGI to finalize the “Autodesk Insiders” article. All in all, not a bad day! How much time before a release do you get to really figure out how to define the marketing strategies you use?
Strategies are usually in place at the beginning of the year. As the year progresses, marketing plans receive additional iteration until tactics are finally agreed upon and executed. Various marketing roles begin preparing for release at different times. In my current role, the launch process will begin two to three months prior to release. When I was a Technical February 2011
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