After poking fun at Marketing, several people forwarded me this classic joke about the communication issues between Marketing and Engineering:
A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces his altitude and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts, “Excuse me. Can you help me? I promised my friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”
The man below says, “Yes. You are in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above this field. You are between 40 & 42 degrees north latitude, and between 58 & 60 degrees west longitude.”
“You must be an engineer” says the balloonist.
“I am” replies the man. “How did you know?”
“Well,” says the balloonist, “everything you have told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of the information, and the fact is that I am still lost.”
The man below says, “You must be in marketing.”
“I am” replies the balloonist. “But how did you know?”
“Well,” says the man below, “you don’t know where you are, or where you are going. You have made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is that you are exactly in the same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault.”
True
Let’s not assume engineers always know what problems are worth solving 🙂