What ship are you on?

I get this nifty little magazine/promotional piece a few times a year called Product Marketing, which is targeted at technology product management. I don’t market software, but there is always something worthwhile in it. You’ll love this one:

As a sidebar to the cover article, the author makes parallels between Star Trek and marketing called: Is your company The Original Series or The Next Generation? (scroll halfway down to find the whole sidebar)

“Unfortunately, sales people are often like Captain Kirk: action without thought, asking for the impossible and frequently violating the prime directive.

Meanwhile, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy is like many marketing people: emotion without logic, frequently complaining about what they aren’t: “Damn it, Jim. I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer.”

Thankfully, we have Scotty as a stand-in for our product managers. Scotty initially tells Kirk that whatever he wants is impossible and fifteen minutes later, says, “Okay, you’ve got warp drive.””

Then he compares to the characters from TNG (The Next Generation). He says about Bones’ contemporary:

“Beverly Crusher, in the marketing role, is a good doctor, as was McCoy, but she also understands the business of the starship, can and does serve as an executive officer with understanding of all roles, and uses scientific metrics to evaluate the health of the crew.”

And wraps up with this gem:

“Here is the difference: Picard can be trusted with accurate information while Kirk cannot. Picard never makes promises that his crew cannot keep while Kirk frequently does. And the crew knows it… in both cases. The “old school” acts more on instinct and hope while the next generation acts on procedure and knowledge.”

And so, which ship are you on? What’s your crew like? And are you acting appropriately?