Гуру IT-маркетинга, не побоимся этого слова — легендарный — Дейв Мендлен (Dave Mendlen), побывал на прошлой неделе в тульском офисе DevExpress. Для всех любознательных и интересующихся — небольшое интервью Дейва. И пара фотографий с нашими «легендами»)

Dave, how did you get into marketing? I spent my entire career as a software developer. I started writing software as a high school student and then later I knew that this was what I wanted to do – I just loved doing it. When I graduated from college I became a software developer. Then somebody from Microsoft Visual Studio team found me in Chicago at this really big user group for Visual Basic. He asked me to come out and interview for the Visual Basic product manager job. This was my very first marketing job. So I learned it all on the job at Microsoft.

Did you ever regret leaving development? The fun thing for me was because I was doing marketing for Visual Basic, my job was to build applications, so I didn’t have to stop writing code. The part where it got hard is after I graduated from running the marketing team for Visual Studio I went to became a speech writer for Bill and Steve, and then I had to make up reasons for writing code. So I built this time management application that sat on top of outlook for Bill and Steve’s secretaries for managing their calendars. I did it primarily because I needed to write code… I just needed to do that. And then when I went to go working on the Windows marketing team, there were a couple of years when I didn’t write any code and that was very hard. So when the opportunity came up to be on the Visual Studio marketing team again, I was happy to do it.

Now that you are at DevExpress, are you looking forward to writing some code? Yes. One of the first things I did on my first day – I downloaded the bits and started building applications. Now that I’m here with the team in Russia, the team can show me how to use the tools in the best way. That is my job – trying to help communicate just how great these tools are to our customers.

Why did you join the DevExpress team? I talked to all the competitors that are in this market and they all have very unique attributes about them, but DevExpress was the opportunity that was most exciting for me for a couple of reasons. First of all, the company was so successful already without significant investments in sales and marketing. This is the area where I have a lot of experience – selling and marketing to software developers. It’s obvious to me that the company doing this well without that level of investment could very quickly significantly grow its market share. The second reason is that I was very excited with the products. It was very clear that there was something unique here.

Is this your first time in Russia? What are your first impressions? Yes, it’s my first time in Russia. When I joined the company the very first thing that I did, I said I got to get out to Russia and meet the team. We got this trip together very quickly. I didn’t have much of an expectation, because I didn’t know how to think about what I was going to be faced with. One thing that I think is interesting … the people are very friendly. I guess I had a misperception that the Russian culture was going to be very stoic and less engaging and friendly.

Can you try to compare Microsoft and DevExpress developers? The developers that work at Microsoft, especially in the Visual Studio division, are some of the smartest and most talented developers that I have ever worked with. One of the challenges you have with software developers who are writing tools for other developers is that they often confuse their level of skill with what the customer has. You have to work very hard to remind them that not all the software developers out there are as talented and focused as you are… and they potentially need more help. I found the same to be true here as well. At DevExpress the software developers are as talented as the smartest developers I’ve met at Microsoft. And they suffer from the same issue.

What do you think of the office space? One of the things you find at Microsoft is that everyone has their own office. They have a door, a window and thus a place for them to be alone while they write code. What’s great about that is that you can sit quietly and not be interrupted if you put a note on your door that says “Please don’t bother me”… and you can just keep cranking up code. There’s a benefit to that kind of work style. Here in Russia, at least at DevExpress, the work style is more collaborate and there are open spaces where people get together and my sense is that there’s a trade-off here. As a team of developers, the ability for you to come together and share idea in real time is much higher at DevExpress than in Microsoft, with the trade-off that you’ll be interrupted more frequently.

My sense is that the team is incredibly talented and they clearly have figured out how to make this environment work very well.