{"id":4828,"date":"2012-12-01T11:58:11","date_gmt":"2012-12-01T11:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=4828"},"modified":"2012-12-01T11:58:11","modified_gmt":"2012-12-01T11:58:11","slug":"vacuum-cleaners-generating-hot-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/vacuum-cleaners-generating-hot-air\/","title":{"rendered":"Vacuum cleaners generating hot air"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apparently<\/a>, British inventor James Dyson has argued that more people should study engineering and fewer “French lesbian poetry”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Assuming he is correctly quoted, there are a couple of things one could say in response.
\nFirst, all Mr Dyson need do is pay engineers more than the going market rates, and he will attract more people\u00a0 into the profession. \u00a0 Likewise, he could give students scholarships to study engineering.\u00a0\u00a0 He, unlike most of the rest of us, has it in his direct personal power to achieve this goal.\u00a0\u00a0 I think it ill-behooves someone who moved his manufacturing operations off-shore to bemoan any lack of home-grown talents.
\nSecond, no matter how wonderful the engineering technology or novelty of the latest, jet-propelled, wind-turbine-bladed vacuum cleaner, the technology will not sell itself.\u00a0\u00a0 For that, even the vacuum cleaners of the famous Mr Dyson need marketing and advertising.\u00a0 And, marketing needs people who can understand and predict customer attitudes and behaviours, people who have studied psychology and sociology and anthropology and economics.\u00a0 Marketing needs people who can analyze data, increasingly in large quantities and in real-time, people who have studied mathematics and statistics and computer science and econometrics.\u00a0 Marketing needs people who can strategize, people who have studied game theory and military strategy and political science and history, and can emphathize with customers and competitors.\u00a0\u00a0 As Australian advertising man Philip Adams<\/a> once noted, Marxists and ex-Marxists are often the best marketing strategists, because they think dialectically about the long term.
\nAnd advertising needs people who can manipulate images, people who have usually studied art or art history or graphic design or architecture.\u00a0 Advertising needs people who can take photos and use movie cameras and direct films, people who have studied photography and cinematography and lighting and film and theatre studies and acting.\u00a0 Advertising needs people who can write jingles and advertising scores, and play the music required, people who have studied music and song and musical instruments.\u00a0\u00a0 Advertising needs people who can build sets, acquire props, and obtain costumes, people who are good with their hands or who have studied fashion.\u00a0\u00a0 And, finally, advertising needs people who can write ad copy and scripts – often people have studied history and journalism and languages and literature and poetry – even, at times, I would guess, the poetry of French lesbians.
\nOne reason Britain is a such a world leader in marketing and advertising, despite the long-term decline and poor management of its manufacturing industry<\/a>,\u00a0 is because of its many leading art colleges and universities teaching the humanities and social sciences.\u00a0 The name of Dyson would not be known to households across the country and beyond without the contributions of many, many professionals who did not study engineering.
\n 
\nUPDATE (2012-12-01):<\/strong>\u00a0 And if you are still wondering why more people studying engineering would not be sufficient for business success, consider this from Grant McCracken<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Culture is the sea in which business swims. We can’t do good innovation without it. We can’t do good marketing without it. And we can’t build a good corporate culture without it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently, British inventor James Dyson has argued that more people should study engineering and fewer “French lesbian poetry”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Assuming he is correctly quoted, there are a couple of things one could say in response. First, all Mr Dyson need do is pay engineers more than the going market rates, and he will attract more people\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,47,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advertising","category-market-planning","category-marketing-strategy","p1","y2012","m12","d01","h11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4828\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}