Marketing and technology. Somehow those two does not make sense but sometimes they do get along well. Opposite attracts. Life is too boring if you see everyone wearing the same color. Or everybody carrying the same handbags.
As for me, I can be a nerd at times and I can go crazy and jumping jelly beans at the same time. Those who know me, there are times I can be extremely quiet because when I indulge in something I concentrate too much and there are times when I do not know how to talk less.
I am married to an engineer and I am a marketing person at heart. We definitely are mars and venus met online. Thank you Internet for that. Of course you can imagine the life that we have, its like having Liverpool and MU in one house, so the chaos, the arguments about ideas and what is right and wrong on TV, what car to buy and such. But it makes us get exicted, over heated debates on what we think what is right and wrong. I like to argue a lot and not a total follower. But there are times when I know whats my limit because you gotta respect your husband according to Quran. And when Im trying to be a follower, my other half will totally be confuse and I will get a remark such as "Are you just going to agree with me?" and he will just find it weird if I will follow his every ideas. Well, at least for now.
But luckily there is still a nerdish side of me who can still accept how engineers think and thats the reason we have this understanding "i know what you are going to say before you even say it" kind of thing.
We are definitely 2 different types of people.
To imagine, look at those engineering/ IT geeks that go beserk over pieces of code, and more laid-back artsy peeps in my corporate communications department that go philosophical over every sentence of rhetorics and start spewing poetry there and then. in their mind, every sentence is a song played in the mind and life is like a box of chocolate.
Even their physical appearances set these ppl apart. i realize most my engineering/IT geeks in the office dress pretty much in an earthy fashion where frills and glitters are probably stored at the back of their closets, while my marketing or communications friends make their own jeans, have thick rimmed stylish glasses and furry scarfs in bright neon colors around their necks.
i pretty much play the role as the chameleon and try as much as i can to disguise myself while i run from my discussion with those engineers over serious issues to my PR and creative writing works and my corporate comm colleagues.
but when i do sit down amongst those bright psychadelic shirts and home-made retro skirts, my camoflage pretty much fails me. however, it's when discussions open my true colors give me away.
it surprises me still how different marketing/communications majors think from technical majors do. they are much more passionate about things and seem to have a knack for intellectual discourse which somehow seems to make much more sense to the world than programming and system development do. though i don't deny the fact programming and system development have their importance in the world (yes, and i do mean "in the world". it's important ok). but in all honesty, marketing and communication, which henceforth i shall refer to as language and basic communication, shapes the world in a much more larger way. for i think it has the ability to impact minds, form ideas and inspire movements.
during one discussion i had several time ago doing discourse analysis, it appeared to me that discourse indeed does shape the world in how we see it. of course there may be times when in my corporate communications/ marcomm colleagues tend to think much more deeper into a context than they should have (they love doing that) but in fact it just makes the mind wander off in tangents that creates more opinions and ideas.
they also seem to question things historically and spend more time pondering over methodologies as to why people react the way they do and how certain word or phrase can trigger revolutionary changes, which it has by the way.
more than anything these communications ppl delve deeper into language than anyone i've ever met and bring about a whole new set of practices, from philosophy to psychology. and believe me, these people, in some way or another, have the power to change the way we perceive things through language and discourse.
a technical person however, sees things differently. they are capable of contributing to deep discussions, though the way of thinking might slightly differ. they come up with just as interesting things as the corporate comm people does, but from a different perspective. more often than not it always relates back to philosophies of economics or maybe organizational behavior. interesting nonetheless. but also much more constricted. where communications peeps sees things in a more open and metaphysical point of view, the techie sees things which is almost always based on substantial evidence, carefully disguised in examples of current affairs and political matters. in short, the techie are as much businessmen as communications peeps are philosophers.
of course many philosophers came from very technical, or rather scientific backgrounds. but proficiency in language is also important and the understanding of how the audience relate and react to language is equally essential. mastering the language is just as significant as the idea one is about to funnel across. politicians make great case studies, though i do recommend philosophers and of course the much more prettier verses of the Qur'an. the success of influencing people comes from the way the language is conveyed to you.
i find myself going back and forth between these two personalities of my husband- a techie and muself, a communications personnel, more so when the concreteness of ICT begins to reflect the reality i am about to face the next 20 years of my life. the geek side of me knows that this very well might be the thing that will provide bread and butter on my table, the ability to be specific, straight to the point and logical in every way and to understand every ICT issues and ideas that surrround us. but the other part of me also wants to keep writing in hopes to be able to convey ideologies and share experiences which might be worth telling. of course nobody is actually stopping me from doing both, but it just goes to show that technical skills and social sciences go hand in hand.
despite these superficial differences though, i like to think that we both, the techie guy and the communications gurl, can overcome the challenges of raising two bubbly kids by combining our best behaviors and knowledge to raise them to be the best individual that they want to be :)
p/s: i still have a long way to finish those 2 MIS assignments but I am seriously still in my Raya mood.
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