It's been hectic since I came back from my 3 day strategic marketing course offered through Caltech.  I emailed another member of the course afterwards to say that I felt like I was trying to take a drink out of a fire hydrant.  There was so much great information!

It was an awesome experience, and the timing was perfect since we are early in the process at my company, IT Crossing, of designing and writing Member Crossing, community software we're writing to help organizations create engaging communities where their members can share community knowledge in a format that is highly discoverable. 

The course instructor, Chris Halliwell, has created a great online resource that you can check out (The Technology Marketing Center).

As a part of the pre-reading for the course, we read Chapter 2 (The Winning Strategy) from Marketing High Technology by William Davidow.  My favorite quote from this chapter helped to re-orient the marketing process for me.  William says,

Great devices are invented in the laboratory.  Great products are invented in the marketing department.

Although the course material is geared toward companies in the $100 million range, my class comprised mainly small startups and Chris did a great job of bringing the material down to our level.

The absolute best time to bring marketing into the mix is early on in the development of the product, but even if you've already taken your product to market, there are important marketing aspects to consider, like:

• how to identify the whole product and not just the device
• how to properly segment your market and position your product for market leadership
• the importance of differentiation and specific steps to achieve differentiation in your market
• specific ways to hear the Voice of the Customer

How about you?  How would you describe the marketing process related to your product or service?  Is marketing involved from the very beginning or just at the end, just before the product or service is taken to market?