When I was in college, there was a big separation between the creative majors and the more analytical and technical majors like engineering and math. As someone who has always loved art, theater and everything creative—at the last minute I changed my major to finance and decided I wasn’t paying thousands a semester to learn the things I already knew, I was there to learn what I didn’t know.
One thing I was always fascinated to figure out was how to bridge the gap between business and art, between analytical and creative thinking—and how to use both ideologies to bring big ideas to life. This has proved to be useful over the years as I’ve carved out a career in content marketing.
Fast-forward and I’ve gotten to work with some of the most brilliant engineers in Silicon Valley creating content, writing voice apps, and leading the strategy behind blogs for large corporations.
Here are just a few of the ways I work with subject matter experts in engineering to conduct interviews and create great thought leadership content.
Steps for Conducting Successful Content Interviews with Engineers
Identify and understand their personality type. Most engineers fall into the ISTJ personality type and value facts over “big picture” thinking. Knowing this can help you communicate effectively with them and eliminate friction from getting information from them, so that it feels easy and not stressful.
Create psychological safety, where SMEs feel they are not being judged and confident to express their ideas and freely give information about topics they’re knowledgeable about.
Have empathy about their role, their background, and their unique experiences and challenges that make them an expert in their field.
Understand their schedule and what their day-to-day looks like (very busy!)
Be respectful of their time and precise with what you need from them (this means that I do most of the heavy lifting with writing and editing).
Motivate and encourage them to share information and come up with ideas.
These are just some of the tips I’ve used over the years to lead successful interviews with subject matter experts in technical fields, or VP positions in companies producing revenue from $50-$500 million a year. Through having empathy and truly working as a team, we can eliminate the natural friction that occurs in communicating between engineering departments and marketing departments.
At the end of the day, it’s that blend of information, analytics and creativity that allows us to create amazing business results. Things do not happen just by operating in our own silos.
You can either stay inside the box or jump out of it and try a fresh approach to communicating. And who knows, you just might get the answers you’re looking for.