Engineers Master Technology Marketing in Experiential Learning Program

PRLog (Press Release) – May 06, 2008 – PASADENA, CA – A Texas Instrument’s Digital Light Processing division (DLP®) executive will discuss their novel organizational development initiative to transfer engineers into product marketing at 10am PDT, May 27 in a free, online interview.  Anyone with a computer and Internet connection can attend and submit questions.

Chris Halliwell, director and co-founder of the California Institute of Technology Industrial Relations Center’s online community, the Technology Marketing Center (TMC), will interview DLP’s Dennis Fritsche, Manager of Business Process Improvements, about the Product Marketing Manager Development Program.  Fritsche will explain how skills assessment concepts, classroom instruction, and real world projects were combined to develop engineers’ strategic marketing skills, and ultimately place these technical managers in marketing jobs.

“Like many technology-driven organizations, the supply of highly technical marketing professionals has not kept pace with the number and complexity of DLP’s product development programs,” said Halliwell. “The DLP program focus on technical managers, and on experiential learning to teach marketing strategy, is aligned with TMC’s mission to promote technology marketing professionalism, and is unique in combining skills development with actual job placement.”  

The discussion with Fritsche is one in a series of Executive Interviews conducted on the last Tuesday of every other month by TMC.  The Technology Marketing Center is a rich content destination on the web providing audio files, discussion forums, and case studies to high tech marketing professionals and their colleagues in sales, engineering, and management.  TMC is available at http://www.technologymarketingcenter.com.

Caltech is one of the most highly regarded institutions of research and education in science and engineering in the world.  Its Industrial Relations Center specializes in executive education, providing new perspectives to technically trained professionals as they increase their breadth of responsibilities and impact across the organization.

Halliwell is also the instructor for the Caltech Industrial Relations Center’s course on strategic marketing of technology products which has served more than 3,500 executive participants worldwide.  An independent consultant, Halliwell helps high tech companies implement cross-functional processes for product and market strategy development.

Texas Instruments DLP Products display technology delivers pictures rich with color, contrast, and brightness to large-screen HDTV’s and to projectors for business, home, professional venue, and digital cinema.  75 of the world’s top projector and display manufacturers design, manufacture, and market products based on DLP technology.