????這使我想起了我們當時考察智能手機業務時的情形。手機市場當時確實有很多競爭產品，但它們的設計宗旨都是幫助運營商向用戶銷售手機，而沒有考慮到用戶想要什么。另外，我對自己說：“有沒有推出服務業務的潛力？”首先，恒溫器是否是一項好業務？其次，你能否為恒溫器提供服務？我們就這樣進入了能源服務領域。我當時想：“這讓我想起了MP3播放器革命和智能手機革命，兩者最初都是始于設備上革命性的硬件和軟件。隨后迅速擴展到服務和應用程序。”

????你在蘋果的時候并不負責市場推廣，但作為Nest公司的首席執行官，你知道自己必須具備市場推廣的能力，對吧？

????我想明確一點。產品營銷同市場營銷與溝通是兩碼事。產品營銷我全部參與了。但市場營銷與溝通則不同，它在于將明確的原則、差異等等轉化成營銷和消息，同時將它們通過眾多紙媒和數字媒體發布出去。

????我會同產品營銷部門密切合作，但產品營銷并不知道能開發出什么。因此，我嘗試當消費者想要的產品和工程師能夠開發的產品這兩者之間的橋梁，一直在嘗試把這兩者結合起來，嘗試了解在市場營銷過程中把什么差異作為賣點，了解怎樣的產品會讓消費者覺得簡單易用，或者說能給他們帶來愉悅體的驗，以及在一定的價位上，能大規模生產出什么樣的產品。通常，產品營銷部門提出方案，然后就扔給工程設計人員。工程設計人員說：“這不現實。”于是對方案進行修改或刪減，然后返給產品營銷部門。產品營銷部門只好說：“我們只能做出這個來。”我試圖在兩者之間找到中間路線。我想讓營銷部門說：“不，我們營銷這邊可以多做一點。我們膽子可以再大一點。”而對工程設計人員，我想說：“我們膽子還可以放大一點。但別太過火，別給項目增加太多風險，結果根本搞不成。”（財富中文網）

????譯者：項航

????It reminded me of when we were looking at the smartphone business. Sure, there was lots of competition, but they were being designed for the carriers to sell to the users, not what the users wanted. Then on top of that I said, “Is there a services business here?” So first, is the thermostat a good business? Then, can you supply services to the thermostat? And that’s when we get into the energy services. And I was like, “Okay. This totally reminds me of the MP3 player revolution and the smartphone revolution, where it first started with revolutionary hardware and software on the device. Then it quickly branched out to services and applications.”

????At Apple, you weren’t responsible for marketing, but as CEO of Nest you knew that needed to be in your toolkit, right?

????Let’s be clear. There’s product marketing, and then there’s marketing and communications. Product marketing, yeah, I was involved in all of that. Marketing and communications is a different thing, which is taking these clear tenets and the differentiation and all these other pieces and then turning them into marketing and messaging and pushing them out through the various print, digital outlets.

????I would work very closely with product marketing, but again, product marketing didn’t know what could be created. So what I would try to do is be the linchpin between what the consumer wanted and what engineering could build, and always trying to stitch that together, trying to understand what the marketing differentiation would be, understanding what the ease-of-use would be or the consumer delight would be, as well as what could actually get done and done at a certain price point. Typically product marketing specs something and throws it over the wall to engineering. Engineering says, “I can’t.” And they redact it or take things out of it, put it back to product marketing, and product marketing says, “That’s all we could get.” I tried to take the fine line between the two to push marketing, saying, “No, we can do a little bit more here on the marketing side. Let’s get bold.” And to engineering, I’d say, “Let’s get bold. But let’s not get too bold that we’ve added so much risk to the project that it may never ship.”