| In the past year, I've gone from near-zero understanding to pretty deep expertise in the domain of electrical grid interconnection as a product engineer. Here's how I went about it. I think all the other comments saying "read a lot" and "talk to everyone" are correct first steps, but for me, consuming information has diminishing returns after a short while. After you've reached a point where your brain feels like it's exploding, you should switch your focus to outputting information. If you're a "write things down" person, then write a synthesized document explaining everything you've learned, and then ask a few trusted coworkers to tear it apart. If you're a "talk out loud" person, schedule time with coworkers to have a "teachback session" where you give a presentation about everything you've learned. Again, ask them to tear it apart. It's crucial to build trust with a few coworkers who are willing to critique your output. Get them to rip everything you've created to shreds. Whenever you write or say something that's even slightly off compared to how someone in the industry would say it, make sure you learn about that, and learn how someone in the industry would say it. This focus on getting the language right - especially the colloquial language of how people actually describe things day-to-day - is important for every role, but I assume it's especially important in marketing, where you need to be able to use the precise language that your customers use. tl;dr: Read/talk to people at first, but switch to writing/presenting ASAP. Solicit and internalize as much critical feedback as you possibly can. |