What is a Space Technologist?

A funny thing happened yesterday. It turns out someone actually read my blog. Sure, it was a person I texted and said “read my blog”, but still, this explosion in readership can not be overlooked. So in gratitude to that reader, I’m going to use this entry to answer a question she raised. “What exactly is it that you do?” So this post will be dedicated to answering the question, “What exactly is a space technologist?”

Well, dear reader, the Space Technologist is among the smartest, best looking, most charismatic and incredibly charming members of the Sales and Marketing industry. But it goes beyond that. Far beyond. Now I’m sure everyone reading this (both of you) have been to a grocery store. In that grocery store there are shelves and on those shelves there are products. How do those products get there? Most likely some high school kid getting 6 bucks an hour put them there. But how does he know where to put them? I’m glad you asked.

If you’ve ever worked in retail, you might have heard of something called a planogram (POG for short). If you haven’t, it’s basically a diagram that shows the shelves of a given section of a store, how high they should be, and what products should go on them and in which order. These POGs do not create themselves. Someone has to do it. And that’s where the Space Technologist comes into play.

I work for a company, and that company represents companies that make food and other things you would buy at a grocery store, such as coffee filters or toilet paper. We have many clients. I won’t list any of them here, but stand in your kitchen and turn around in a full circle and you’re bound to see a dozen products my company represents. It’s my job to make sure those products get to the best location on the shelves so that you can buy them and have them take up space in your kitchen.

Grocery manufacturers come in all shapes and sizes, but invariably they share two traits. One, they like for people to buy their products. And two, they are incredibly nitpicky. Put those two things together and those manufacturers will pay my company good money to make sure their products are placed where they want them and my company in turn pays me (less) good money to make that happen.

I am what is known as an “In-house” Space Technologist. This is probably the most common breed of the Space Tech. family. That means I work In-house at a specific super market and represent my clients exclusively to that particular chain. So for sections in which my clients are the biggest players, I’m responsible for creating the POG so that high school kid making 6 dollars an hour knows where he should place the products on the shelves. At least until he decides it would be easier to ignore the POG and do it whichever way means less work for him.

And that’s what I do on a daily basis. At least, that’s what I do when I’m not writing blogs or screwing around on facebook.

That’s all I’ve got.