My Tech Transition: How Nduka Dike moved from Computer Engineer to Communications Manager
Nduka Dike, communications manager at Risevest, tells us how he transitioned into the tech industry.
Written by David Onugha
After a brief stint as an engineer, Nduka Dike fully embraced his creative side and became a copywriter, working with brands like Hero Lager, 9mobile, Fidelity Bank, British Council, and Uber. Currently the communications manager at Risevest, he tells us how he transitioned into the tech industry.
What’s a typical day like for you as the Communications Manager at Risevest?
I handle a lot of the communication from social media to email marketing and copy for ads. My typical day starts with me checking the content calendar to make sure that social media is covered. Then I write emails and edit the weekly newsletter, as well as our blog posts, write scripts for videos and copy for adverts that run on social media and everywhere else. Oh, I have fun coming up with memes for the newsletter.
You studied engineering and are currently a Communications Manager. Do you recall when you decided to pursue a writing career?
I studied Computer Engineering and thought I was going to become a proper engineer. I actually was an engineer for a few months. I worked with an internet service provider as a network engineer. But then, I was also writing on Facebook and had a blog.
The creative director at 7even Interactive, an ad agency, was looking for a writer for a blog he had started. The blog was about Aba, which was where I grew up and still lived at the time. He got me to work on his blog, writing random news about Aba and its history.
I wrote for the blog for a couple of months, then he randomly asked me one day if I had thought about copywriting. I had never even heard of copywriting, so I googled it. I was like, ‘Oh, this is the work that goes into an advert.’ I was interested, so I moved from Aba to Lagos and started working as an intern with 7even Interactive.
How were you able to grow in your role? Were there any courses you had to take?
To be fair, I did not take any courses then; I learned by experience. I was just kind of thrown into the deep end. It was a baptism by fire. The first day I got in, I was asked to write copy for a Fidelity Bank Valentine’s Day ad.
For the most part, that’s how I grew. Your ideas may not get chosen, but you learn how to do more, how to write copy that works, and before you know it, you’re writing a whole campaign. It's not something that happens in a few weeks; it took me about a year before I wrote my first proper script.
What prompted the move to tech?
I moved to tech because it was hot at the time. It still is, I guess. I was younger and felt tech was where I needed to be. There was also the part where I wanted a calmer pace — agency life is really hectic. Working in tech is calmer and allows me to focus my creativity better.
Were there any factors that helped you settle into your role in tech?
To be fair, anyone who has done advertising for a while can fit into any marketing department, not just tech. And that’s because advertising is very wide-ranging. You're working on a lot of brands at the same time. I worked on so many wide-ranging brands at the agency.
So, it’s quite easy working in tech because when you move from the agency side to the client side, you get to be more focused.
How do you think creatives in the corporate world can balance their creative instincts with the need to follow performance metrics?
This may be controversial, but I personally think that people who work in the creative side of marketing — social media managers, copywriters, content creators, art directors — should work in an agency first before going to the client side.
An agency insists on your creativity. When you move to the client side, your creativity is no longer a priority; everyone is now talking about OKRs and KPIs. At the agency, there is a lot of insistence on creativity because you need to wow your clients.
When you move to the client side, like a tech company, always insist on your creativity. Of course, it won’t be needed all the time, but at least, try something that is out of the box. If it doesn't work, you try again. You have to insist on your creativity, if not, you’ll never have anything fresh.
How can communication specialists like yourself stay ahead of the curve and avoid redundancy in light of recent technological advancements like Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
I have a hot take on AI writing copy. Right now, I don't think AI copy can be as good as that of a human being. AI will never know you, a human being, like another human can. When you write an advert, you’re communicating with another human being. AI can mimic a human being but when you see an AI-written ad, somehow you’ll know at the back of your mind that it doesn't sound like a human.
We've diluted creativity a lot nowadays because everybody wants to sound like the next person. Everybody wants to sound like an Apple or Facebook ad. There is no longer a need to look for insights before writing anything. There was a time at the agency that I had to write a campaign, and my boss asked me to look for insights. We spent two weeks looking for insights and about two days writing the actual campaign.
That's when I understood the importance of insights. It took research from the client and then us thinking on the research to come up with the insights, and we created an ad that was, in my opinion, really good. I look at ads coming out nowadays and they're not really insightful, they're not really answering a human question. No matter the brand, it is human beings that are using it and that means you have to answer a human question.
No matter how technologically inclined the brand is, it is a human being that you’re working for. So, you have to answer a human question if you want to effectively communicate with your ad. And I think that is something that may be missing right now in AI. So I'm not worried about AI at all. Maybe in 5 years, they will have a version of Chat GPT that is fully human, till then, I’m not worried.
What job search advice would you give to creatives looking to transition to tech?
If you're a copywriter, write. If you're a designer, design. If you're a content creator, create content. Put yourself out there — nobody will find you if you don’t. You’re also going to work with people who are not creatively inclined and look at everything from the context of ‘tech’. Writing copy, especially, is not a tech role, so you have to insist on your creativity. Forget the KPIs and OKRs and be creative; that’s what makes you human.
It is important to enjoy art and works of other creatives. Film, TV shows, comedy shows, sketches, articles, stories, books, documentaries whatever. Just like a writer needs to be a reader to be a better writer, so do you. By enjoying creative work you're not only entertaining yourself, which is very important, you're learning what other people enjoy. This is especially important for a copywriter; you never know what your next target audience will like. You gotta have taste!