One week down

I've finished my first week of school er... work. The timing of this job felt a lot like school, and since the dress code is different (Snowbound was business casual, Bulldog is "No Swimsuits") I had to do some back-to-work clothes shopping. We did this as a family last week, just cruised up to the Round Rock Outlets. Mia and I were both in need of some new athletic and everyday shoes (and have been for a while) and I needed more than one pair of jeans that really fit.
We ended up getting new shoes, some Nike's for both of us -- which we are breaking in now for our trip to Disney -- and some everyday work shoes (that aren't athletic shoes) for me. Mia and I both got some pants as well, and Ethan got a Buzz Lightyear costume for Halloween.

In the end, shopping for clothes is always expensive but we did better at the outlets than we would have anywhere else so we can't complain. They are all things we've been putting off buying for a while, it's our own fault for not spreading out the purchases.

But, enough of the boring stuff. Let's talk about my job.

While my official title is Campaign Manager, that's a fancy title for Project Manager. I keep the pieces moving, preparing for the inevitable launch and trying to make sure that we have as much done as possible before our clients open them up to the world. This is a role I've had before. The daily insanity is similar to what I remember. However, I do have two distinct advantages coming into this role.

1. I understand the marketing. I get what we do, the messaging, the landing pages, the automation, the emails, the marketing side of things I've been doing at Snowbound for 3.5 years. (Also, I really enjoy this kind of stuff.)

2. I understand the chaos. I'm not trying to figure out what Bulldog does while also trying to learn how to juggle projects and keep clients happy. I have a foundation for both of these as well.

But, like I said, this is just a foundation. I still have to learn the intracacies of how Bulldog goes about their process. I still have to learn how to handle my particular clients, and I have plenty to learn about Webinars.

Actually, part of why I took this job (besides not getting an offer for the other one :p ) was so that I could learn more about Webinars. Video is exploding as an online medium and I want to try and get ahead of that wave. This knowledge will definitely be useful to me in future positions.

Bulldog is still a small company. Which means they face an interesting challenge. Any loss of staff makes a big impact on the allocation of resources and work. But, they are also growing so hiring new people means getting them up to speed. Typically for a Campaign Manager they spend a month in training/shadowing on the accounts that will become their clients before getting introduced and taking over the work.

On my first day I was introduced to a client that I'll be taking from one of the CMs that is leaving (I'm pretty much replacing her spot, though they have hired 1 more CM so net gain of 1). In the first week, I have been introduced to 2 more clients, and will be in the kick-off meeting for a brand-spanking-new client next week.  In other words, my training period has been cut a little short. While that makes me a bit nervous, I'm also glad they have confidence that I am able to jump right in and start contributing. This is smart because asking the experienced campaign managers to shoulder too much work will only serve to burn them out, leaving more holes.  (Which no one wants.)

I'll keep you posted on how things progress at Bulldog. But, at the moment, I'm confident that I've found a good place for me to be here in Austin.

Real Haircut, Real Job

Ok, I admit that I got the haircut after the job but I don't think the order is important in this case. Let me tell you a little about my new job. I'm going to be a Campaign Manager at a company called Bulldog Solutions. They are a Lead Generation service company. Which means that I'll be managing marketing campaigns that Bulldog executes for our clients to generate more leads.  

This is similar to what I'm doing now at Snowbound. I'm responsible for a lot of our lead generation and do all the execution for them.  So this is going to be a change of pace for me since I'll be doing it for multiple clients instead of just one company.

But, it's also a small company so I will hopefully continue to have opportunities to expand my skills and experiment with other things.

I start on Monday. It's getting exciting to think about but also makes me a bit apprehensive about going back to an office job. Fortunately, I've been down to the office a few times and the people are great. I think that I'm going to fit in well.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Reading (People)

I have done some reading recently (YAY!) but this post isn't about books. It's about reading people. I have been doing some interviews recently.

In one of them, I got a skills test. Analyze a 14,000 record data set and do an hour-long presentation about the results. Well, this was a little outside the realm of what I've been doing with our Web Analytics and search analytics at Snowbound. But, it was an interesting experiment to see what I could do.

The presentation went well, but when it was over I came home and told Mia that if I didn't get the job it wouldn't be because I wasn't competent but because they needed someone with more experience than I had.

I got a call from the HR person I'd been working with later that afternoon telling me almost that exact thing. I have to admit being a little disappointed but also grateful for the chance to expand my horizons and give me something to work on personally.

Fortunately, one of my other interviews that also went extremely well ended in a job offer. More on that soon. ;)

Pick me up

So, yesterday, when I was having my stressful week, I cracked open the RSS reader and scanned through Logic + Emotion. I enjoy reading this one because I think it's insightful and because he posts cool graphics.

If your interested in marketing, you should check it out.

Social Media

I went to a meeting of the Boston Social Network club tonight. Right after work, in fact. It meant that I didn't get to go home after work, so I totally missed Ethan today. I think that if I do this again (and I want to) I'll try to leave work an hour early so that I can go home first and see Mia and Ethan.

The Boston Social Media Club was about video. Video blogging, video content for business, and video's role in non-profit organizations.

There were some very interesting points made, and a rather large crowd. Of course, as I've discovered with any of these marketing-oriented groups, most of the people there were from agencies. I suppose that is to be expected. Even when I was at Schwartz I tried to go to the PRSA meetings and other groups that I discovered.

It's been a while since I've been active in a set group. I've attended a few MITX and MTLC meetings, but I've not really felt like those were groups that I could really consider myself a part of. Those two groups feel impersonal to me, or maybe they are just big enough that you don't see the same people across sessions.

When I got home tonight, I was telling Mia about an odd mix of feelings that I get at these. On the one hand, I have a sense of confidence because I am working on the client-side. Since most people at agencies are working for clients, being employed at a company gives me the feeling of confidence because I know that I'm a prospective client. So I've got that edge.
On the other hand, I get nervous. While I do have about 5 years in the industry now, but I worry that people with more industry experience may not think what I've got to say is relevant or important.

Fortunately for me tonight, I was nominated to present to the entire group about the break-out session. Afterwards, I had a few people (including the presenter that was leading our break-out) tell me that I did well. So, I guess I shouldn't stress out too much about the nervousness.