words of widsom from James Rice
This past Friday was the interns last official Friday work session – this week we used the space of Coates Kokes! Coates Kokes was wonderful – accommodating, friendly, hospitable, etc. From the time I was there, I got a good feeling about the company, culture, values, culture, collaboration, ambiance, etc. Of course I’d have to spend more time there to know for sure, but overall – good experience!
James Rice and Mason West from Ascentium as well as Amber Case and Bram Pitoyo spent some time with each team in the afternoon – specifically, James spoke to us regarding presentation as our final pitch is this Friday.
Some advice James had regarding pitching to clients:
- Remember to not talk over the client’s head – you know this stuff inside and out, but do they?
- Be organized!
- Own the room – you’ve done the research and put the time in – now own it!
- Be passionate – live it! love it!
- Find a way to people to think uniquely
- Scared/nervous? Get over it! be proud of you strategy / work
- Don’t increase # of slides to decrease bullets per page…
- Make it as real and engaging for the client as possible
multitasking is a waste of time
One of the many takeaways from Anvil Media came from Kent Lewis – during a weekly staff meeting, Kent challenged us to set aside 10 minutes an hour to tend to email and reserve the remaining 50 minutes for work. I didn’t think this was going to be a huge change, but wow, when I became conscious of my email patterns, I didn’t realize how frequently I check my mail – once I began to delegate ~10 minutes/hour exclusively for email – wow – it really does make a huge difference in terms of efficiency & productivity.
From Kent, Hallie and the Anvil team, I’ve really learned to be more effective & efficient with my time and work by revamping the way in which I approach & accomplish tasks.
Follow are a handful of my takeaways regarding maximizing efficiency and productivity:
1. Make a to-do list and actually follow it
2. Set deadlines and stick with them
3. Plan in advance, prioritize, allocate and delegate
4. Take on one task at a time and finish it before moving on – rather than having facebook, wordpress, cnn, gmail., ical, Pandora, adfeed, etc. etc. etc. open at one time, take on one task at a time, complete it, then move on to the next taks.
5. Rather that working to improve your weaknesses, invest time in nurturing your strengths (personal favorite!)
The New Group & Livengood and Nowack
Again, have I mentioned how amazing the agencies have been? This week two of our agencies have been generous enough to host parties for the COLAB-ers which I especially appreciated, as neither agency is part of my agency rotation. It was nice to be able to spend time at these agencies to talk with employees, see their work and workspace, etc. Thank you to: The New Group and Livengood & Nowack and invited us in for parties at their agencies this past week!!!! They are fabulous!!!!!
The New Group!
more New Group…
New Group’s art show!!!
TNG has a nice view from upstairs!!!
At Livengood!
Colab-ers and Livengood!!
the designers workspace at Livengood. nice.
The account people reside upstairs. (NICE!)
networking
Through the COLAB internship program, the other 9 interns and myself have more or less been thrown into the PDX ad. scene as of day one. Pretty darn sweet if you ask me. HOWEVER, with this comes meeting people by the dozen, different agencies every other week, working with complete (initial) strangers to create an ad/branding/marketing/etc. campaign and the dreaded N word…networking!!!
Networking is a fabulous means to advance in the professional world – if done correctly. With that said, I think Kent Lewis from Anvil Media discusses successful networking tactics in this article. What do you think?