A note from the writer:
Most of my posts on this blog lean towards non-profits since that’s where most of my experience is. I’ve always been drawn to non-profits because building something from the ground up, as well as planning events and promotions with limited budget, produces a challenge for me. I’m drawn the passion that people at non-profits have for their work and tend to mix well with the low-key workplace environment.
I made the decision to temporarily go corporate and found that many of these things are not non-profit specific. For the past three months, I’ve been working at a large global corporation. It is extremely well-known and I was not prepared for the speed of the PR team when I entered. I was exposed to challenges I hadn’t experienced before- legal, crisis that ended up on CNN, communications specifically for employees and projects that coordinated with PR agencies. I was surprised with the number of people it took to launch a campaign, since I was used to working on them solo at my past jobs. Not only was my team in the U.S., but we were also in Japan, France, Germany and South America. I spent most of my time in meetings trying to get everyone on the same page.
In addition to my corporation being large and global, we are also located in the middle of Silicon Valley. I had front-row seats the battle taking place among the tech companies. They were announcing products before they were even accessible just to be “first.” A wonderful perk to this was all the conventions I was able to attend. I had the opportunity to see employees from Twitter, Square, Salesforce.com, Deloitte and other companies speak about their new ideas. It was inspiring and it motivated me to think outside of the box.
The drawback to working at a corporation is that everyone is in such a hurry to get things completed and sometimes they lose their creative spark. Thankfully, my position left the door open to take my project wherever I pleased, so instead of taking the traditional route, I made my project my own and incorporated things I was passionate about such as design and video (these things are usually outsourced or completed by agencies.)
Instead of a simple memo for a new product, I created a fun infomercial to showcase it. Instead of announcing an event with a release, I threw a mini-event to engage employees that included small businesses, local non-profits and of course…cupcakes. I found that while working at a mega-corporation comes with numerous roadblocks, you don’t have to lose your creativity and you can still create the challenges you enjoy within your position.
*The location wasn’t too bad either.
PR Profesh 