Day three at Centerline has definitely been one of my favorites so far. The environment here continues to be both welcoming and fascinating, and I’ve woken up every morning looking forward to the day ahead of me. I’m starting to become less and less dependent on my NAV to get here which is a plus! Today I’ve spent the day with two really wonderful women: mackenzie ( hopefully I’m spelling her name correctly) and Valentina, who work in the writing and accounts departments respectively. My time speaking with mackenzie was really wonderful as I spoke to her about her education and the course of her career. We discussed for a while the difficulty of being a writer in a corporate environment and the struggle to implement her own creativity and voice into sometimes quite formal pieces of work. She noted that her job was to ” find the human” in  the product, and to ensure a way to make the pieces connectable and resinate with an audience. Over the course of our conversation she also opened up to me about her relationship with her writing and the occasional cut and dry vibe of the industry. She said how quite often it takes quite a thick skin to be a writer in an agency, as scripts can get rejected and sent back incredibly easily. For a writer, who pours everything she has into what she creates, it takes a strong ability to focus on the final product and satisfaction of the client rather than her own feelings. After lunch and more chatting I met up with Valentina from the Accounts team who’s job seems to be another challenging one. Valentina ultimately works as a project manager, so her job demands extreme organizational and customer service abilities. She essentially works as the overseer of the marketed product from the moment she comes in contact with the client to the final sending off of the product. Through her complex schedules that she showed me in 2nd picture above, she organizes every single step of the process. While organizing and facilitating the production process along with the writing, film and animation departments, she simultaneously communicates with the client. Her goal is ultimately to figure out exactly what the client needs, ( the message they want to convey, their target audience etc.) communicate that idea to the creative teams, and ensure that the final product is perfect before its sent off to to the client. Long story short- if I ever hear that someone works in accounts again I will instantly have a massive amount of respect for them.

As a side note I think there’s something really amazing about being asked ” so who are you?” by every person you encounter here. Every individual I’ve spoken to genuinely seems interested in who I am beyond just my name, and I think thats not something to go unnoticed. Talking about myself and spending time within so many different departments has made me think about not only who I am but also who I want to be. If I’ve learned anything from all of the people that I’ve spoken with so far,  its that the answer to both of those questions is always changing.

My second day at centerline was certainly up my alley! For the first couple hours of the day I talked to a woman here who works as the head of marketing for Centerline itself. By that, she explained, she is responsible for getting Centerline’s name out into the world as much as possible. The job entails finding gigs for the CEO to speak at, nominating the company for new titles and awards, and really just marketing Centerline in a way that attracts as much positive attention as possible. She is also responsible for much of the marketing at devolve- a Coffee shop and urban retail store hybrid created by the CEO here at centerline. One of the projects she has been running is a Haul Series, where she recruits popular figures from the area and invites them to choose some of their store favorites. These favorites, along with a photo shoot and casual interview, come together to create a post for the website. The incentive, beyond simply attracting cool people to the store, is the hope that these figures will share the post and the experience via their own social media platforms. Today I got to tag along to one of their meetings with the next figure of their series: Scott Crawford, former executive chef of standards foods and creator of Crawford & Sons. I sat at a restored wood bar table with my lap top and watched the meeting. They spoke to scott about his career and future endeavors over coffee and then proceeded to take him around the store. The photo shoot is likely to occur later on within the next few weeks and will definitely be a cool opportunity to experience! I think today my greatest take away was seeing how many opportunities there are within the world of marketing. Not only does it open doors to meet so many successful and lovely people, but it also provides you with some of the coolest environments to be surrounded by.

Dr. McElreath you were right- this place really is cool ( I wonder how many times I’ll be using that word over the next couple of weeks).

As my first day at Centerline comes to an end, I believe It’s safe to say that things are looking promising. Entering the professional world was daunting to me, and for a multitude of reasons. My age and lack of direct experience with the marketing industry especially, are two examples that probably make me the most apprehensive. That being said, however, I think the opportunity to learn about something beyond anything I’ve experienced Is far more important than my anxiousness for being pushed out of my immediate comfort zone. Fortunately for me, centerline didn’t make the transition difficult. On my first day I’ve already seen some of Centerline’s strongest attributes in all their glory. The unique architectural style, urban vibe and welcoming employees stand out the most to me. Work spaces here are surrounded by white board walls, and egg shaped chairs dangle from the ceilings. The building is devised pretty much into departments, ranging from animation and video production to editing and client recruitment. As my first day was ultimately focused on getting settled in I got to do a bit of research on Centerline’s marketing work as well as watch one of their round table discussions on retargeting. I learned quickly that centerline’s largest focus and almost mission statement, if you will, is on content based marketing and creating a product that tells a story. I’ve gathered that the work that goes on at centerline is an absolute synthesis of department upon department that eventually results in one cohesive product. Throughout my day I also had the opportunity to sit down for a thai curry, walk around downtown raleigh and talk to one of the agency writers about her time at NYU. Throughout my weeks it looks like I’ll potentially be doing a Snap chat takeover on the Centerline account and maybe even go to one of the production shoots. From the wise words of Annie- I think I’m gonna like it here!