Alex Pejcic - Vice-Presiden & Co-Founder of Sonic Boom
Board of Directors at The Advertising & Design Club of Canada
ABOUT ALEX & THE START OF SONIC BOOM
- Alex studied psychology in University - When he finished he still did not know what he wanted to do
- He and his buddies were using this "internet" thing a lot so they learned some basic HTML and started up a hockey pool website online
- After that they decided to try and make some money on this idea, so they went door to door selling companies on digital jobs
- Over the years he has gone from an entrepreneurs with an idea, ran with his ideas for as long as he could, then realized he had to do some scaling, so started learning to understand the corporate culture
- Now he has internal and external clients - changed his world completely and had to become responsible for his workers, and learned to become a great manager
- When it's all said and done it's not the money that keeps him coming back to work everyday, it's the people.
- It's worth it to be constantly learning and inspired by people everyday - learning to think in a completely different way changes everything.
SONIC BOOM - WHAT MAKES THEM DIFFERENT
http://www.sonicboom.com/#/home/
- Sonic Boom is all about helping the clients by maximizing what they can do with their media
- They work closely with the clients to understand their business, consumer and influences
- Focus is then placed on the client business challenge and they work to create meaningful solutions that will last
- They use a tactic they call "eMerge" - a combination of social media, traditional communications and interactive marketing to utilize all aspects of marketing and branding.
- Their goal is to get not only the audience excited about a company/product but the client themselves excited about the tactics in which they will be using i.e. social media
WHAT A DIGITAL AGENCY LOOKS LIKE ON THE INSIDE
- It's important to learn what a digital agency is comprised of presently in order to understand your place within a company.
- Digital used to be all about the design but has transformed where strategy drives the creative
-Various departments:
-strategy department
-account team - i.e. project managers
-creative department
-engineering
-production
-quality assurance
-*more unique to Sonic Boom: Subject Matter and Content Expert
- Sonic Boom now hires someone that really understands a certain industry
- They have done insight and research about certain industries
- Content people can be copy writers but also strategy writers
- social media, monitoring, design, management
- It's so important to know what's out there, what networks there are - come in as a user of these things, know their capacities, you don't have to be an expert but at least know where the world is going, and then you can learn the business end when you are hired
WHAT YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND
- Know at least basic knowledge of whatever company you are working for
- Do your research, find out what tactics they use and research them a bit to you can know what your talking about
- Check out Mashable, Digital Buzz, Hyper-Island
WHAT SHOULD I POSSESS
- You should be able to prove your skills in your discipline
- Have a strong portfolio
- References - use who ever you can (Sheridan is great)
- Positive attitude, team oriented, be someone that really cares about the company and it's work, don't be there to stroke your ego - nobody likes assholes
- Willingness to learn - you never know it all, even when you feel like your just starting to understand you will realize you actually know nothing, never be a know-it-all because you never will be and no one likes those as*holes anyways
- PASSION - within 5 minutes you can tell if a person is passionate
GETTING NOTICED, RECOGNIZED & RESPECTED - IT TAKES TIME
- It takes time to really get into your role and actually get good at it
- You will not get where you want to be right away, don't have an ego and be an idiot, pay your dues, everyone else has
- Join interactive media groups
- Submit your portfolio to online communities - creative people are really busy and might not have time for interviews, don't let your portfolio get passed up, make it easy for them
- Create your own online space - BLOGGING - what you say and print shows your passion and also shows your not just about design, you can also think and write
- Ask for advice in interviews - also talk about where you want to be
- Take opportunities as they come but remember to develop a tough skin, if someone says your not cut out to be a designer, there are other jobs in the creative realm, have an open mind
- Work hard and be passionate - it's not a 9-5 job
OTHER STUFF
- Check out Poke - great company that uses technology to solve problems ina smart way
http://www.pokelondon.com/portfolio/
- Don't always attend conferences in your industry, go to Ted & Idea City, they will help you develop different ways of problem solving and show your interested in the bigger picture
- Jumping from studio to studio does not reflect well in short periods of time, your not learning deep enough, your not paying your dues and people will notice - that is not the way to get ahead and will really make it hard for you to get jobs in the future if you don't seem like the kind of employee that will be worth their investment
- SODA is an organization that consists of the best independent agencies - get to know them
http://societyofdigitalagencies.org/
- Content people can be copy writers but also strategy writers
- social media, monitoring, design, management
- It's so important to know what's out there, what networks there are - come in as a user of these things, know their capacities, you don't have to be an expert but at least know where the world is going, and then you can learn the business end when you are hired
WHAT YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND
- Know at least basic knowledge of whatever company you are working for
- Do your research, find out what tactics they use and research them a bit to you can know what your talking about
- Check out Mashable, Digital Buzz, Hyper-Island
WHAT SHOULD I POSSESS
- You should be able to prove your skills in your discipline
- Have a strong portfolio
- References - use who ever you can (Sheridan is great)
- Positive attitude, team oriented, be someone that really cares about the company and it's work, don't be there to stroke your ego - nobody likes assholes
- Willingness to learn - you never know it all, even when you feel like your just starting to understand you will realize you actually know nothing, never be a know-it-all because you never will be and no one likes those as*holes anyways
- PASSION - within 5 minutes you can tell if a person is passionate
GETTING NOTICED, RECOGNIZED & RESPECTED - IT TAKES TIME
- It takes time to really get into your role and actually get good at it
- You will not get where you want to be right away, don't have an ego and be an idiot, pay your dues, everyone else has
- Join interactive media groups
- Submit your portfolio to online communities - creative people are really busy and might not have time for interviews, don't let your portfolio get passed up, make it easy for them
- Create your own online space - BLOGGING - what you say and print shows your passion and also shows your not just about design, you can also think and write
- Ask for advice in interviews - also talk about where you want to be
- Take opportunities as they come but remember to develop a tough skin, if someone says your not cut out to be a designer, there are other jobs in the creative realm, have an open mind
- Work hard and be passionate - it's not a 9-5 job
OTHER STUFF
- Check out Poke - great company that uses technology to solve problems ina smart way
http://www.pokelondon.com/portfolio/
- Don't always attend conferences in your industry, go to Ted & Idea City, they will help you develop different ways of problem solving and show your interested in the bigger picture
- Jumping from studio to studio does not reflect well in short periods of time, your not learning deep enough, your not paying your dues and people will notice - that is not the way to get ahead and will really make it hard for you to get jobs in the future if you don't seem like the kind of employee that will be worth their investment
- SODA is an organization that consists of the best independent agencies - get to know them
http://societyofdigitalagencies.org/
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