Random Thoughts from Brett

Before Jes and I got married, I used to write a blog called "random thoughts".  Some of my thoughts were more random than others, but nonetheless, it was an outlet of sorts for things/thoughts that were occupying the space between my ears.  I decided that my contribution to our blog (since my lovely wife has been our primary, okay, only blogger for the past while) would be a weekly installation of "Random Thoughts from Brett". 

 

For my first posting, I thought I would give a little glimpse into my work life, something that I rarely do.  Sometimes I find myself at a loss when asked to describe what I do, becuase my responsibilities are so...well, random.  I work for a bank, but in a very non-bank job.  My official title is "Marketing Officer", but other titles have been floated around, i.e. "Communications Specialist", "Public Relations Officer", "Connections Guru"...ok, so the last one has only been used in jest and refers specifically to a software (Connections) that I manage for the bank that NO ONE else knows anything about!  Officially, my responsiblities include:  public relations (press releases, coordinating interviews and photos, special events), maintenance of the bank's intranet and website, maintenance of Connections (software/database used for employee referrals and marketing to customers), and development of the annual marketing plan and budget.  One thing that I really like about my job is that it is a nice mix of creative and more analytical tasks.  In any given day, I could be developing creative concepts for our next advertising campaign and also creating an in-depth spreadsheet to track the actual results of the campaign...so as you can see, I there is a wide variety to what I do.

 

I have a legal pad that sits to the right of my computer at work.  Throughout my day I jot down truly "random" notes.  Anything from phone messages to personal reminders to questions that I need to ask a co-worker.  I thought it might be interesting to share a few words from the past few days on my note pad:

 

"Call BigShots" ( BigShots is a billboard broker that handles the coordination of all of our billboard advertising...it surprised me when I started here how much we use billboards...we have 16 billboards across the state)

 

"Update NPR on MyJackFacts" (we have been a corporate "underwriter"...they can't call it advertising...with 3 NPR stations in NC this year.  MyJackFacts is the name of our Intranet site, "Jack" is the name of the little gold man in our logo!)

 

"2nd Quarter Earnings Release" (These are the types of press releases that I don't write...these come from our finance department, but I am responsible to distribute to the media and post to our website)

 

"E-Statement, Debit Card, Mobile Banking, Remote Deposit, Merchant Capture, Online Banking" (We are currently in the middle of an advertising campaign/employee contest focusing on these "extra" services that the bank offers.)

 

"Minimums for contest?" (Each of our campaigns involves an employee contest, for our current campaign I had to determine the minimums for the contest...the winner will receive an extra week of paid vacation!)

 

"NC Magazine - Sept. issue - Greensboro focus" (We receive solicitations for advertising ALL THE TIME and part of my job is to research and determine if it is a good opportunity for us...this is a magazine that is focusing on Greensboro in an upcoming issue.  We have 3 branches in Greensboro.)

 

"ASU Media Plan" (We are again sponsoring the Appalachian State University football season this year.  As a part of that, we have developed some ads that we will run in that market.  I developed a plan/budget for how we would do this advertising)

 

"Call about tearsheets" (A tearsheet is the actual page of a newspaper/magazine that we receive to prove that an ad actually ran as it was supposed to.  We have to have these for every single ad that we run in order for the invoice to get paid.)

 

That's all for this week's edition of "Random Thoughts from Brett".  I hope you have a better idea of what I do.