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Anyone who knows me, knows I love to spin a good yarn about my age. It’s inevitably a bit of sport where I wind back the clock further and further, seeing just how far I can roll back the years before getting bemused looks from others. |
You’d be surprised just how polite most people are—and how my friends and partner are not.
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to talk people into believing I was 23 (5 years, to be exact), but if I could, I’d need to also be talking about the start of my career.
I got my start at an advertising agency in Newport Beach, California. It was a foundation in communications that gave me everything I needed to build my career. It was fast-paced, hard slog, and full of the best people in the world. It wasn’t just my career created in the writer’s circle— it helped create who I am today.
Young me would have said it was my talent, knowledge, and ability that got me that start. Today me knows those things may have played a part in landing the job, but—largely—the credit belongs to a creative director and associate creative director who saw potential and took a chance.
I’m now at a point in my career where I can be that person who takes a chance on someone just getting their start, someone looking to re-enter the workforce, or someone looking to take the next step in their career.
I have to be honest: it’s not something I take for granted and I take the view that, just as I got a helping hand in my start, I now owe the same to others.
It’s a perspective on life that I share with my fellow IABC Wellington board members— and why we are working with Massey University to not only help their communications students gain real world experience, but to also help young people in Wellington through a partnership with Evolve and Isentia. Great communication and engagement—whether with the young people they serve, the media, or government—ultimately impacts how many people Evolve is able to serve and support.
Wellington’s students and its young people deserve the best start they can possibly get.
Our work only recently got underway and this semester will serve as a learning experience for all of us—with the aim of developing a long-term, sustainable partnership that can help build better communicators, better professionals, and a better city.
And if that isn’t a great start, I don’t know what is.
Chris
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to talk people into believing I was 23 (5 years, to be exact), but if I could, I’d need to also be talking about the start of my career.
I got my start at an advertising agency in Newport Beach, California. It was a foundation in communications that gave me everything I needed to build my career. It was fast-paced, hard slog, and full of the best people in the world. It wasn’t just my career created in the writer’s circle— it helped create who I am today.
Young me would have said it was my talent, knowledge, and ability that got me that start. Today me knows those things may have played a part in landing the job, but—largely—the credit belongs to a creative director and associate creative director who saw potential and took a chance.
I’m now at a point in my career where I can be that person who takes a chance on someone just getting their start, someone looking to re-enter the workforce, or someone looking to take the next step in their career.
I have to be honest: it’s not something I take for granted and I take the view that, just as I got a helping hand in my start, I now owe the same to others.
It’s a perspective on life that I share with my fellow IABC Wellington board members— and why we are working with Massey University to not only help their communications students gain real world experience, but to also help young people in Wellington through a partnership with Evolve and Isentia. Great communication and engagement—whether with the young people they serve, the media, or government—ultimately impacts how many people Evolve is able to serve and support.
Wellington’s students and its young people deserve the best start they can possibly get.
Our work only recently got underway and this semester will serve as a learning experience for all of us—with the aim of developing a long-term, sustainable partnership that can help build better communicators, better professionals, and a better city.
And if that isn’t a great start, I don’t know what is.
Chris