Doing Away with a Career Blind Spot

Last night, I did something out of the norm for me. I decided to take a free 2-hour introduction to coding course offered by a local company here in St. John’s, called Get Coding. No, I’m not contemplating a career change, nor am I interested in making websites for my friends and neighbours; I went because after being in the advertising / marketing business for 27 years, I noticed that I had developed a blind spot.

As a communications planner, I spend much of my time engaged with emerging media channels, social media channels, and of course let’s not forget those ‘traditional’ or ‘legacy’ media channels, who by-the-way are still thriving despite the industry’s obsession with tech. It takes a lot of work, and sometimes it’s a little lonely when you’re experimenting with new social media channels, but I do this so I can continue to develop sound strategies to better connect my clients brands’ with their consumers, no matter who the consumer is or the communications challenges we face. I’ve always believed, that regardless of your position or title, it’s much better to ride the front of the wave, versus the top, as with the top it’s too easy to slide back and get left behind. 

Also, over the years as a comms planner, I’ve worked closely with everyone involved in the communications mix, and either by direct experience or osmosis, you gain an understanding of each others' roll and how they get things done. Knowing how something is created and made, whether it’s a TV spot, a printed FSI, or the ins and outs of a programmatic media buy, is important for any generalist in this business. Not only does this knowledge help with planning and executing a campaign, pre-emptively navigating any pitfalls, it helps you develop and grow empathy for those you work with.

When I joined Target in 2012, it was the first time in over a decade that I had worked at a full-service agency; like many others of my tenure my career path followed the industry unbundling trend. It was refreshing, being back and working on a team where everyone legitimately shared a common goal, to make our clients win, without having to navigate the individual profit centres of various partner agencies working on a shared client. In fact, the unbundling of agency disciplines and competing profit centres is one of the main reasons why Communications Planning / Connection Planning still struggles to take off.

Since I’ve been with Target, one of the most significant changes I’ve seen is the growth of our digital team. Sure, they’ve grown in size, but their role within the overall mix has increased significantly, and the complexity of the demands placed on them have been astronomical. Television took over 50 years to see any form of evolution, where the digital space is evolving every day. In addition to adapting to the constant change, the level of sophistication in the work that comes out of the team here is nothing short of incredible.

The more I worked with our digital team, the more I noticed something was missing. While I wholeheartedly appreciated the role they played, I could never really have an appreciation of what they do, since I had no idea of what they actually did. Insert said ‘blind spot’.

So last night, I piled into a room full of strangers, with my laptop. I imagine that some people were there looking to get a start on their first careers, and perhaps some looking to make a change in theirs’, and others like myself were just there out of curiosity. I have to say, the team from Get Coding put on a great session. In two hours, I went from having nearly no knowledge of coding to actually building my first website. Sure my 2 hour-in website was crude and ugly (ugly by choice, honest), I left feeling both accomplished and enlightened, and believe it or not I had fun.

I don’t think I will do much with my newfound knowledge of coding, as my skill level is only capable enough to rival those websites that I first bought ads on in 1997, but I’m so happy to have sacrificed an evening to learn it. The session gave me an entirely new appreciation of what our digital team does here at Target. It truly is much more difficult than one would think.

I highly recommend to you the reader, wherever you are, if this is a blind spot for you and if you work with people in this space, find a class and take it, it’s worth every minute. Who knows, you may love it so much that you’ll find yourself coding your way into a new career, or like me, you’ll come away with a heightened sense of understanding, appreciation and empathy for the work that your coworkers do.

If you’d like to see my coding masterpiece, here it is in all its glory. Yup, I think we can all agree that I won’t be quitting my day job anytime soon.

https://fejportfolio1.fejcodes.repl.co