Friday, November 17, 2006

Corporate Adrenaline

The AVP, Director of Marketing (who often refers to my new employment as an opportunity to grow me - she "likes to grow people" - which is great because I need some growing) brought me with her to a four-hour meeting today so that I could watch, listen and learn.

The meeting involved representatives from a direct email marketing firm who were essentially trying to sell the top directors and heads of various departments within our company on their online marketing tool.

It was such a rush to watch our CTO and other "big wigs" from various departments grill these sales representatives and to watch these reps rise to the challenge. It was a tough crowd on our side and one of the reps actually started sweating ... in fact, I began to sweat a little bit for him. But after three hours of presentations, demonstrations and dialogue, it was exciting to watch the dynamic of the room as it flowed from speculation and doubt of whether or not they could meet our company's objectives to collaboration and corporate camaraderie.

There is still more to discuss before there are handshakes over contracts - in fact, I'm setting up conference calls between various departments on our end and their reps (who are based out of California). But after the meeting was over, everyone actually turned to me and thanked me for setting everything up. I mean, all I did was book a conference room, coordinate schedules, send invites to all the pertinent parties, order a catered lunch and then sat to my boss' left and scribbled notes (not rocket science by any means), but it felt pretty cool to be acknowledged - especially after a meeting as cool as today's.

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