Hi there! I’m Yvonne and I’ve been part of RCKT for the past 5 weeks. In real life, I’m working in the communications department of Henkel, a German DAX 30 company based in Düsseldorf. As part of my traineeship, I’m able to do some kind of exchange with either another company or an agency, newspaper, tv station or whatever I’m interested in. Since digitalization and digital change is very high up on Henkel’s (and many other corporations) agenda right now, I wanted to do something “digital”. So I decided to go to Berlin and join RCKT. Because what could be more digital than that? I’ve never worked for an agency before and I think it’s a great chance to change perspectives. So here’s what I’ve learned:
1) You don’t need 10 years of work experience to a) have a shitload of responsibility and b) tell corporate executives what they have to change to become relevant players in the digital age.
Having grown up with social networks and smartphones and being curious about what’s currently happening in the startup ecosystem makes you a pretty good digital consultant especially for established companies.
2) Sometimes (in fact a lot of times!) done is better than perfect.
In the digital age, speed is key. Corporates are usually slower when it comes to making decisions due to their size and often complex hierarchies. A rather small, young agency like RCKT is much more agile and decisions are made quickly. Of course, I don’t expect to experience this kind of speed at Henkel and that’s ok. But I still think even big companies (50.000+ employees) should try to get things done quickly even if the result is not always flawless in the end. Getting things started is key. Corporations should be willing to take risks even if this involves making mistakes. It will happen for sure but you will learn from it and it’ll make you stronger.
3) Not having meetings all day gives you plenty of time to get shit done.
Of course, things need to be discussed and aligned especially when working with cross-divisional teams like it’s often the case at Henkel. But maybe some of the weekly meetings aren’t really necessary and the time can better be used to implement things. At RCKT, everyone is sitting in one shared office which leads to pretty short lines of communication (and surprisingly not really to a high noise level) and makes a quick alignment easy.
4) The client is king and that means…
…deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.
…sometimes creating ideas and concepts that will never be realized and content that will never be used.
…developing and implementing things you are not convinced of in the first place.
5) Free drinks and food keep the motivation high → very important for long office days ;)
But after all it doesn’t matter whether you work on the agency or on the corporate side, whether you have 50.000 or 35 colleagues, whether you’re wearing a suit or white sneakers: your job is what you make of it and if you enjoy what you do, it is the right thing. So after 5 weeks of sitting “on the other side” I am looking forward to go back to Düsseldorf and to hopefully bring a little bit of the RCKT spirit to Henkel 🙂