Growing up, neither “my brother”:http://www.onedegree.ca/category/karel-wegert nor I expected to work in interactive media. As a kid I abhorred technology, and my brother was far more interested in “NOFX”:http://www.nofxofficialwebsite.com/ than PPC. So it never ceases to amaze us – let alone our Mom – that we’re both now deeply entrenched in the interactive marketing industry.
Although she’s Internet-savvy in her own right (she emails, uses an instant messenger program, and is considering building a Web site to sell her decorative painting work online), our Mom still struggles a little to wrap her head around what it is that we do. Once, during a visit home, she happened to overhear my brother and I commiserating about a paid search campaign. “They might as well be speaking a different language!” she later told my father. But as she said it, there was a distinguishable note of pride in her voice.
I often wonder what it took to raise two interactive marketers. Surely we didn’t just stumble into this industry by luck. I like to think our parents had a hand in cultivating the skills needed to make it in the online world.
So thanks Mom…
* For teaching us patience. There are few things in this life as frustrating as waiting for a media rep to return your call.
* For stressing the importance of attention to detail. Without this proficiency, our campaign reports would be woefully inaccurate and incur the dreaded wrath of our clients.
* For devising those annual Easter scavenger hunts. Faced with the challenge of deciphering your clues, we developed the problem solving skills we rely on today as campaign strategists (not to mention incomparable Web search prowess).
* For requiring us to look up the words we didn’t know. The solid vocabulary you helped instill has been a foundation without which we might never be able to retain the meaning of terms like ad centric measurement, media latency, and static rotation (Not familiar with them? Look them up).
* For teaching us to manage our finances. The ability to do so has made us the online media buyers we are today.