Category: Ketner Group Culture

It’s hard to believe that I graduated from college and entered the working world more than a year ago. Starting your first job is a major turning point in life and can quite honestly be daunting. As a new graduate, there are a lot of things you discover that they just don’t teach in textbooks and the classroom. So, I’ve decided to compile a few pieces of advice I’ve gleaned this past year to help new graduates who are starting their first full-time job.

Be Confident

As a new professional, it’s easy to feel insecure about your work and ideas. You left your “mama, I made it” moment as a senior in college and now you’re back at the bottom of the totem pole again.

When you start to doubt yourself, remember that you were hired for a reason. Your company believes that you have the right skills and experiences to contribute to the team. It’s so important to take what you’ve learned all these years and not be afraid to speak up and be confident in your abilities. You’ll be surprised what you can do!

Make Mistakes and Never Stop Learning

You may think that since you’re out of school, you won’t need to learn anymore. But really, you should never stop taking opportunities to cultivate your skills and be adaptable with the industry. This could mean reading articles, keeping up with news or acquiring new skills.

You may also feel like you have to do everything perfectly the first time around, but don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Believe me, I’ve made plenty of mistakes on the job! But what I’ve come to find is that the mistakes will make you better, and it’s up to you to take something away from those learning pains.

Get Involved

Look around and you’ll notice that there are some incredible people to look up to and learn from. Whether it be your boss, co-worker, or any other professional in your industry, there are people willing to guide and help you if you just ask! There are also professional organizations you can join with luncheons and networking events. For PR folks, I’ve found that PRSA is a great resource with plenty of ways to connect, volunteer and meet other professionals in your area.

Do What You Love and Have Fun Doing It

Most importantly, whether you like it or not, you will spend more time at work with your co-workers than anywhere else. Take time to find out what your interests are, both in and outside of work, and hone in on those opportunities. Find a workplace that’s ideal for you. If you enjoy what you do and take time to care for the people around you, going to work every day will be fun and enjoyable. Thankfully, my team at Ketner Group has made it easy to adjust and has given me opportunities to learn and grow both professionally and personally as I’ve made my transition with a fun, taco-loving team!

So, congratulations to all the new graduates out there and remember to take a moment to breathe and enjoy this new chapter of life. Oh, and bonus advice – start saving for retirement early. I hear your 70-year-old self will thank you later!

“In my 30s this kind of travel was nearly impossible. You are quite lucky to be able to stay connected no matter where you go. This is why I had to wait until retirement to travel,” an elderly British man said to me as we sat on the top deck of a fast boat on the way from Bali to Gili Trawangan.

This past month, with Ketner Group’s blessing, I was able to cross off one of the top items on my life bucket list and travel to Bali, Indonesia, for an entire month. I’ve gotten to explore the beautiful beaches and scenery, unique culture, great food and, most of all, see how the other half of the world lives – literally. And yes, while it was a lot of PLAY, there was definitely some work still involved in my travels, as I promised my KG family that I’d work throughout to ensure we did not skip a beat with our clients.

As the man on the boat reminded me, this past month I’ve felt extremely lucky to be living in an age where my work can be part of my carry-on luggage no matter where I go – as long as there is a strong WiFi connection. And, while I won’t bore with you my many pictures of radiant white sand and crystal clear blue waters on this blog (follow me on the Strings app for more on that!), I can offer some insight and best practices on what I learned from being a digital nomad this past month.

Digital Nomad Rule #1

Plan for it. For this rule, I don’t necessarily mean you have to find the right time to travel and work in order to succeed as a digital nomad – sometimes you have to put “timing” aside and just go for it and see how it turns out!

What I mean is, before you set out on your digital nomad journey, take the time to review your workload, and consider the time difference between where you will be and where the rest of your team and/or clients are. From there, set a schedule that outlines the times you will be online, how you will communicate with your team, and what your projects and assignments will be while you are away. Team work makes the dream work, especially in a fully digital world, so to keep everyone at ease, be sure to communicate with your team and stick to your plan while working remotely. Whether you are 13 hours ahead or just one hour behind, a plan matters.

Digital Nomad Rule #2

Find a digital home. As I mentioned earlier, a strong WiFi connection is a must! As I traveled throughout this past month, I was pleasantly surprised and very underwhelmed by the WiFi offered at my different stays. However, no matter where I went throughout Bali, finding a digital café or even a digital workspace that catered specifically to digital nomads was extremely easy. In fact, during my five-day stay in Canggu Beach, I posted up at a members-only workspace called The Dojo, that offered some of the speediest WiFi on the island 24/7, as well as conference call rooms, food, free coffee and water, and a pool in case you needed to take a break to dip in and relax from your workday. So, no matter where you go, make sure you find a digital home for the day to get your work done, and maybe take a swim while you’re at it!

Digital Nomad Rule #3

Find inspiration from your digital community. As I sat in The Dojo, I couldn’t help but overhear the different conversations people around me were having. I met a variety of people, from editorial and marketing directors, to business entrepreneurs and customer service agents. This communal workspace offered the opportunity to not only come face-to-face with all walks of life, but to also easily ask a question if I was interested in learning about a new topic. The Dojo offered additional networking hours where you could come together as a digital community and talk about everything from productivity hacks to brewing the perfect cup of coffee. This space not only offered several opportunities for inspiration, but also a sense of “home” and belonging in a digital world.

Last but not least, remember the key ingredient: “you are lucky” to be able to do this in today’s day and age, so take advantage of it. Call me a typical millennial but the phrase “you only live once” is quite ingrained in my brain. As they constantly say here in Bali, “you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” Thanks to today’s technology, the four walls of the office cubicle can now be broken down and substituted for ocean waves crashing in the background.

As a remote employee, I’ve found a lot of ways to keep myself on a regular schedule, focused on the task at hand, and well-socialized. I even wrote a blog about working remotely earlier this year that helps showcase the ins and outs of shifting from home office to coffee shop and back again. Working remotely is as good as it seems, but there’s always room for improvement.

The Tara Building

To help make this good thing better, the Ketner Group executive team has arranged a coworking membership for me at one of Dublin’s more recognizable and funky places of work, The Tara Building. Located right in the heart of the city, a stone’s throw from Trinity College and across the road from the Irish Times headquarters, it’s a great environment to settle in for a few hours and get some serious work done.

The open floor plan and floating desk environment make it a casual space to work, and it’s easy to catch the productive vibes from pros in other industries. Chats in the kitchen range from technical design concepts to Irish politics to the next great vacation spot or new restaurant to try. Weekly workshops on everything from leadership to Chinese Art make it impossible to feel like there’s a lack of innovation or culture in town. All of it combines to keep the creative juices flowing, and there’s also the opportunity to network just a walk downstairs away.

New Opportunities

Working remotely allows for an unrivaled sense of control over schedule, location and wardrobe. It means if it rains, hard, I’m not going anywhere and that’s just fine. But it also means that I have a unique opportunity to work alongside professionals from across the world, from a wide number of industries on a day-to-day basis and expand my perspective into how the world really turns.

I’m very much looking forward to getting more comfortable and meeting new people through the networking events and free workshops. Plus, the promise of free coffee from one of the most innovative and socially responsible suppliers I’ve encountered, Moyee, has me buzzing with excitement

Hi everyone! My name is Amanda Reed and I’m thrilled to join the Ketner Group team as a Senior Account Executive. I am looking forward to getting up-to-speed and contributing to the success of our clients, but first, here’s a bit about me.

The saying goes, “I wasn’t born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could,” and that’s certainly true for me. I’ve called Austin home for more than 20 years and I love this city so much, but I spent the first six years of my life in Anchorage, Alaska. My elementary years once I moved to Austin included a lot of curious kids asking, “Were you born in an igloo?” and ever since, my Alaskan beginning has been my go-to fun fact.

I attended Baylor University where I got a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism with a concentration in marketing, and I honed my skills through internships at Texas Monthly, The Dwyer Group, American Football Coaches Association, and WACOAN magazine. Additionally, I studied abroad one semester in the Netherlands, attending classes at Maastricht University and traveling to 14 countries, which included one month backpacking through Spain, Italy and Greece. That experience gave me an appreciation for other cultures, a love of travel, and a level of courage and independence I hadn’t known previously.

After graduating, I moved back home to Austin to take a job on the marketing team at Bury+Partners, an engineering company later acquired by Stantec. The ultimate highlight for me there was contributing to the corporate rebrand — shifting from Bury+Partners to simply Bury — which included an epic launch party with a choreographed flash mob, in addition to the associated PR roll-out. After Bury, I joined Austin startup and fintech provider Kasasa to support their communications, PR and social media strategies. Kasasa’s mission is to empower community banks and credit unions with the right technology and marketing so that they can compete against the megabanks. It was a really fun mission to rally behind!

A few other facts about yours truly:  

• When I’m not working, you’ll find me spending time with my husband, our daughter, and our beloved pup, Bruiser, who came to us through Austin Boxer Rescue.
• We love trying new restaurants, and there is no shortage of those in Austin.
• As loyal Baylor fans, we have season tickets for football, so many weekends in the Fall are spent in Waco with our closest friends from college, cheering on the Bears.
• I regularly get comments about my penmanship, and I have made a little side gig out of hand-lettering projects for people to adorn the walls of their home… or to have tattooed on their body. No, really!
• Another hobby for me is photography, which I get to do on the side with family photos, engagements or newborn sessions.
• I’m a book nerd, and I even thought as a kid that I wanted to be a librarian when I grew up.
• I carry a bound, paper planner with me at all times to stay organized, and have a preferred pen of choice — a black Pilot 0.5 G-2.

I knew Ketner was a special group because I’d previously served on the board of PRSA with both Catherine and Adrienne, but getting to know the team through the interview process has gotten me more excited about this being my new work home.

Last August, I penned a blog about my recent move to Ireland and my excitement both personally and professionally, and for Ketner Group as we continue to expand our international client base. I’ve been incredibly lucky to find myself in this situation. It’s been a life-changing move that has lived up to every expectation.

For me, the hardest part of starting to work remotely from another country wasn’t deciding where to go – Irish citizenship made that easy (thanks, Dad). It wasn’t convincing my boss to let me do it – the leadership team at Ketner Group were my biggest supporters. Rather, the hardest part was learning how to keep up the same level of productivity that being in the office every day encouraged.

There’s a lot of advice out there about how to work remotely or how to quit your job and travel the world. But for those lucky enough – and I mean lucky enough, because maintaining a full-time salaried income while living remotely is a blessing – to work abroad for companies based in their home countries, there are ten things I think you should know before you get started.

1. Be indispensable

This is somewhat of a guiding principle that makes the whole thing work, and it starts well before any exploration of remote work can start. If you want your boss to give you the green light to pack up and move across the world, they need to know that you’re dedicated to helping the company, your clients and your colleagues succeed. Yes, this move is about your personal journey, but it’s made possible by those at home. Put in great work, be trustworthy and reliable, and never lose sight of the work part of work abroad.

2. Full-time can’t mean all the time

However, once it’s in your head that you need to keep kicking ass to make this arrangement work, it can be easy to take it too far. Greg Caplan, one of the founders of Remote Year, says “remote workers actually work more hours. The time they’re working is focused, because they have the flexibility to do whatever, whenever.”

That’s the blessing and the curse of remote work. No one walks into your office to distract you but there is also no ‘closing time’ where everyone goes home. Those emails keep coming, and you just absolutely have to learn to close your laptop and move on with your life at the end of the day.

3. Time zones are your frenemy

For anyone moving east or west to live abroad, time zones can be a massive adjustment. In Ireland, I have until 3 p.m. before the rest of my team logs on, and I rarely get an email before noon. I can’t lie. This is amazing. I get to sit down and just… work. No fire drills. No meetings. No giphy threads dropping on Slack. It’s just so easy to get work done!

It’s also just as easy to not start work. No one knows when you sign on, so why wake up when it’s still dark out? What’s 5 more minutes in bed? And at the end of the day, when I’m wrapping up the day’s tasks, way more are coming in from my American teams. An urgent client question here, a quick review of a document for a coworker there, and boom, it’s 7 o’clock. And Lord knows, dinner ain’t going to cook itself. Do we have Uber Eats in this country??

4. Create a routine or destroy it; there is no middle ground

Working remotely from another time zone gives you the flexibility to really work whenever you want, as long as the work gets done. Of course, one of the reasons office life is hard is that sometimes, you just don’t have it on a given day. At home, you can take that brain-dead, useless-to-society time and do laundry, hit the gym, take a nap, or go down wormholes trying to figure out how in the world the Flat Earth movement has gotten so popular. This is an endless wormhole, there is no good answer.

But because it’s so easy to get distracted when no one is around to get you back on track, you need to decide whether you’re a no-routine person who can snap out of it and get everything done at 11 p.m. when your brain comes around, or if you need to just suck it up and persevere on a regular schedule. I found out I need the schedule. The sooner you realize which person you are the better. Floundering in the middle is a death sentence.

5. Use Your Breaks Wisely

Part of that schedule includes breaks. No one can sit still for 8 hours and crank out press releases. But use your breaks wisely. In the office, a break can mean checking Facebook or reading sports scores. Maybe you take a walk around the block. It’s really important to disengage from work so you can refocus, but at home, these breaks can get long in a hurry.

During work hours, it’s best to put away the phone, save reading articles about the wine revolution in the NBA for lunch-time, and use breaks to maintain productivity that isn’t work related. Need a walk? Walk to the grocery store. Need to feel social? Call your parents who miss you (work is also a great excuse to hang up). Hungry? Make a snack that will fill you up enough that you don’t visit the fridge 14 more times that day. Being productive when you’re not working is a unique privilege to remote work, don’t waste it! You’ll be happy when the day is over or the weekend rolls around and those tasks are done.

6. Communicate thoroughly; not constantly

It can seem critical to over-communicate when working from the other side of the planet. Shoot, we preach that habit when we sit five feet away from each other! But that doesn’t mean constant chatter and emails is the answer. In fact, that’s a terrible way to communicate, and worse when you’re not in the room to explain context that gets lost in the written word.

It’s much more effective to schedule regular meetings with your internal teams to discuss everything live. Develop an agenda to guide the conversation and use this time to talk about all recent problems, identify upcoming deadlines, set goals, distribute responsibilities and brainstorm new ideas. Doing this all at once limits confusion, makes sure everyone is on the same page, and gives your teams the confidence that everything is running smoothly even though you’re not glued to your email after work hours in your time zone.

7. Pimp out your workspace

Having a dedicated, great workspace is key. Used to having a second screen to work from? Buy one. It’s worth the money. So is a good chair. And a desk. And a lamp. Put stuff on the walls and keep things organized. Your workspace needs to be somewhere that you just work. That’s it. Not the kitchen table, not the couch, definitely not the bed. Freedom to work from wherever you want is a great part of working remotely, but good scenery is a huge boost to productivity.

8. Shower, get dressed and eat breakfast immediately

Being viewed as a valuable member of society requires a few simple things. Part of that is having a job, looking like you have a job, and starting the day like someone with a job starts the day. If you don’t start the day right, it’s really hard to get started later. Laziness sets in fast; beat it to the punch.

9. Go outside

Leaving your apartment is the best thing for you. It might not seem like it when it’s raining sideways or freezing cold but the beauty of working from home is that you don’t ever have to in those conditions. But most days, at least for a little while, changing scenery and working from a coffee shop or library can really stimulate your brain. It’s also a really good way to see a new city and explore new neighborhoods. And if you get an unlimited mobile data plan, you can work from anywhere, from parks to pubs. A worthy investment indeed.

10. Take full advantage of being abroad

Working remotely abroad is a tremendous opportunity. Take advantage and get out of town as much as possible. Go see the small towns in your region, go hiking in mountains you’ve never heard of, visit museums and learn stories of movements or creatures you never knew existed. Get on a plane and go see cities on your bucket list and work from coffee shops in those places, exploring on weekends or at night. Why? Because now you can!