Or: My internship in Marketing and Design

When you enter talent garden, take the lift up to the fifth floor and get out, the first thing you’ll notice is a certain buzz, a feeling of excitement and change happening. Although I started my internship in July and there was thus only a handful of people in the office, I instantly felt what I tried to describe in the previous sentence and would now call “the start-up vibe”. 

But first things first. Having just graduated from school and completed my first year at university in what feels like no time at all, I was lucky enough to be accepted for an internship at viesure even though Corona was still perturbating every company’s way of working.  So there I sat on my first day, trying to get familiar with my new MacBook and tools like slack and confluence, … and thinking about this quote by Albert Einstein on the wall in front of me. „Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” I guess this quote describes what they mean by “doing it the viesure way”.

From my first day on, I could tell the difference between viesure and the companies I have worked for before. Flat hierarchies, coffee-calls, jokes and feedback stand-ups make all the difference (to the home-office experience). For me as an intern, these things meant foremostly that I was able to really get my hands on although I don’t yet have an incredible amount of experience. This in turn taught me a great bunch of things. Of course, it often also required crawling out of my comfort zone (lunch calls with people I barely know weren’t in there before) and taking the risk to fail, but it was definitely worth it. 

By now, you might be asking yourself what I actually worked on; I was an intern in marketing and design. This department usually only consists of four people but is essential for the functioning of all the operations within and outside of viesure. My tasks varied from defining a marketing strategy to promoting an upcoming project, re-writing texts for the website, creating posts for twitter and LinkedIn to making employee surveys and organising deliveries. 

I currently do my bachelor’s degree at the Vienna University for Business and Economics and marketing was a field that I wanted to have a closer look at to judge if it might be something I want to do later in life. I was hence very grateful to get the opportunity to do so at viesure. Obviously, in the past two months I didn’t go through the usual internship experience as everyone was mostly working from home. 

Working remotely is very well organised at viesure; thanks to various communication channels, like slack, and coffee calls, it is easy to stay motivated and actually even see the advantages of not having to physically go to work (like being able to sleep longer). However, especially in the beginning, it was rather hard for me to tackle my tasks and really “do things the viesure way”. Nevertheless, I got used to the different systems and ways of working quickly and ultimately really enjoyed the whole experience. 

One of the big takeaways for me is the way communication works at viesure. Everyone’s allowed to state their opinions at all times and once a day you receive an email that asks you about your mood; you can then anonymously see how everyone’s day is going. Additionally, there are fixed “stand ups” where you simply update your colleagues on the work you’re doing and the progress you’re making. It is very efficient, intuitive and inclusive. Everyone made me feel like a proper team member and I felt my feedback was taken seriously and valued.

Another skill I acquired is trying to do things differently. You might think it’s simple. Well, let me break it to you: it’s everything BUT simple! Remember that quote from Einstein? Logic is useful and necessary, but it’s creativity and imagination that will ultimately make you or your project successful, different and appreciated. And that’s where the difficult part starts. When you’ve seen 100 examples of how 100 other companies do something and they all do it in a very similar way, it’s hard to think outside the box and to come up with something even better or completely different. 

What I’ve learnt in this regard is that simply communicating and exchanging thoughts with others, constantly asking for feedback and giving yourself the time to look at tasks from a new perspective can help a lot. Furthermore (and potentially even more difficult), you have to get rid of your fear of failure. For me that mostly meant not being afraid to ask even more questions, demanding and notably also giving feedback and sharing my views when I had something to say.

And, to finish this the way I started it, I wasn’t in the office much after my first day, but I never forgot that Einstein quote and I actually have a new, basic saying I can’t get out of my head: “Use your brain, but don’t be afraid to believe in something.” Viesure taught me that things don’t always have to stay as they were, that sometimes the most unexpected ways of doing can be the best and that work is actually fun when you’re in a diverse, creative team. That’s the viesure way.