In December or January of any given year, the internet is flooded with recaps of what has happened over the last 12 months – and yes, this is another one of those recaps. However, instead of talking about the state of the industry, making predictions or sharing what I learned, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on what an awesome team I work with. I give you — a LaunchTech Appreciation Post.
Our job at LaunchTech can be described as a lot of things, but the word unique certainly comes to mind. While our PR objectives mostly remain the same, we play a one-of-a-kind role for each of our clients. This translates into some pretty one-of-a-kind company moments, and to highlight this effect further, I thought it would be fun to revisit the emails our team sent each other to the ‘all-staff’ email – and boy was 2017 a trip.
It goes without saying that there was plenty of formal work content to be found, such as details about the many conferences and events we attended in 2017, like RSA, Black Hat and SINET. It was also another big year for cybersecurity, with breaches galore and even an Executive Order on Cybersecurity from the president. I was also reminded of the new and interesting reporters we connected with, and some great media coverage and award wins we earned for our clients.
But what I really want to share are the types of emails exchanged with my team in 2017 that made me laugh, maybe cringe, and overall left me feeling excited to continue working with this team at LaunchTech in 2018.
Some of what I found was supporting evidence for what I already knew: we love to eat, and we love good food. Below are a few photos we sent each other in 2017 that I think speak most to this trait. In addition, every few weeks in 2017, I found emails with subject lines like, “Who wants lunch?!” or “Pizza for Lunch?!” or “Lunch-Tech!”. Let’s be real, these are the best emails you can get from your boss.
Aside from team lunches, another favorite email about being #blessed to work at LaunchTech arrived in my inbox early one morning from our VP, Kate, during the first big snow storm of the year: “This just in from the LaunchTech Weather Center: Team to work from home for the rest of the day. Roads are a mess.” The opportunity to stay home in my slippers on a snowy day certainly keeps me around, but it also shows the the flexibility and strength of our team to make results happen for our clients from anywhere – and that is something we are all proud to be part of!
In 2017, we were also lucky enough to experience the merciful hands of event and award organizers, who sometimes extended (albeit, at the last minute, but I’m not complaining) submission deadlines for highly sought after applications. We see you, we thank you, and we will pray for your extension emails in 2018.
On the opposite end of those merciful emails was a year filled with instances of PR professionals being totally roasted by reporters on Twitter. Every time I read a reporter bashing a PR person on Twitter, I immediately sent a screenshot of the tweet to my team as a reminder of what not to do, and then said a prayer that it’s never one of us who sets one of them off. Our goal really is to be helpful to the media, and we work very hard to remain in their good graces and avoid the pitfalls they complain about. These tweets keep us on our toes though, and remind us the importance of sticking to the fundamentals of our PR code of ethics… such as not screenshotting emails from reporters and posting them online.
Something else that was confirmed for me on my journey down email memory lane was that our team really comes together and rallies around adversity. For example, our office building was graced with a new restaurant last year that unfortunately on some days, makes the whole place stink, BAD. I bet you can guess the one place we all came together and agreed we will never order a team lunch from…
Another struggle we faced was less of a struggle, and more of a mutual source of humor in the office (whether our boss Wayne knew it or not – guess he will now!). In 2017, he sent us more emails with hilariously autocorrected typos from using his iPhone’s dictation setting than were probably sent in the entire U.S. last year. Some of them were easy enough to decipher, and most did not impact anyone’s life too dramatically. However, in one email, Wayne did accidentally spell a client’s name wrong, calling him “cheese” – you can imagine that wasn’t his real name. Luckily for Wayne, we work with some pretty awesome clients who laughed it off. But unfortunately for the client, that name stuck and his own team calls him Cheese to this day!
Finally, I leave you with one of my favorite video clips shared between the LaunchTech team (and there were a lot of them, ranging from Jim Gaffigan’s Cake sketch, to games being played by the University of Delaware field hockey team, to The Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament’s All-Hair Team). A client introduced me to this motivational clip, and while it’s on the longer side, I recommend giving it a watch!
“When something disastrous happens, just stay off the breaks!”
Working at LaunchTech in 2017 was nothing short of a good time – we certainly are not lacking for personality or character, and for that I am grateful. I look forward to sharing more great food, trips to conferences, email typos, terrifying reporter tweets, and motivational videos with this team in 2018, as well as continuing to prove that LauchTech is the PR team companies want to work with!