Photo: Lauren Kallen/Courtesy of Career Contessa. UPDATE: This post was originally published on March 16.
By mastering viral content, listacles, and other oddities, BuzzFeed has become one of the most popular social news organizations around combining emotion and silliness into their content. With credible news added to the mix, BuzzFeed users actually want to share this content with their social networks — all 130+ million users.
And, just like BuzzFeed isn't your average news organization, its corporate event planning gig is far from your average 9-5. Keeping a silly theme is a key component to BuzzFeed events. However, what looks like care-free preparation is actually months of planning between Buzz teams and event sponsors. From creating the invite to bringing in cool interactive aspects, Kate Driscoll manages to bring all the endless details together to create an amazing event. Read on to get a glimpse into a day in Kate’s job as Director of Events and see if a career in corporate events is for you.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
7:30 a.m.: Wake up...and struggle to get out of bed because I'm not a morning person.
9:30 a.m.: Grab coffee and get to the office and immediately jump into new emails and my ongoing to-do list.
11:00 a.m.: Have a status meeting with the full marketing and design teams to ensure visibility into all live projects and deliverables.
12:30 p.m.: Eat lunch/catch up on all the awesome BuzzFeed posts I've been hearing about all morning while I was busy answering emails.
1:00 p.m.: Join the sales team's all-hands meeting to gain insight on potential event partners.
2:00 p.m.: Build sponsorable event collateral for our sales teams, and work alongside our sales planning and big ideas teams on custom integrations for clients' Request for Proposals.
3:00 p.m.: Meet with the PR team to discuss any upcoming editorial driven events and potential BuzzFeed Brews guests.
4:30 p.m.: Review upcoming event venue and vendor contracts, and brainstorm with my team on custom event elements.
7:00 p.m.: Finish my to-do list for the day, leave work, and head back to Brooklyn. 50% chance I go for drinks and dinner with friends and 50% I unwind while watching TV on the couch.
To read Kate’s full career story head over to Career Contessa.