Hometown
Branford, CT
What is your job at CampusLIVE?
I plan out and create Challenges along with a team of content creators. It's my job to make sure that we have amazing content on our site daily that our users absolutely love, which makes my job the best in the world in my opinion: I get to surprise and delight people every single day with the content my team and I create!
What brought you to CampusLIVE?
I'm a digital media junkie who made the leap from big company life at Google to the startup world. I'm looking to help grow a business from the ground floor up to the top. My colleagues here work and play with such a passion for everything they do, and their vision and mission is so strong and united, that I was blown away when I interviewed and was thrilled to come to the company.
Do you have any favorite stories from your work life?
CampusLIVE has a birthday tradition involving candy for each employee. Without giving too much away, let's just say this birthday tradition kept evolving until my first birthday here, back in December 2011. I wound up with enough candy over me to feed the entire race of Oompa Loompas. But it was the way in which the candy was given to me that was so ridiculous. Let's just say, birthdays here are awesome, but you'll need to apply and work here to learn more. ;)
What does the typical day look like for you?
I'll start my day by checking our live Challenges and the Prize Booth to see how our users have been interacting with them. After making sure everything looks good and is performing well, I'll check in with our content creation associates. After cannonballing a coffee or four, I'll spend the first half of the day building Challenges. I come up with concepts based on things I love, things I know our users love, topics everyone is talking about and more. Then I'll write all the copy, build the steps, and try to give a sarcastic, fun, informative voice to everything and tie it all together as a complete narrative of a Challenge. Once that's done, it gets sent to our designers who make the story come to life and really pop! Then, after dominating a few peers on the ping pong table and checking in with others building Challenges, I'll plan out new exciting steps and concepts and secret things so awesome that I can't mention them here.
Why do you come to work in the morning?
The idea that I get to create content for a living and help analyze that content to make it better and better for others is just silly. It's unfair. I get to create and help others create, and point to both our site and our users' reactions and say, "I built that," or, "My team built that." It's incredibly rewarding. (That, and we have a team of comedians at work so it's pretty easy to feel like you're just hanging out with your friends, throwing around ideas.)
What lessons has your work life taught you?
Honestly, to just stick to your DNA. There are tons of other lessons that I've learned about hard work, communication and finding solutions to problems, but above all, you have to know yourself and stick to who you are. Today, with all this online and social media technology, there's no reason to do something you don't love. It might not be easy or obvious or certain, but stick to who you are and pursue a career that matches, and you'll enjoy what you do for a living because it's what you love.
What is the best part of working at CampusLIVE?
I'll say two things. First, the ability to contribute to a company daily, where you visibly see the difference you're making. Being young and having that opportunity is unbelievable. Second and just as important, people at CampusLIVE are just real. What I mean by that is, everyone is relatable, straight with you, and the support here is unparalleled. Whether you're being welcomed to the team, sending out a team update or in need of help, people jump to your side professionally and personally. It's a great environment.
What's the coolest thing you've accomplished thus far working at CampusLIVE?
Just seeing our user participation grow like crazy - both in sheer volume and in terms of their increasingly positive reactions to what we launch to the site - and knowing that I'm behind that, creating content people actually enjoy, giving them a little fun or humor or new learning to their days. Watching people grow to love our site more and more and being the person responsible for much of the content, especially early on, is beyond cool for me.