They say you can never go home again, but clearly the mysterious ‘they’ haven’t ever worked for Bite. Born and raised in New York, I moved to Australia about six months ago and while I knew it was inevitable that I’d have to part ways with a several key aspects of my American living (the Gap, iced coffee and Mexican food, to name a few) I will never give up Thanksgiving. You have to draw the line somewhere, right? So I had a crazy idea one day back in August…what if I could head home for the holiday and still be at the office? You know, test the boundaries of Bite’s global network a bit.
So I got the green light and headed off to meet our Big Apple Biters for a week of comparing public relations in the two countries and getting to know colleagues in the opposite hemisphere. Some key differences:
- Audience size: talking to US population of 300 million vs. Australia’s 22 million
- Media population: The US media landscape is much broader, and therefore offers more pitch options
- Client relations: Typically US teams report to US based clients. In Australia, we have clients and colleagues spread all across the Asia Pacific, which enables a wide array of perspectives and experience to come to the table
Ultimately, the experience was an exercise in timezone juggling. While I was physically in the New York office, my team was back in Sydney, 16 hours ahead. Amazing how easy it is these days to maintain a presence around the world. As long as you’re willing to do a few conference calls at 1am and Skype with your team during dinner, anything is possible in today’s connected workplace.
While accounts are different — and though the NY office has a full size ping pong table (ahem, ahem) — one thing is irrefutably true: Biters all around the globe love Tim Tams!
