Graham's Blog

Edward Melvin

Our second guest speaker was Edward Melvin…well kind of. We watched a video of him doing a lecture that he did for last years Digital Media students. Edward id a project manager for a company called ICAN. ICAN is an advertising and communications agency, or as Edward simple put it the help their clients make the right decision online.

Edward talked us through some of the things that the company does. These include:

• Online Strategy
• Web Design
• Advertising campaigns Search
• Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Online PR
• Search Engine
• Optimization
• Project & Campaign Management
• Multimedia design

I was surprised at how much the one company did and this really gave me a good insight into how varied the jobs i could be working will be in the future. Edward talked about some of the previous work the company has done and I was pleasantly surprised by some of the companies they have as clients. They have done work for companies as big as SONY. They have also done some work for discover Ireland.

He told us how there focus is the at first engage people. When they have achieved this their goal is to convert them. By converting them he didn’t mean ask them to change religion but more so by the product they are advertising. BY converting them he meant something as simple as a sale, a download, a visit, an open, a click, a new member, a cross-sell, an enquiry, a click, a booking, a forwarded email. It was all dependent on what the projects objectives were.

Edward gave us a run down of the type of people who work at ICAN and talked about how varied the jobs can be.

ICAN employs:

• 1 Managing Director
• 7 Creative
• 7 Production
• 5 Client Services
• 3 Media
• 2 Search Marketing
• 1 Accounting

He talked about what I like to work for such a company and even showed us pictures of some of their employees “hard at work”. This really gave us a good insight into what it is like in such a working environment. He told us how fast paced and stressful it can be trying to meet deadline but that the end product usually makes it worth while. This is the kind of working environment I could see myself working in sometime in the future.

Edward encouraged us to do anything work related even if it means making a website for free because in the end we will benefit from the experience. I plan on putting this advise to good use during the summer and try take up some sort of project.

I really enjoyed Edwards lecture as it was my real first look at working in a media based company.