Test Drive My Job: Peter Corbett
Categories: Business, Entrepreneurs Under 40, Marketing and PR, Test Drive My Job, social media
Welcome to the first Test Drive My Job-a column that will profile marketing, pr, advertising and social media professionals at various stages of their careers.
I recently caught up with Peter Corbett aka “Mr. Social Media DC,” whom I met at the One party a few weeks ago. Here’s the interview:
Name: Peter Corbett
Age: 28
City: Washington, DC
Company: iStrategyLabs
Web site: www.istrategylabs.com
Twitter: @corbett3000
Company Size: 2 employees + 20 something contractors
Job Title: CEO
Time @ Job: 17 months
What are your typical work hours? 7am - 2am (yes…i average about 19 hours a day)
What’s your typical workday like? I move client’s business forward with smart marketing programs that deliver results. Tactically speaking that means I spend a lot of time thinking about their brands and customers and then provide creative ways to deliver value to that audience. Once ideas are on paper, I usually get involved in executing digital builds or physical programs of some kind.
Where and how do you work? I work everywhere. I have an awesome LAB in Dupont Circle and a home office. I travel a lot so I do a lot of work in hotels, coffee shops, book stores. I love this way of working - I’m a digital nomad!
What type of clients do you take on and what do you do for them? We work mostly with consumer brands but also work with some non-profits and the government. We provide interactive strategy, experiential marketing and content creation services. Here’s our capabilities deck. We recently did this project. And this project and this one, too.
How many co-workers/employees do you have? How do you best collaborate with your team? I have 1 employee, my COO. We have 20+ contracts that work with us both in person and virtually. We use wikis, blogs, twitter, facebook, Basecamp, conference calls and all manner of collaboration tools to do our work.
What are your favorite things about working at iStrategyLabs? The most exciting thing is that iStrategyLabs is not definable and ever changing. We’re morphing with the market as we go and are batting a thousand with regard to delivering results for clients. Providing marketing services for clients is what we’re known for, but increasingly we’re an incubator/community developer/innovation company. It will be an exciting year in 2009!
What do you wish was different about your job? I wish I didn’t have to think about internal operations at all - my COO came on board 3 months ago and soon that part of the puzzle will be completely off my plate.
Do you see yourself in this job in 5 years? If not, where do you see yourself? Yes. This is a company I plan to run and keep for the rest of my life. There is no exit strategy. Being an entrepreneur is the most rewarding and challenging path in the world. If you plan to start you own thing remember this - it’s all or nothing. You’ll either be success or you’ll crash and burn. Be prepared for both!
