Building Relationships at Ellipsis Digital
/By Veerta Singh, WorkStory Ambassador at Western University
Brett McKenzie is the Relationship Manager at Ellipsis Digital, located in London, Ontario. This job title encompasses various aspects such as sales, post-project support, technical support but mainly client relations and project management.
Ellipsis Digital is a growing agency and is constantly trying to figure out in which direction to grow. When asked what about working at Ellipsis Digital inspires Brett he said “The people. This is a really great team and they’re all very interesting and smart people. We work on projects that excite us and interest us as well. Our clients are interesting as well. People in the mental health or addictions field, people in the arts, people in the non-profit sector. and so on. But it’s the people we work with and our clients that excite us. They all care about this community and each other, they care about the families. They care and that’s really inspiring to be around.”
Brett didn’t even realize this job existed previously and he doesn’t expect to be doing it forever either. “That’s not the way things are anymore.” He earned his Honors degree in English from Huron College in 1999 as well as his Bachelor of Education after that. He was originally planning on being an English and Social Studies teacher. “I taught for about five years, but there are a lot more teachers than there are jobs right now. So after struggling with it for a long time, I gave up on it for a while and started working in the non-profit sector. I was doing campaign, office and project management in that I was planning events, although I didn’t think of myself as a project manager at the time. I worked for the Liver Foundation and after he moved to the Arts Project, which is a small art gallery and theatre downtown. I loved that job, I was working with writers, poets, actors, directors and other people who were passionate about the arts. But the money wasn’t there and I had a family at the time so it was time to move on.”
When Brett was in the non-profit sector, he spent a long time looking for jobs and new work. After 3 years at the Arts Project he found a job he worked as a letter carrier. “With a job like that though, once you learn the route, the job never gets any easier or harder, it only gets more tedious.” But after a few years, Brett found an opening at Ellipsis Digital and he knew it was an interesting job.
Brett has been working at Ellipsis Digital for over a year and a half now and a common day at Ellipsis Digital begins bright and early for him. “I’m usually one of the first ones here. They tend to start a little late, we’re pretty flexible. We have a meeting at 9:30 a.m. and then I go through my inbox and deal with client requests. I make sure everyone has everything they need, and talking to clients to make sure we have approval on prototypes and decisions.”
During his downtime, Brett reads a lot and consumes a lot of pop culture (movies, Netflix). He also enjoys working out, running and doing karate. He’s constantly checking social media and reading. “When I look at Facebook it’s because people share articles. I pay attention to economics, psychology and other sociology aspects”.
Staying engaged and paying attention are two things Brett considers important to be successful in your field of work. “We build websites and applications, but for us those are tools to help people engage with other people. If we build a website for a theatre, it’s to encourage ticket sales. But we want to encourage ticket sales because we want people to experience live theatre and stay engaged. We deal with pixels all day, but we’re moving those pixels around to help people find people.”
When asked about advice for entering the workforce, Brett says “keep your eyes open. It used to be work hard, study hard. I’ve come to believe people aren’t lazy, they’re just disengaged. I say this as a teacher, when I had a student who didn’t show up to class it wasn’t because they were lazy it was because they weren’t interested in school. School isn’t always for everybody. When you’re passionate about what you do, you become interested. Know there is a lot more out there that engages you and appreciate as much as you can. Try new things, work hard and have a good time. Prioritize but don’t discard something. Also, listen to other advice, but evaluate it. And there are some things you won’t be able to do. There are books you won’t be able to read, people you won’t be able to meet, and you just have to accept it.”
