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Maria Irchenhauser (Thurs)

February 28, 2014 By Maria Irchenhauser

Today I sent out 10,000 emails to promote the blog. Seriously. 10,000. It’s funny to think how as an academic it sometimes took me weeks to reply to one email. I never thought much of it as many of my academic friends and professors seemed to have the same sluggish digital turnover rate (although to be fair, from my university experience in Canada, the UK and Germany, I experienced my fellow German academics to be far slower than most, and I was not an exception). Emails needed to mature before they could be replied to.

It was clear that this maturing process had to speed up as soon as I moved into a business environment and started communicating with clients. My language also needed some tweaking to sound more service-oriented. I was no longer there to lecture. Clients wanted everything they needed to know in a few brief and concise sentences and within hours, not weeks. I have to admit I’ve come to really appreciate prompt and clear email communication. I guess after all, it resonates with my German efficiency genes.

Thursday is newsletter day at DWPub. Our FeaturesExec Media Bulletin includes news from the German, Austrian and Swiss media and interviews with journalists and PR professionals, written by our team of media researchers. Researching and writing news was one of my favorite tasks when I started out in media research. I especially enjoyed conducting interviews with journalists and PRs. One of my favorite interviews I published was with Richard Lane, Founder and Managing Director of IMC International Marketing Communication, a PR firm based in Germany. As an American who has lived and worked in Germany for almost thirty years, Richard shared a lot of very interesting insights into cultural differences between American and German business approaches.

Every other Thursday I have a conference call with our PR agency in Germany. We talk about the status of ongoing projects and discuss the next steps and activities of our communication strategy which we set out at the beginning of the year. Big decisions have to be made, and sometimes the discussion can be intense, but I very much value the bi-weekly phone meetings, as they provide me with direct feedback and insights from Germany. The next conference call will be next week, and I’m curious to hear about reactions to our new blog.

Tomorrow, I will wrap up my week as a guest blogger and discuss some of the overall goals and objectives of the German team at DWPub this year. On a lighter note, I’ll also tell you a bit about Fridays in British offices.

Maria Irchenhauser (Wed)
Maria Irchenhauser (Fri)

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Maria Irchenhauser, PhD

Business Manager, DACH Region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
DWPub

PhD, German Language and Literature

Concepts of “Home“ in the Context of Globalisation: The New “Heimat” Wave in Contemporary German Film and Literature

(Heimat im Spannungsfeld Globalisierung: Studien zu zeitgenössischen Heimatfilmen und Heimattexten.)

Queen's University, 2009

Connect with Maria

Best career advice I ever received:

Perhaps not a piece of advice, but the fact that most jobs (up to 80% and more in some sectors) are never advertised. It made me realise how important it is to maintain good networks and to look out for those hidden opportunities.

Maria's "Week in the Life"

  • Maria Irchenhauser | One Year Later
  • Maria Irchenhauser (Fri)
  • Maria Irchenhauser (Thurs)
  • Maria Irchenhauser (Wed)
  • Maria Irchenhauser (Tues)
  • Maria Irchenhauser (Mon)
  • Maria Irchenhauser | DWPub

Which is more important: luck, smarts, or know-how?

From my experience, I’d say know-how – knowing how to identify opportunities, and how to use your knowledge and skills, beats smarts and luck.

If I had to do it all over again, I would…

... not change a thing. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in academia and consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to research and teach topics I am passionate about. I was able to transfer much of what I used to do as an academic to the private sector and now enjoy the opportunities of the business world.

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