It is with much fanfare and hoopla that the V3 team welcomes Sarah Nettels, a junior at the University of Kansas (Rock Chalk) as our Summer Intern.
After going through what might have been the world’s easiest interviewing process, (which mostly entailed being tenacious and bugging me incessantly when I didn’t get back to her quickly enough), we quickly sized up the potential in this Jayhawk and nabbed her before someone else did.
What she doesn’t know is that what cinched it for her was her response to these questions: What are you good at? What do you like to do? What do you hate? What do you totally suck at? (good interview questions, I know) (don’t knock it, they’ve been working for me for 16+ years now).
Here are Sarah’s replies to my queries:
I’m good at a lot of random things. I’m a great baker (Ha!) and I absolutely love cooking for people (Swooning in anticipation of definitive proof of this claim). I love cleaning too, which I don’t really know if that’s a talent, but I’ve yet to find a better stress reliever than vacuuming a dirty room. (Holy crap, I might have died and gone to heaven on this one!)
I’m extremely interested in psychology. If I weren’t going into journalism, I was planning on going to med school to study psychiatry. I’m a good listener, and I usually give pretty good advice when people ask for it. I’m definitely a huge sports fan, and I know more about European soccer teams than most guys my age. (We love football, too) I love food and coffee (Bonus!) and sitting down with my dog with a cup of black coffee and doing a little Sudoku.
As for things I don’t like, I don’t like mean people or people that lie. (I don’t do either, but I can be a little beyatchy at times. But only when provoked). I’ve never understood the point of lying or why people do it so regularly. I don’t like chalk, chalk boards and velcro, for some reason they really weird me out. (Whatever).
Since I’m a student and have never had the liberty to be picky about my work product, I’d say that no, I’m not picky. (Excellent news here – we’re very egalitarian). Ideally, I hope to only work for products and companies that I believe in. I was a Debater, so I know how to defend something even if I don’t completely, personally believe in it. But I think that if you don’t have some sort of faith in the product you’re not going to be able to support it fully. (Oh, if I didn’t like her already, that would’ve done it – for sure).
See, you already like her, don’t you? Sarah is a Journalism and French double major at KU (classic overachiever, clearly). And she’s a self-proclaimed perfectionist (she’ll get over proclamations soon enough – once I start tearing into her schizz). She has already proven to be tenacious and sassy. Hitting the “Like” button. For sure.
So, now you can see why we hired the woman – she’s awesome. Well, that and the fact that when Katy and I heckled her about her Twitter avatar (she looked slightly naked) and she took it in good stride, well, we knew she’d be stellar. Not just anyone can stand up to the quality heckling that goes on around these parts.
So help us welcome Sarah to the team! She’s already jumped right in with both hands and you’ll see her around – on the blog and on Twitter (she’s @SarahNettels).
Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years’ experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging develoment, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly’s coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”
