During my time at Annex, I have helped conduct plenty of interviews, mostly for open sales and editorial positions on our various media brands.
One of the more common questions asked by prospective Annex employees is: What makes Annex a special place to work? When I look back at the amount of times I have been asked this question, there is only one answer I can remember offering up: The People
I hope this doesn’t sound too business school (which I never went to), but it is The People at Annex that keep the lights on year after year. It is The People who develop ideas, execute ideas, and then examine these ideas to make them better the next time around. It is The People, who take the time to get to know each other, that makes Annex tick.
For me and many of my colleagues, it is The People who come together with a willingness to work togetherthat makes Annex a special place to work.
Some recent examples of this include our Career Expo West, an event that is combining our Careers in Aviation and Emergency Services Career Expo into one show in Calgary on October 24. There is also the Canadian Wildfire Conference in Kelowna on October 26. This one began the year as our annual Aerial Firefighting Conference, but given what has happened in Canada over the past few months with wildfires raging in various parts of the country, our aviation and fire brand teams teamed up to collaborate on an event that would benefit both audiences.
What makes these two events so special is that both represent the feeling that anything and everything is possible when people come together with an open mind in a safe space – a space that allows for open discussion, conflict resolution, and creative and effective problem-solving.
For these two events to work, our events team has jumped through hoops getting event space rearranged, planning thank-you dinners for our wildfire fighting heroes, and reworking floor plans to accommodate our clients. At the same time, our editorial and sales teams, respectively, have joined forces to plan wicked conference agendas and successfully sell two non-budgeted events with revenue and contribution numbers we can all be proud of. But there are also other examples of agility and working together across Annex, including, Stephen Kranabetter stepping in to help cover CPECN over the past few months, and Barb Vowles reworking CPECN promo materials to accommodate changes in its event schedule.
Back in the 1980s, I used to watch a TV show called The A-Team. Mr T. was the most memorable actor in that series, but for me the most memorable part of the show was Hannibal, The A-Team’s leader, who at the end of every show would say, “I love it when a plan comes together.”
Well, in the end, it takes good people to ensure plans come together, and Annex is definitely not short of good people.