Working for the Creative Academy

Office Experience: I had a wonderful time working for Fellows with Katsuta Ryoko as my supervisor in the Creative Academy division. It was a bit different from my previous experience working for an American company as in Japan, everyone works in a shared office space - CEO included! Every morning and evening everyone yells out "Good Morning!" or "Great work today!" and any time someone leaves the office or comes back they would announce themselves as well. I had studied about this but it was actually fun getting to practice!

Because I worked for a traditional Japanese company, I wore business casual work clothes to Japanese standards for women (this is a little more conservative than what business casual means for women in American business culture). I worked from 10am to 7pm but in reality I would arrive at 9:30am, wouldn't start my end of work day forum notice until 7pm, and would leave around 7:30pm while many others in the office would stay to work until 9pm or later. I had an hour lunch break everyday and would often visit the local Saizeriya or bring a bento to my desk.

My coworkers were very friendly and considerate towards me; however, they did not speak to me every often as they could not speak any English (only my supervisor can fluently). I did speak/read/write Japanese while working there and it was okay that it wasn't Keigo (formal Japanese). I was actually surprised to find that they don't speak Keigo within the office! Despite this, with my limited skills at the time, this often meant they didn't have time for a slow conversation (the office workers are always busy) or my supervisor would translate for me as a way of speeding up the conversation or conveying what I meant appropriately. This was a bit of a struggle for me but I continued to try to improve my speech. 

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Work I did: Often I conducted research on creator communities online from social media platforms to website hosting and more as the company was about to launch their newest project: Creator's Complex. They wanted to gain more insight on what could be useful to them as well as look at possible options for formatting their own creator communities in the future. As well, I came up with a social media marketing plan dissecting different social media platforms, which would be more useful to the company, and how to utilize trends to further promote the companies projects to creator's online. Lastly, I wrote scripts and concepts for interconnected videos/advertisements to help promote the companies Creative Academy, Creator's Complex, and more. I would say the most unique thing I got to take part in was the Tokyo Content Expo! I got to be apart of the Fellows exhibit booth and help promote the company and speak to many job seekers about the benefits and programs Fellows offers. It was a great experience getting to be apart of something bigger and feel like I was actually a part of the company. I was even able to reach out and speak to international job seekers who were previously in movie production!

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*Photos were taken at Tokyo Content Expo