We’re currently typing this from our desks in SAGE HQ where we are loving the world of real work! We’ve been here for just over a week and we’ve done so much already, working with the design, marketing, editorial, user testing and PR teams.

 

So far we have helped the Design team to re-design the back covers of textbooks to make them more visually appealing to students, and made suggestions for the contents of a student goodie bag for students. With the PR department we evaluated SAGE’s website and their two blogs: SAGE Connections and SAGE insight which incorporate both articles and blog posts and then wrote draft blogs for them. We’ve also helped Marketing shape student profiles in order for them to have personas to target their marketing to and then presented the profiles to the Marketing team yesterday. Over the past few days we’ve also reviewed unpublished textbooks, written draft email campaigns, tested wire frame website designs and had lessons in Product Managing, not to mention exploring the perks of a staff canteen and the consumption of copious amounts of free coffee!

Working for SAGE has been excellent and we’ve both learnt a lot about publishing. We’ve been surprised at how much work goes into every aspect of a book and its selling process and have been impressed with how much effort is put into helping students. The people we’ve met have all been really keen to explain the processes of publishing and have all given us really interesting tasks.

And the commute to London hasn’t been too bad, despite London feeling the need to confirm its stereotype and being pretty wet and grey most of the time!

Although we have been doing work for SAGE for almost 2 years now, working within the team has been a totally different experience. We have found it fascinating and have both been a little tempted by the publishing career path! As well as learning about what it’s like to work for a publishing company, by doing different tasks for we have also discovered what elements of the job we’re interested in.