The road to becoming a Digital Mum: Part 3
I’m going to open this blog piece as if I’m the narrator on ‘The Apprentice’ (imagine Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo & Juliet: Montagues and Capulets’ playing in the background i.e. the music appropriated as ‘The Apprentice’ theme tune): 20 weeks, 18 candidates, the chance to become a freelance social media manager. Tasneem’s journey to becoming a Digital Mum continues…
Another late night session in front of the PC. That sounds a bit dodgy, doesn’t it? All above board, I might add, I’m just blogging, scanning TweetDeck, dipping into my client’s Facebook page. If I want to feel really professional, I take a peek at their Google Analytics and then stroke my chin thoughtfully as I mull over the number of social media referrals that have been made to their website over the last week and say ‘hmmmm, interesting’ to nobody in particular.
Betwixt the running of a social media campaign, following the course and looking after a child who insists on emptying desk drawers and strewing envelopes all over the landing, I was asked if I would like to participate in the Great Agency Bake Off on behalf of Digital Mums. Ha, serves me right for posting up photos on social media of some hot cross buns I made ages ago and making them look even better with a sexy filter…
The Great Agency Bake Off involved digital and creative agencies making fancy chocolatey cakes for charity. The team at Digital Mums made it sound really casual but I figured I’d pimp the signature brownies I planned to make with some edible gold dust. Bling it right up, know what I’m sayin’?! Got there and it was like being in the actual ‘Great British Bake Off’, the standard was so high. There was a cake there shaped like a KFC bucket with ridiculously realistic fried chicken drumsticks on top made of cake and icing which apparently, when you cut into them, even had some sort of fake bone inside. Unsurprisingly this baked good stole the show but I’d like to think my cake #bant on Twitter was the best and we’d have totally bagged a prize if that was a category in the competition (should be).
Baking aside, I’m reaching a point in the learning journey where even though I’ve only been a Digital Mum for 15 weeks, I feel like an elder within the group. Things I have learnt have stuck with me and I’m now in a unique position to help those who are just commencing the course with Digital Mums with my pearls of wisdom. OK, ‘pearls of wisdom’ is a tad strong perhaps but, at the very least, I try to provide the reassurance that feeling overwhelmed initially is totally fine and that they will get past this.
When you hear the words ‘peer support’, it’s easy to think this is some fluffy add-on that has been concocted to make the course appear holistic. Cynicism is de rigueur and I’ll put my hand up and say I wasn’t entirely sure how it would work in this context. I was wrong. While you may not often meet your Digital Mum peers in real life, it is truly surprising how supported you can feel by chatting on a Google Hangout, having conversations within a community or even just sharing a joke on Twitter. When you get the chance to glimpse a little snapshot of a Digital Mum’s life outside of the course and marvel at how they are able to juggle a myriad of priorities like child care, the school run, household chores and training for marathons (I’m not even joking here) yet still get campaign work done, you think ‘DANG!’. I will end this blog by quoting that philosopher of our times…Beyonce: ‘Strong enough to bear the children then get back to business’
