Camp Ketchum: Knowledge, Passion, Friendship

By on July 26, 2011

Camp Ketchum – Ketchum’s camp experience that took place last week and brought colleagues together from around the world to help us develop as leaders — was simply an amazing experience. The opportunity to meet and partner with so many different diverse team members from across the globe is extremely empowering. We all got a chance to see firsthand the passion and talent that runs deep at our agency.  

As a digital specialist, I gained a huge amount of respect for the new business process, as well as the challenges of creating a multifaceted campaign. I also gained a ton of respect for all the counselors for imparting their knowledge to us campers and for setting the overall tone. Most importantly, I learned more about client service and teamwork than ever before. There was also a lot of fun scattered in, like a mountaintop dinner, a QR code physical teamwork challenge, and some hilarious moments from campers and counselors.  

Our client challenge was much more difficult than I expected. I thought ideas would just come to us, and we’d put together a plan pretty quickly. Didn’t happen. Like a lot of teams, we struggled to find that one big idea that made sense and had legs. Ultimately, we dug deep and found it and when we did, everything came together. It took a late night and a lot of coffee, but it came together.  

On Saturday, we had an “all in” hour-long feedback session, where all 77 campers gathered, watched some video clips of all the team presentations, and got feedback. When I arrived with my Orange Team (go, Orange!) all I could think about was winning. But when I saw the video clips of all the other teams performances, I stopped thinking about winning, and all I could think about was the talent in that room, and how proud and lucky I was to be a part of such a talented group and agency. It was very inspiring.  

Camp was awesome. Thank you to everyone who made it happen. I think three words sum up Camp Ketchum for me: knowledge, passion, friendship. 

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