One thing that was clear from the start was that Ballou PR has always been an international agency with a global network across borders and time zones alike. Founded by an American woman in France in 2002, it quickly became an agency with lots of different nationalities and colour shades, ideas and opinions. Today Ballou PR is represented with three offices in the most buzzing tech hubs of Europe. All of the offices maintain a good trialogue, exchanging objectives and planning communication matters ahead for their clients. One aspect to keep the connection between the bureaus lively is our internal exchange program.
As members of the Ballou PR staff, we are able to visit the different offices from time to time and pay the dear colleagues from abroad a visit while working for our own clients. For example, I already flew down to see the London office in September and was visited the French colleagues in Paris’ beautiful 9th Arrondisement last October. That way we can work and discuss client matters right on the spot, while travelling. At the same time we get to know one another and the culture of the respective country and find out about what moves the people in the different offices.
As tech environment is our daily business, we are always equipped with our laptops and therefore it is no problem to stay in touch with our home base and work while being in a different location, country or even time zone. And if worse comes to worse we can rely on our local co-workers as they are always happy to lend their helping hands and offer support.
Our different offices make a great effort to welcome each team in the best way possible and make one’s stay unforgettable. I personally will always remember the nice British pub that we visited after work in London for a pint or two, or the beautiful French restaurants that offered the most delicious food until late into the night. Only challenge is not to gain too much weight throughout the short visit!
Last but certainly not least, we all celebrate Christmas together and meet in a different country every year. This year Portugal is on our bucket list, and we are very excited to spend time together in Lisbon to celebrate the festive season.
It is always nice to welcome colleagues from other offices and hear their story.
We do enjoy a great culture of respect and curiosity, share some good laughs and do a great job together, no matter where we are. As a result of this in 2017 we plan to invest even more in exchange: By launching our educational program we will not only send our teams to our different office locations, but will also make sure that they will receive professional coaching by industry experts while enjoying their time abroad.
