Behind the scenes: the Green Alley Award working experience
How working @ Green Alley Award made me think circular
Guest blog by Verena Schmidt-Brand
When I started working for the Green Alley Award in September 2017 as a student employee, the 4th award was right around the corner and the event planning for the pitch finals in Berlin in full swing. My first tasks included helping with the composition and translation of press releases as well as writing texts for our website. Meanwhile the selection committee of the Green Alley Award selected the six finalists among over 200 promising startups which had applied since April. As soon as the six finalists were announced we prepared interviews for each startup to learn more about their business idea, their background and ambitions. These interviews were later published in online magazines. This was when I started to research on and understand in depth what exactly the selected startups were doing and to what extent they were connected to the circular economy model. It was inspiring to get in touch with people working devotedly on their ideas and more than once I was impressed to see how far they’ve come in a very short time!
All things circular
I learned about the diverse options helping to transform our economic principles into a circular system. In a circular economy, resources should be valued as precious objects at all stages of their life cycle rather than letting them end up as waste after serving one single purpose. Reading and writing about the idea of a circular economy raised my personal awareness about topics such as waste management and waste prevention to that extent that I decided to write my master thesis in this field.
The following weeks were all about designing flyers, event programmes, creating press kits and organizing the last details to make sure things run smoothly at the venue, where the award ceremony would take place. I was happy to be involved in both event management as well as marketing and public relations tasks.
As soon as the event was over our PR manager came back from maternity leave and we plunged with full force into a corporate design relaunch of the Green Alley Award, which included setting up a new website with an external web designer. It was a rewarding experience to participate in all the decisions and tasks around the relaunch and get familiar with possible challenges of working with different external service providers.
First steps
So what does that mean for you as an individual? First of all take a quiet moment and reflect on the things that are truly important to you. What is the driving force behind your actions? What do you think is worthy to work for? Don’t overdo it, but settle on 1-3 things. Secondly break down one big goal into many small ones. That will give you the opportunity to practice your stamina and it is much easier to achieve a goal such as “write a business plan” than “become a successful startup”. It is also much more specific and leaves no room for interpretation.
It is equally important to celebrate your successes; however small they are. When you find yourself confronted with a new challenge, those past successes will give you confidence. Always remind yourself that success takes time and failure is part of the game. Even if today is not the first of a new year or a new month: Just START. By the way, one step towards successful entrepreneurship might be applying for the Green Alley Award. So keep an eye out for the start of our application period in march.