B
H
0'
S
B
L
O
G
path: "/thankyou-madebrave" title: "Thankyou Madebrave" published: true date: "28-09-2017"
In this post I'll be telling you about my (work) experience at MadeBrave - sorry for the lack of spoiler alerts. And be aware that some of the information provided here may become inaccurate due to something called time.
MadeBrave is a creative brand agency - they help brands with marketing. I won't go into too much detail about them but I highly recommend you check them out - especially if you're in Scotland.
A programmer is the career path I'm currently pursuing. And after some research I discovered credible experience would be incredibly valuable so I began searching for local companies (local as in less than two hours from me) who would be keen to let me spend time at their company to gain knowledge and experience. I compiled a list of over forty companies which were to be targeted. I also asked a family member at Skills Development Scotland if they knew of any companies willing to give people an opportunity to gain experience - the same family member responded with something called MadeBrave. I immediately Googled them and was super intrigued. Madebrave were offering one week long work experience. Due to a lack of confidence in my abilities: I sent an email to MadeBrave which was essentially to determine if I'd actually have a clue as to what I'd be doing during my time at MadeBrave; which I was (thankfully) encouraged to apply for the work experience opportunity regardless of experience. So I prepared my Github account for inspection, typed somewhat of a cover letter and applied. A short time after the expected response date I received an email saying I had been accepted. Yes I celebrated.
It was eye opening as I entered their office; so clean, tidy, colourful and welcoming. There was music playing, some people working, others talking. I was greeted by a [insert any big-word compliment here] lady who introduced me to the team. Everyone was ever so polite, I perhaps wasn't as I was too busy looking at the Macs, all the items (more items than a gift shop) and emphasised wall decorations. Not that I'm bragging for them but they have a (real) kitchen, a VR gaming station, a loveable dog, but I’m not so sure about a decent taste in music - the (hip) digital teams was acceptable. Did I mention their collection of books contain information which could earn you a pretty penny?
Okay so what did I actually do at MadeBrave, I spectated some SCRUM meetings, played (sucked) at a Virtual Reality game and done some socialising. I also gained a tiny bit of useful insight into marketing using social media. I had an amazing (one sided) conversation with this [insert list of uplifting compliments here] lady. It was incredibly interesting hearing about how MadeBrave get their clients.
Oh you meant what work did I do? Well, I typed some HTML and discovered how much I suck at CSS by producing some landing pages. Seriously, I spent four hours trying to fix the web-pages styling only for one of the web developers to realise I had errors in the syntax of my HTML. which is why I'll be using a HTML validator from now on. I finally learned how to make responsive websites (using media queries). I learned a ton about CSS, and most excitingly I used SASS for the first time - a preprocessor which makes CSS enjoyable again.
If I haven't made it obvious by now, MadeBrave rocks, and is amazing - especially the (human and nonhuman) lifeforms The two web developers are super helpful - I was afraid to ask for help but you shouldn't be (unless you're stubborn like me and don't mind making mistakes so they can be learned from). Everyone is full of knowledge - both in a variety of roles and especially in their speciality role. The environment is uplifting, unless your deadline is super near it doesn’t seem like you're forced to do what youre supposed to e doing. I want to say the environment is fast paced but surprisingly it’s chilled (probably because of the jazz music), While I am aware both physical communication and being on your feet is generally a good thing, I partly wish they used communication software such as Slack or Discord as it can sometimes be difficult to concentrate amongst the chatter. They certainly like their chatter. They didn’t let me drive a Mustang but it is probably best that they didn't - just as well it wasn't a Bentley. My time there has also lead me to suspect that being around creative minds boosts creative thinking - I came up with like five possible blog post ideas amongst other ideas each day so you should definitely return to my blog, and if you do you’ll have MadeBrave to thank. I certainly have them to thank.
Before my week at MadeBrave I generally spent my time working on various projects which I’ll (hopefully) continue to do (whilst I hope MadeBrave offer me a chance to return). If you ever find yourself at MadeBrave: consider yourself (extremely) lucky and I'll be surprised if you don’t enjoy it because I loved it - a week wasn't long enough. Thankyou MadeBrave.