"Observing" Publication Board Meetings

This week I attended my first Publication Board Meeting at Berrett-Koehler.

PBMs are where the editorial team pitch potential publications to other departments (marketing, publicity, production etc), encouraging feedback/discussion from the group before then inviting everyone in the company to vote on whether the project should go ahead or not.   

I was observing the discussion and noting down questions to ask my mentor afterwards: some publishing related (such as, what’s a best seller marketing campaign?), and some just American-related (why do the chocolate biscuits being passed around have peanut butter inside?)

Anyway, I was enjoying listening into the meeting until my mentor, during the break, shouted across the room (Twiglets in hand, of course) ‘Holly you need to get involved’.

Ummmm................but I’m just an intern?

I told him I’d been making notes and observing how the meeting was structured, but apparently he didn’t care.

I had thought the role of an intern at a big company meeting was to sit there and learn, i.e. to be seen and not heard. Apparently this is not the case for BK interns, who are not only encouraged but expected to participate in the meetings.

This was interesting as I had actually held myself back from voicing my opinion on a title choice earlier in the meeting, for fear my participation would be a bit odd. This was especially so as I was sat next to Steve Piersanti, President of BK, when I myself had currently not even completed two full days in the office yet.   

Having had this cleared up, however, I did tentatively make one comment in the second half of the meeting, which is something I’ll just have to get used to doing more frequently from now on.

As an intern I have found it is sometimes almost too easy to sit back, take the easy route and not get too involved with any of the company’s proceedings. This means you have a relaxed placement, but also that you don’t necessarily gain as much from the opportunity as you could perhaps if you were pushed to get more involved.  

It is therefore quite refreshing to find that at BK the hands-off approach does not really appear to be an option.