9:30 am: Walk into the office with a pile of English and Arabic papers under my arm which I pick up from the reception downstairs. You cant read enough in my job! With my free hand I grab a cup of coffee on my way upstairs. As usual I am the last one in and the office is alive with activity but everyone knows I work weekends and around the clock and am just not a morning person!
10:00 am: Feeling slightly more human. I have logged on and start moderating all the online blogs, discussions and forums. It takes me about an hour every morning to sort through new commentary and discussions and delete all unsuitable/inappropriate comments (we get many) and to moderate and enliven the discussions going on in the various industry forums and blogs.
11:00 am: I spend30 minutes responding to feedback questions that need my attention. We have a dedicated Feedback assistant but she usually sends me a good number of emails every day that need my personal attention and response. Since I am bi-lingual I can respond to both Arabic and English queries.
11:30 am: Start writing my4 industry blogs for the day. The process begins with reading the news using as references newspapers and various other industry journals and portals I frequent regularly. I have a very interesting blog to write for the Real Estate section related to some data that came out the day before, and there is widespread news of a scandal which I will blog about n the real estate section, but I am still not sure what to blog about in the other2 sections.
1:00 pm: Lunch with a friend of mine who works in the media industry – I belong to a media club that meets regularly to socialize and compare notes. I also occasionally attend press conferences as my blogs have very high readership numbers and I get the occasional invite to some related industry conferences announcing big news. Networking and reading are very important for my job as I have to always be aware of what is going on in our industry and in the industries I blog about.
2:00 am: Back to the blogs. Only one is complete! I buckle down and work hard on the others – deadline for all is3 pm.
3:00 pm: Blogs up. A press release has landed on my desk for a read-through. Marketing have assigned me the task of reading all press releases in both Arabic and English and making sure the language and positioning is consistent and correct. I also have several emails to answer which I usually don’t get to till about this time of the day.
3:30 pm: Meeting with the research department to discuss a research project we are working on. They will provide me with data and angles to spin and I will provide the final write-up.
4:30 pm: Interview questions to prepare for a famous UAE businessman to post on our site. Luckily he prefers to answer in writing rather than over a face-to-face or phone interview which will make my job of compiling and editing the final answers a lot simpler and more straightforward. I am responsible for one interview a week and the hardest part is identifying who to interview on a given week and getting approvals and answers on time.
5:00 pm: Meeting with Marketing for a special competition we are launching. I will be working very closely with both marketing and legal to draft the terms and conditions of the competition as well as the CRM model associated with the competition. Looks like I will be drafting all copy for emails, mailers and advertisements as the advertising agency will not be briefed on this competition. We agree on responsibilities and tentative deadlines and guidelines for the competition.
6:00 pm: More moderating of forums and blogs. A lot of spam somehow filters through and needs to be deleted. More inappropriate comments to delete as well. The interview answers for the questions I sent last week have arrived at the very last second before their deadline and I very quickly edit these and put them up on the site with a photo of the businesswoman. Still have some translation to do from English to Arabic before I go home.
6:45 pm: Translations complete but marketing have sent me a brief for an urgent mailer they need dispatched. I prepare the copy and send to the graphic designer to complete the creative. I also prepare copy for site banners related to the mailer as I anticipate these will be required tomorrow.
7:15 pm: Site is clean. Blogs are up. Nothing urgent is pending. I email my manager the title of the2 feature articles I will be working on in the coming fortnight for the site and head home.
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