My Role at Testbirds is a series of blog posts that gives insights into the daily life at the office. Every so often, one of our employees will introduce you to his or her line of work and share some helpful tips.This week features Laura Chung, the UK Business Development Assistant. Laura is part of the International Team at the headquarters of Testbirds in Munich. Origin/Background:I was born in the UK from a small town called Solihull, just outside Birmingham. I recently graduated from University of Leeds with a BA in Management with Marketing. I’ve always had an interest in the technology sector and during University I worked at Microsoft in London on the one year internship scheme. Since then, I gained work experience from various PR, advertising and marketing agencies in and out of London. Straight after my graduation, I travelled around Eastern Europe and moved to Munich to join the awesome Testbirds team! What you do at Testbirds:My role at Testbirds team is the UK Business Development Assistant. I help drive our Testbirds service to the UK service. This means I work on a variety of roles including Sales, PR and marketing, community management (increasing testers to our platform) and also helping out on project management work too.Current Computer:I currently use the Lenovo Ideapad U310.It’s deceiving as it looks almost like a Mac book when you open it, but it’s almost half the price. It’s a nicely designed for those who don’t want to splash out too much. As I’m always breaking stuff, it’s a good alternative to a Macbook.Current mobile device:I previously had a Nokia Lumia 610 but I changed to an iPhone 4S.Although I love the simplicity and functionality of iPhones I actually really liked the Windows tile interface on the Nokia phones!One word that best describes how you work:LivelyA typical work day consists of:A typical work day is never normally the same. Currently I’ve been focusing my attention on trade marketing and organizing Testbirds attendance at the Mobile World Congress. As I have to balance a bunch of different roles, it means I have to dedicate and prioritize my workload to a variety of jobs. This means an average day can consist of doing a mix of cold calls, managing current accounts, writing publications, posting on platforms to acquire new testers and helping out with the social media channels. I always look for challenges and how we can improve things, so the most fun part of the day is when we have meetings to brainstorm ideas and setting goals. As there are currently new UK employees joining, I’m also helping the majority of my time with their onboarding.What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?I’m one of those social media enthusiasts who love to post things all the time. If there’s a social media channel app, it’s more than likely I’ll be on it (doesn’t matter whether it’s Pinterest, Twitter or LinkedIn). As I’m currently working in Munich and away from my home in the UK, I had many chances to explore new things so I always like to document it in some way. That’s why I love the Instagram app. I also have a blogspot account as a personal (but very public) diary, so I don’t forget what I’ve done when I’m a golden oldie. As I hope to continue working abroad in the future, whatsapp is an essential app for me to stay in touch with friends/family (apart from when Facebook buys it and magically stops it from working, but we’ll move on….)What’s your workspace setup like?
I call my workspace an organized mess! It’s a mess but it’s like that for a reason. The essentials are my Yorkshire tea bags so I can keep up the tea breaks in Germany. My colleague also introduced me to Milka pretzel chocolates, literally the best thing ever made from Deustchland! I also received quite a few birthday cards recently, in particular my favourite one from my sister of a pop-up image of London’s St Pauls Catherdral. It sits as a good desk decoration.What’s your best time-saving shortcut?Snip tool (on Windows) is the easiest tool ever to get any image you want! No need for this print screen button jargon. Google docs is also incredibly time saving when multiple people need to edit one document at the same time, especially when we were doing the Mobile World Congress organization. Would it be silly to say I’m also a big fan of CTRL C, V and Z?Besides your phone and computer, what gadget can’t you live without?Although I love the feel of paper books, my Kindle is one of my favourite gadgets when travelling abroadWhat everyday thing are you better at than everyone else? What’s your secret?I’m quite a positive person in the workplace. Even when I’m very stressed, I don’t feel the need to inflict a negative attitude to those around me. It’s important for me to be happy in a workplace and ensure that others are too. I generally believe this leads to better work results, so I think it’s important to boost work morale. It’s definitely not the case that I’m better than anyone else at doing it, but it’s something I believe in! My secret, is to smile and even when it gets hard always think, how I can learn from this?What do you like to do outside work?I am really interested in the arts, performing arts and music. I play the piano, taught myself guitar and obsessed with attending live music events. If you ask anyone I know, I have a very diverse music taste! I also studied art at school and always interested in art galleries, sculptures and anything culture related. Of course, anything interesting I see or do, I always blog it!What’s the best advice/life motto you’ve ever heard?“Take your work seriously but never yourself”Great work and results, doesn’t mean you can’t be grounded as a person and fun. I’ve worked with people ranging from all types of hierarchal positions, and those who were humble and level-headed were the ones I respected the most.If you could meet anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?I would love to meet Stevie Nicks, as she is one of my musical idols. In terms of career wise, I would like to meet Marissa Mayer. I think she would be very interesting to talk to, especially in terms of Yahoo’s strategy.Anything else to add that might be interesting to others?I’m allergic to melon, does that count?
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Testbirds specialises in the testing of software such as apps, websites and Internet of Things applications by using innovative technologies and solutions. Under the slogan, “Testing Reality”, the company offers various testing methods to its clients looking to optimise the user-friendliness and functionality of their digital products. With over 250,000 registered testers located in 193 countries, Testbirds is one of the world’s leading crowdtesting providers. In addition, the IT service provider utilises cloud based technologies to support customers in the optimisation of their digital products. The combination of the two testing methods delivers a unique and extensive portfolio that takes the quality of software to the next level. Testbirds was founded in 2011 by Philipp Benkler, Georg Hansbauer and Markus Steinhauser. Today, the company has over 100 employees. Other than its headquarters in Munich, there are now offices in Amsterdam, London and Stockholm, franchises in Hungary and Russia and sales partners in Italy.
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