Career Opportunites in New Media Advertising and Marketing

As I continue on my journey- which seems to be very self-directed - I am concurrently seeking out all the help I can get from people in the field of new media, digital advertising, internet marketing etc.  People are being helpful and I'm learning new insider bits along the way.

From Scott Burgher on LinkedIn someone with whom I connected with who has been gmailing me some information and shedding some light on the opportunities out there.

This is excerpted from a follow-up e-mail clarifying the various aspects of marketing:

He writes: "In marketing/advertising agencies there are generally two different types of positions (Put aside the business aspect i.e. accounting, payroll etc...); you will either be working on the "account side" or "creative side" - the account side is what I do, we are the front people, we manage the clients, meet with them, determine their needs, and present all the ideas to them (we also do a lot of background work i.e. work with vendors/printers/media to manage the timeliness and placement of all promotions) - we manage the budgets, and the timelines of projects - then there are the creative ones, essentially graphic designers who take the direction of everything gathered from the account side, and put it all together (i.e. ads, commercials, postcards, whatever the promotion is) then its a whole process of the account team taking it back to the client to get approval and so on.....  there are the occasional people who work on the account side and have the creative vision and genius to lead the creative teams....  It used to be that the account side was also responsible to get new accounts, though most marketing agencies now have "new business development" teams which focuses on that (sales)."

Not sure if you're a fan of the show "Mad Men" though the difference would be between Sterling/Campbell (account) and Draper/Peggy (creative).

Of the 3 mentioned, I can rule out the creative side - although I am creative and have lotsa nice ideas - I'm not the graphic designer type.  I'd prefer to negotiate with the client or try to get the client in the first place.  So that would be the account services or sales/business development aspect.  I would choose to work with advertising/marketing and find businesses because it's something that excites me and I can sell.  (More than my passion for selling medical supplies, for example. :)