Our Meet the Team series features our talented co-pilots and their path into B2B tech at Scratch. We sat down with Kendall Hatch, our skilled Senior Content Strategist, to learn more about his career in content, his rewarding experience with health tech clients and projects at Scratch, and how he strikes a solid balance between working from home and spending quality time with his family.
What led you to a career in content?
I went to school with the intention of becoming a teacher, but ended up taking a journalism class in college that I fell in love with. I got really involved with the school newspaper and started at a daily newspaper right out of school, doing that for about five years. But the newspaper industry is really tough, particularly for local newspapers, which are increasingly owned by behemoth companies focused on shareholder profit often at the expense of newsrooms.
So I made the decision to pivot into the tech world. I started off running an online community for IBM Middleware users and then jumped over to conferences, producing an ongoing series of events for SAP customers. I was looking to get back to more writing and work with a more diverse set of technology, and I made the jump to Scratch two years ago.
Really though, from journalism to content marketing, the underlying work is the same – it’s the same set of tools. We’re trying to tell new stories, tell good stories, and engage people.
What is your favorite piece of content you’ve ever developed and why?
Throughout the pandemic, we’ve worked a lot with our partners at CipherHealth on how COVID-19 has affected not only patients and families, but also frontline healthcare staff. They are exhausted and suffering disproportionately from depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Being able to add our voice into sounding the alarm on that front – and providing hospitals and care providers with advice about what they can do about it – has been especially rewarding.
What do you like most about working with clients in the B2B tech space?
Our clients are doing really exciting things. To be in Boston, in such a hub of activity and innovation, we’re in a really cool and unique ecosystem. The best part of agency life, to my mind, is the fact that nothing is static. Every time we work with a new client, we’re diving deep into their tech, and by being in the B2B space, we’re figuring out messaging that applies to an inherently more informed audience than you might see in a B2C space. It’s an evergreen challenge and there’s always something new to get excited about.
What is something you’ve unexpectedly learned over the past two years while working at Scratch?
My background is mostly in longform content. At Scratch, I’ve really enjoyed diving into copywriting. Developing longform content has its challenges, but you generally have the space to flesh out ideas and build arguments. When you’re writing ad, social, or web copy, you really have to dial up your creativity. Every word you’re writing carries so much more weight. When you figure out that puzzle, it feels great.
We’ve all also unexpectedly learned how to adapt to completely new working routines in the pandemic, and I’ve just passed the threshold where I’ve now spent more time working at home for Scratch than I did in the office, which seems crazy to me. I’ve always been one who preferred being in the office because I felt that I worked better there, but now we’ve all had to learn how to be effective and productive from home. I have adapted to it now, and I think as an organization, we’ve really hit our stride with it.
How do you establish your work-life balance, especially while working remotely?
Working from home can be difficult in the pandemic, especially with a toddler, as my wife and I are both working from home with him full-time. That means that there are inevitably times when we’re spending lots of time with him during the day and need to catch up outside of regular working hours, logging on at night or on the weekend every once in a while. My wife, Jen, has been a superhuman, so she’s really the engine and driving force that keeps us on the tracks and in equilibrium. Essentially it’s about flexibility. You have to do what you need to do to get work done, establish boundaries where you can, and change plans when you need to.
When you’re not co-piloting at Scratch, what are you doing?
We spend a lot of time exploring the woods and the beaches near our home. We bought a house a little over a year ago, so we’re also working on endless home improvement projects. I really enjoy cooking and like to get out to golf when I can, too. I’m getting my second vaccine soon, so I’m very much looking forward to non-socially-distanced, real-life hangouts with friends and family and having that be a part of life again.
Any specific place you like to go and relax?
We live in Newburyport, so we spend a lot of time at Parker River Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island, Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary, and Maudslay State Park. I grew up around here, but have spent the last several years in other places. I have really been enjoying rediscovering all of the great hidden places here since I’ve been back.
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Stop smoking cigarettes. They are dumb and they don’t make you look cool.
Also though I think I’m fairly confident in my voice these days, I don’t think that was always the case. I think that humility has its place when you’re young and learning, but I would have told myself to have a little more confidence in my ideas and not be afraid when it was time to share them.
