Internship: Day Seven

Internship site: Bob Hoffman Video Productions

Department: They don't really have different departments, so for right now you could say I am working in the financial\corporate department.

Project Title: Valentine's Day mailer

General Description: I am making a Valentine's Day mailer that they will be sending to all of their clients and associates.

Learning Objectives: I will, (and have been) learning about marketing, budgeting, (since we send out entire packets full of things with the mailer) organization and I will be further improving my Photoshop and writing skills.

Organization/Company Objectives & Benefits: This helps the company because normally they would have to either hire somebody to make the mailer which takes money, or they would have to make the mailer themselves which would use their time which would cause them to lose money. Also, they will be sending this mailer to hundreds of people and companies so this will be promoting their business and they can use the same mailer for years to come which would save them the trouble of having to make new ones.

Schedule: The schedule isn't set in stone but this is the general order of things:

-Search in the San Diego Business Journal for leads, (who we should consider sending the mailer to)

-Write rough drafts of poems for the cards

-Begin making rough drafts of the corporate-department's card

-Print drafts on different quality and colors of paper

-Management meeting:

-Who all should the mailer be sent to?

-What is the budget?

-What all will be sent with the mailer,(chocolate, business cards etc.)?

-Revise drafts

-Begin organizing a list of all of the people\companies that the mailer will be sent to

-Revise until a final draft with the poem added has been made

-Take card to the printers and get an estimate

-Have cards printed

-Print out mailing labels

-Get envelopes prepped for mailing, (put addresses and return addresses on them)

-Get cards from printers

-Stuff envelopes

-Repeat for social-department.

Academic Skills: For this I am using my writing skills, (the poem that goes on the cards) and some basic math skills, (budgeting, checks and balances etc.)

Technical Skills: For this project I am using my Photoshop skills, artistic skills, organization and speaking skills, (talking to the people at the print shop etc.)

Collaboration—Skills and Opportunities: I have already collaborated with my mentor and other staff members by working with them on the poem, (they took my rough drafts and created a final draft with them). Also, I will be collaborating with members of the staff during management meetings.

Exhibition Plans: I plan on showing my drafts of the cards and the final draft. Also, I will see if I can show what the original list of people that we were planning on sending the mailer to looked like before we cut it down, to show just how many different revisions we went through.

Schedule & Timelines: The schedule that I wrote out isn't set in stone. Already, I have switched tasks because one of the employees there wanted to show me something new or needed help on something. Also, since the mailer doesn't even have to be done and sent out until just before Valentine's day, I don't have to take time into as much consideration as I would usually.

Description of Work:

So far, the best part of the job has been learning about scanning slides. Even though it was tedious, it was interesting to look at all of the pictures one person had taken over a course of around 40 years. The pictures were from everywhere, Egypt, Europe, Asia, all of these amazing places and the photos were all really good too, so it was really interesting to look at!

So far I haven't really had any challenges. The biggest challenge was when I first started I didn't have much to do. Now that I have officially started my internship and I now have a project to work on that problem has been pretty much resolved.

I haven't had to work with others much just yet, but on the occasions that I have worked with others I feel it has gone well. I am shy, since I still feel like the new kid, but I am slowly becoming a more active member of the community there, so working with people is getting easier and easier.

I didn't expect them to have so many clients. I was amazed when I saw that just one person had over one thousand clients for the month alone! Since it is a smaller company I wasn't expecting that, so I was pretty amazed.

It has been very exciting, but very nerve-racking. All of the people there are really nice and they are taking the time to help me out as much as possible, but you still can't help but have the "new kid at school" feeling. You don't really know anybody there and you're not as knowledgeable as some of them, so it can be intimidating. But for the most part, it's also really exciting. You are doing projects that are strangely similar to the ones at school, so you have a certain level of comfort which is nice, familiar. The longer you are there and the more you get to know people, the more comfortable you are.