Summer Internship

Video Transcript

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SE 11 (Internship)

Welcome to another episode of shaping environments.

This is a special one because my son Lincoln has joined us. He was a freshman this past year at the University of Tulsa. And over the summer he had the opportunity to intern at Brothers and Company in Tulsa Oklahoma which is an ad agency correct.

So I just when I asked Lincoln to share with me a few things about the internship because it seemed like such an awesome experience.

So tell me something you loved about the internship this summer.

Yeah. Overall it was just a really cool opportunity to dive into an industry that I didn’t know much about and really have much experience in and taking classes and stuff like you said it was my freshman year I just jumped right into it. So getting to work on real projects on real clients on stuff that was actually being used and experience something that I hadn’t seen before was really cool.

OK. So you bring up a great point. You got to work on real projects that didn’t just have you filing papers you get to do stuff with actual clients of brothers and company. And so tell me something that you learned it was marketing analytics and you had never done anything with that. So tell me something you learned and kind of how they helped you get up to speed.

Yeah. So I learned a lot about more of the back end of advertising and marketing tracking campaigns seeing how are social media promotions are working how our print promotions are working digital campaigns just kind of tracking the analytics behind that which I I’ve never done before. Never even thought about her for really. So they really were very hands on and teaching me like how to use these specific tools that we have how to think about things how to look at things and they really kind of walked me through stuff and then just pushed me and let me go and work on projects.

That’s very cool. OK. So is there any magic behind social media that he did years.

I mean there’s a whole lot of stuff out there. There’s a lot of strategies. It really just is so specific to each. Each company each person depending on their audience. But there’s a lot of good stuff out there. Just do some googling.

So one of the things that I know you worked you had some great leadership. So your direct supervisor I know you. Tell me how that relationship work because it feels like there’s a really healthy relationship there. And so what was the structure of that.

Yes. So it was very very open relationship. She was always always available whether that was just by slacker or just walking over to her office and sitting down asking her some questions. She always wanted to make sure that I felt comfortable working on whatever I was working on that I wasn’t drowning. She always said that if I’m drowning drown loudly so that she can hear me and she would have been able to come save me. We had biweekly one on ones where she would take me out to coffee or take me out to lunch and just talk about everything that was going on specific to work but then also just lay house. How’s life going like how has the summer been for you. Really really personable really wanting to make sure that I’m doing OK. That I’m like being successful in the internship and in life.

That’s very that’s very cool as an intern to guide that kind of access. What was the other. Did you have. Did you see other leaders that you have access to any of them. How did the whole leadership structure kind of interface with interns.

I got to sit in on a lot of meetings just kind of hanging out with my direct supervisor. So I got to meet and experience the other like the higher up leaders the executives in the company. And it’s a it’s a company of about 75 people. And so it’s not huge but it’s also not a small like mom and pop business. Yeah. And so the executives are like they’re busy they’re always doing so but they always they’re very friendly. I always had access to them really if I wanted to go talk to the CEO. I could pop in his office. He was always willing to help me. He came in and we were working on a project towards the end of the year. He came in for about 30 minutes and gave us a bunch of pointers on what we should do things that he’d seen in presentations before. Was at the internship the intern project or a different project.

Okay. So this is a fascinating idea. So there’s different interns in different departments of Roko and they did different functions so they weren’t doing marketing.

Yeah. And it’s like you but you all then had a project together.

Yeah. Explain that to the folks here to me.

So we all like is said there was five interns we were all in different departments in the agency. So there was people in media accounts social media just really all over and we didn’t really work much CNN throughout the summer. We were all together in the same little office we all talked. We all hung out but we didn’t ever like work on projects or campaigns together or anything but we did. Towards the end of the summer we did an internship project and basically this was real work for a real client. One of our nonprofit clients where they tasked us with creating researching the social media strategy for the upcoming fiscal year for this nonprofit with the main goal being to increase donations. And so we got to kind of all represent our own departments and come together and research and create this presentation that we’ve been presented to all of our respective mentors. And then a lot of the executive leadership in the company. Then we got to present to them our strategy put together a deck put together a strategy put put it all out in front of them and then they did was a ton of great feedback right after. And then we got to kind of sit and have lunch and talk with them.

That’s so cool. I just love that. So it’s concluding this week and you’ll take a couple weeks off and then back to school. A two part question. How do you think you’ll do school differently this year because now you’ve had some real world experience in the field that you want to pursue and what do you think is kind of your best takeaway from the whole experience.

Regarding the first one I feel like just being able to experience the industry that I want to go into so early. Most people start internships their junior or senior year but I started writing my freshman year so being able to experience it so early and just so much quicker get a feel for what I actually want to do I feel like is going to help me so much and looking for other internships and taking specific classes that I know will direct me to like where I actually want to go. But I think that just being able to jump in and dive in early and kind of see the outlook of the industry see how the different departments work see with the different jobs are is definitely going to help push me in the right direction for school. And then as far as takeaways go I think that one of the things that has just kind of been the most helpful for me and the thing that has really stood out is just really jumping in headfirst into projects into anything just asking people if they need help. Just jumping into doing whatever I can do to make people’s lives easier there. And just in general but really going in and giving everything I have and pushing it until I can. There was times where she gave me a project that I was working on and was like this cannot be the best way to do this this sucks. I was spending hours doing stuff that I just should not have been doing. So I did research and I found like a tool that would help us. And I was like hey let’s get this and then we did. And it just made like cut the time down cut the money down. And so just kind of diving in headfirst and doing things right the first time has been one of the biggest takeaways for me.

Yeah. That’s very cool. Well listen I want to talk with you. I wanted you to hear just a little bit of his experience because from a as a parent and from a distance it has sounded tremendous and really incredible and I’m very proud of my son very excited for what’s coming. But I wondered in your world if you have interns lots of internships don’t have the experiences had they’re filing papers they’re doing grunt work they’re not having opportunity opportunity to learn and grow. And so I’m just curious how you attract Gen Zee how you are putting them to work in internship and so if you’re an H.R. leader a c suite leader I would love to hear the structure that you approach interns with and if you’re an intern I would love to hear your experiences this summer how your internship went.

So my name is Greg Hawkes. Thank you so much for joining us here on shaping environments where we are continually making an effort to give you great service and great opportunity to be the best you can be. Thank you so much. Have a fantastic day.