Day 5: the finale
Today I pack up my desk, take my tea mug back to the kitchen and return my visitor pass to reception. So here are my Big Three recommendations if you’re looking to fill my space in a marketing internship:
1. Go somewhere with a Kanban board
Monday morning, just as I was settling down, a colleague announced it was time for a Scrum meeting by the Kanban board. Nodding as if I knew what this involved (“cabman? crab nan?”), I became witness to a fundamental idea here. The Kanban board is a whiteboard charting the progress of all tasks, projects and ideas from ‘current sprint’ to ‘in progress’ to ‘test’ and then ‘released’. The point is to make sure projects move through each stage by members of the team focussing on different tasks, but being adaptive so ideas can change as it becomes clear what works. The Kanban board charts this process, which is good because you can see the progress you’re making, but you also have everything you could do up in front of you, and can choose what you want to focus on, and how. I’ve had free reign in my little section of the office all week – create a survey or upload to Instagram?! The power’s going to my head.
2. Use every bit of software available
Not only is my Skills section on LinkedIn probably over the maximum allowance, it makes your week far more interesting. Most of the software I used – Hootsuite, Limesurvey, WordPress – I had never used before but reassuringly saying, ‘oh yes that’s fine I can do that’ meant that I wasn’t sat there sending out boring emails and making tea all week (in fact I never once made a cup). Creating and editing the video for yesterday’s blog was one of my most enjoyable tasks, and although I have used MovieMaker before – there was a period when I was about 12 when making pointless videos was how you spent your time – I was having to think professionally about it rather than deciding on the most garish background possible.
3. Write blogs (surprise surprise)
It not only gave me lots to do – no one wants to be bored on work experience – but also meant I’ve had to think of interesting content to put up, maximise its SEO, use social media to broadcast it… Most of the skills I’ve used this week are related to this blog. It’s also made me dredge up my AS level writing skills, and revision is always good. And it’s been thoroughly enjoyable watching the number of views steadily rise – especially knowing that they can’t all have been from my dad.
My final words of wisdom on a marketing internship:
- Working in an office can be fun.
- Marketing companies are too modern to have biros – everything I wrote was in green Sharpie.
- Always say yes when there’s an offer of tea.