Blog #8

Since, I admit, I completely forgot to do this blog entry yesterday, I will answer both of them :D

What characteristics and qualities do you see in the people at your internship that you'd like to develop in yourself?
There were a lot of qualities I liked that I've seen before. One of the things I would like to practice is risk-taking, for sure. After listening to Christine's story about success, it makes me think life does have it's risks and opportunities. I will probably go to college since.. I'm honestly chicken and wonder what will happen to my life then, but I think my life will have it's own challenges and risks I will have to take. One of them may be being laid off at a job I enjoy. Israel, the other person in the office in charge of the phones and booking, was actually laid off from a job he had. I think for anyone, there is always risk and what makes it a worthy experience is knowing how to deal with it properly and not do something like, "Well, a job will eventually come to me. For now, I have unemployment."

Another thing I would like to develop is social skills. I have a hard time with people who are too serious or solid about something. I know I am a productive worker and I can get things done, but environment is definitely something that affects me. If I'm in too much of a serious environment, I can't concentrate and it leads to to being unproductive. Being able to talk to different people is a quality that both Christine and Israel shared that I think is amazing because to be honest, if a client were to call me about something ridiculous I would be like, "Look, we didn't take anything. You lost it. That's it." I suppose it's because I have this pet peeve about blame and how people never like to take blame. Going on a tangent, I know. Nevertheless, the ability to communicate, whether it be with someone who is angry or someone speaking a completely different language, is a quality that I would love to develop and learn more about.

What new appreciations (for who? of what?) have you gained through internship that you did not have before? How did you develop these appreciations?
Ah, I actually did gain new appreciations for the cleaning business. I remember people like RANDY SCHERER kept making sarcastic remarks to me about my internship and I would hold my head going, "Oh gosh, this'll be a long month." Turns out, the cleaning business is definitely something to be proud of. Like how Christine survived the recession even though people told her her company would go out of business since "cleaning companies were the first to go". I admire her motivation to want to start her own business even if it comes with it's own risks. I think this takes risks to a whole nother' level. I do hope to learn more about how she handles the pressure and anxiety of being a small business owner.

Believe it or not, I have actually started to un-appreciate some things. The internet. Yes, I know what you're thinking, Audrey the all-the-time computer lover under appreciating the internet. I agree, it's more efficient then researching through books, but somehow, I feel a little bit more lazy. It's also bringing print out of business which must be disastrous. Luckily, I will be printing designs and T-Shirts in the future, hopefully that'll work out. By that time, I hope they don't start making hologram clothes or invisible coffee mugs because, I mean, who can compete with that? Anyway, I do hope that everyone starts getting on their computer. With everyone being on the computer so much, I highly doubt anyone would be called "Four-Eyes" anymore because of everyone that would be wearing glasses. I am going to love the future. Just a little, unless this economic downpour squishes me before I can make my national appearance.

Blog #7

Internship site: Cleanology

Department: Service?

Project Title: 2010 Market/Budget Plan

General Description: The project is basically a marketing plan for 2010. I will be observing all the information from 2009 and write/design a new marketing plan for this year based on statistics, budgeting, etc. This will include a lot of information about people, possible clients, what advertisements make money, what competitors charge, etc. I'm just copying and pasting this.

Learning Objectives: I want to learn a few things. One thing is budgeting in a business. I think budgeting is an important aspect when you're working in business because you want to know how much money you have for what. You also want to see what money you're wasting and how you can save money and make more profit. Another thing I want to learn is how companies project ideas for the future. I want to know how to effectively use charts and predict or set a probable and possible goal for the future.

Organization/Company Objectives & Benefits: This is a packet they will follow when it comes to marketing. They want to make sure to stick to an advertising plan because we observed what worked. What didn't work actually costed them quite a bit of money so it's sort of like looking to see where mistakes could be improved. I think this could possibly save them a lot of money and organize their plans for 2010.

Schedule: Basically, there are 9 days left of internship and in those 9 days, there will mostly be data collecting and financial decisions. For the first few days, we will be listing competitive businesses and collecting their information by calling them. There will be lots to do on the side so this may take round 1-3 days. Then there is the matter of looking at last years budget and pulling out all the paper work for last year. This may take a while because there are a lot of aspects of the budget that range from buying equipment to buying advertisement. There is also the matter of gas and other expenses like supplies. This is what I know for now, we didn't have time to go over the whole thing. I'm actually doing this right now. I'm looking at all of the budget usage over the past few years. I pick up the trends that work and make profit and then the trends that don't work so well and makes no profit at all. I finished writing the statistics on the population and how much the company could make as a whole on Friday.

Academic Skills: This helps me learn about how keeping track of paperwork can help people in the long run. This also helps me understand how the world is changing. For example, one of the things on the advertising list for the past years was post cards and those worked really well. Over time, post cards made less and less money. The reason for that is because a lot of people are switching to internet and they don't really need post cards through the mail. I think trends like these can just show me the history of advertising and how it has evolved the past few years.

Technical Skills: This tests my skills on organization and calculation. There are a lot of numbers I have to work with, some being statistics from years or maybe just from a few months. This helps me practice the skill of putting together information and researching. And not just that, I have to design something that can project my research easily and efficiently.

Collaboration—Skills and Opportunities: I've actually talked to my mentor a lot already. Nobody knows the advertising budget as well as she does. On Friday, she sat down with me and talked about the different statistics I was looking at. She pointed out possible trends and told me things I should consider when looking at how to advertise. As for collaboration, I think Christine is going to teach me a lot about to read numbers and patterns and tell me about what could be an investment.

Exhibition Plans: I can probably just have the packet up on the screen. If I have time, I can possibly make a slide show displaying the different aspects of the packet I looked up. Maybe some paperwork I had to compare?

Schedule & Timelines: Wasn't this already a question? Urm.. I think this may take all of next week. I'm not sure if I'm going to be working anymore then that. I do take a while when I do research though, because I like being thorough. I'm overestimating the time I will be using so I don't run out when the end of internship is nearing. Most of the work is just busy work and with 6 hours a day, I'm sure I can accomplish it in no time.

Summary of my week: Oh, I should have written this on Friday since experienced were fresh at hand. There was a lot of paperwork. I would have assumed that everything was structured out on a single piece of paper and it was all this information in 10 point font. In reality, it was a huge mass of papers with different years, some even depicting months. What was surprising was how difficult it was to understand the budget. It wasn't just, "This month is this month" because months cut into each other, some advertisers wanted pre-payment, other advertises still worked even though they were years old (Like post cards, people still looked at post cards from years ago). I would describe my first week as... quick. I actually didn't even know the week passed, it sort of flew by. You just immerse yourself in work and next thing you know, your work week is already done. One of the good qualities Christine said I had was that I was able to stay focus even when I had a lot of things to do. I think this is something I am actually good at because my mind is confused easily. I always need things in part and if I start two things at once, I can't estimate how much time it may take or if I can even finish both tasks. I think doing things one by one is something I'm good at and I realized this at my first week of internship.

Blog #6

We are planning to have the interview tomorrow on Friday 1/14/10 at 7am to 8am. There are a lot of things I want to ask my mentor. I'll list down a few of the ideas:

- Her educational background:
Robert told me that she was one of the few exceptions for a mentor that had no bachelor degree. I found this odd because my family has been all about college, good grades, and structured education like that. I, personally, do everything I do with the utmost effort, but grades do have a great impact on me just because colleges tend to judge you positively when you have good grades which.. good grades isn't hard to do and it's really just convenient. I'd really love to learn her story on how she became so successful without that bachelors degree. I know it's completely possible, but it just sounds like such an unknown route. What decisions did she make? How did she come to this decision? Why didn't she go to college to get her degree? Where did she start off at?

- The aspects of her work:
Owning a business must be a lot of hard work. I want to know how she could do everything. Most of the time, if you have a boss above you, you sometimes wouldn't suffer THAT much if the company was going down because overall, the top boss would be the one saying, "Oh gosh, we lost a thousand on this, what do we do.." What sort of anxiety does she go through? What happens when it comes into close call? How does she get over the fear of closing the company?

- Her ability to solve problems:
Currently, there is this ridiculous situation towards Cleanology and it was the first one Christine and her company experienced. Even so, she was on that case so quickly. Before I knew it, I walked into work the next day and heard about the response sent to the other investigator from the investigator that Christine contacted like.. overnight. Also, a lot of the domestic workers speak Spanish and she doesn't fully know the language. How does she get past the language barrior? How does a person find time to accomplish unexpected things on a tight schedule? How does she handle the situations when other clients are involved? What would she do if her company were to decline?

- Her motivation:
Brandon showed us a very interesting video about the motivation of people. I hadn't thought of the whole bribery way of motivation. Christine is someone I see as self driven and confidently faces the things that scare her or make her nervous. What motivates her? How does she keep on going? What does she hope to accomplish in the long run?

Blog #5

Project title: 2010 Cleanology Marketing Plan

Project description: The project is basically a marketing plan for 2010. I will be observing all the information from 2009 and write/design a new marketing plan for this year based on statistics, budgeting, etc. This will include a lot of information about people, possible clients, what advertisements make money, what competitors charge, etc. This will be a large packet of useful information all in one place!

Project schedule: I'm probably going to edit this tomorrow because we are discussing the scheduling of this tomorrow. Basically, there are 11 days left of internship and in those 11 days, there will mostly be data collecting and financial decisions. For the first few days, we will be listing competitive businesses and collecting their information by calling them. There will be lots to do on the side so this may take round 1-3 days. Then I have to research statistics like the population, what part of population does house cleaning, how many people are in the households, etc. This will probably take 1-2 days, depending on how fast I can find the information and do all the calculations to match the company. Then there is the matter of looking at last years budget and pulling out all the paper work for last year. This may take a while because there are a lot of aspects of the budget that range from buying equipment to buying advertisement. There is also the matter of gas and other expenses like supplies. This is what I know for now, we didn't have time to go over the whole thing. There are still a lot of details in the example packet I saw though. There is a lot of information that needs to be collected.

Materials & Equipment needed: This one is easy. All we need is a computer, internet, paper, printer, and other past files. There will be a lot of data collecting and organizing of information. Oh, and we may need a phone too, to call all the other competing businesses and ask what their pricing is or what they offer.

Project documentation: How will you keep track of your work? How will others know about it? What will you have to show when internship is over? What I will basically have to show is a document filled with information and research. That may not seem a lot on my end, but when I looked at the example, it looked like there was a lot of statistical and financial information that wasn't well known facts. If we have blogs everyday like we do already, I keep them pretty updated so if there are any questions, I can pretty much answer them in a blog. I can also write little side notes on my blog about what I accomplished that day and what the plans are for the next day.

Blog #4

1. What academic skills could you use on the job?
This one was a question I had to think about since academics is really what I do best. If school was a hobby, which is how I look at it as, I can definitely do it well. I think the basic skills I possess can help here and there in my work place. One thing that I've brought it hard work. Whatever job I am given, I try my best to do it well and efficiently. This is a busy company that is always moving and I think being available to help is a good aspect of working. I think being productive as a person in a skill I brought to my internship.

2. What forms of collaboration could you use in a project?
Collaboration as in.. with the people at my internship? If so, then I could tell you not that there will be collaboration. One of the things that Cleanology does is focus on communication, hence why they don't have contracts. I think that's the sort of collaboration I have with them, even now. When I was working on updating the site with Israel, there was a lot of emailed back and forth, trial and error, etc. I think that was a successful collaboration. As for my final project, I may be spending more time with Christine since we are making a business place for this year for her company. She has more knowledge about past work and what we could expect for this year. I could contribute ideas or suggest investments, pretty much add onto ideas of making things more beneficial or efficient.

3. What technical skills can you use at your internship?
There are many technical skilled I'm using now. A lot of the stuff I'm doing right now requires my laptop. I was helping a little with Flash, since both of us kind of didn't know it. I did work out some of the problems with the website though, like some of the animaitons, I thought that was cool. If they need me, I can work with Excel, Word, Photoshop, Illlustrator, and InDesign pretty efficiently. Right now I'm learning mostly about what's on the internet, different details fo social networking and what you can do to get yourself out there.

4. What new things can you learn while working at your site?
More things I want to learn is how the use of advertisement helps the company. I remember looking at the sheet of how people heard about this company and I was sort of surprised at some of the results. I would like to learn the best ways of advertising with the least amount of money. I could also learn about how people talk to clients. As it is, there is a little problem that is actually having an interesting development. I think I can learn about how companies deal with these tough situations and how communication and research can make or break an event.

5. How can you exhibit, showcase or otherwise share your work?
This one is probably a tough question. So far, I've done little tid bits here and there but it's mostly sorting out paperwork, data entry, and organization. Even so, those little tid bits like editing the website can be shown through the website. Or I can show the different levels or work and all the research I did to discover one little detail. In the end, my final project is probably going to be a budget portfolio of paperwork showing the plan for this year.

6. How can your work or your skills & abilities help your company or organization?
I'm pretty much availible to them as they need me. I'm content with doing different work then what I actually want to do, it just gives me experience to different things people do. I'm sort of new still so of course I get the easy-to-accomplish work. As the internship goes on, I hope to prove overall useful to the company, whether it's helping them with little jobs or organizing a system for them to use in the future. Even in small things, I'm still able to design, which is something I like to do. For example, I'm organizing some messy information and typing them out. I made some basic tables to add to a template and designed it to make it easy to read and aesthetically pleasing.

Blog #3

1. What skills would you like to develop at your site?

There are many skills I'm looking to develop. I've been working a little on flash to update the company website. I think this is definitely something I would like to try playing with a little more. Perhaps, make the website a little bit more convenient for them to edit it? I'd also like to work with numbers since I'm a huge math wiz. I'm pretty much open for anything since the main reason I wanted to work here is work experience, social networking, and learning about different work environments.

2. What interests do you have regarding the work done at your site?
Like I said before, doing the flash for the website was definitely something new. I've never really had to utilize all the aspects of making a website. I feel really inspired to make a flash website and working with the current company's website is actually really useful. I learned a few things about how animation works in flash websites and what I could do when I make my own. I'm also interested in the customer service they give and, perhaps, maybe be able to talk to clients or learn about the whole process.

3. What needs can you address (needs your mentor has, your company has, etc.) based on your skills and interests?
I'm quite content with my work now, actually. I think all the things I want to learn is pretty much set out in front of me. I get to work with numbers on the marketing plan for my final project, I got to work on the flash website that gave me some insight on how companies organize their advertising, etc. I do think one thing that would be great is a chance to look at all the HTML that went into the website. I think that's what it all boils down to, website design. It's a profession that I'm highly looking into if I ever go into the realm of graphic design which I'm pretty sure I will.

Blog #2

What have you actively done to start off on the right note?

I don't know, I think you'll have to ask my mentor about this one. I think I'm pretty active and I accomplish another that they need me to do. So far, I've filed some paperwork, organized a supply cabinet, sent out a newsletter and inputted business cards into a data base. The thing is, I don't mind doing things like that. When it comes to me, I really just want to do work that they can use for the future. I'm up for anything that is time consuming or things that don't want to be done but need to be done. I've also started out the internship with a positive attitude and an intent to learn.

What have you actively done to create interesting opportunities for yourself?
I'm not quite sure about interesting opportunities. I mean, define interesting. I like having some exposure to other programs like Outlook because it gives me a variety of things that are out there. I also enjoyed sending out a newsletter and posting things on craigslist because I haven't explored that aspect of the internet yet. I know I'm going to be getting more into the social networking of the internet which I'm excited. I'm using this experience to see what sort of work you do on a typical workday. As in actively working for interesting opportunities, I've been occupied so I don't have time to think of others things to do.

What have you actively done to advance the interests of your mentor and/or site?
This sounds like it's worded a little bit funny. Advcaned interests of my mentor or site? Does that mean... how do I keep myself motivated and interested in what I'm doing? I suppose it's the will to accomplish something. I haven't had any work experience at all so I'm sort of testing the ropes to see how I feel being placed at a site that really isn't in my interest zone. I remember Randy telling me that just because a place has "Animator" as a job, doesn't mean I have to go to it. Well, that's the short version of what he said. The point was, I selected an internship based on the environment. One of the things I want to thoroughly avoid is a super serious environment because it wasn't something I wanted to deal with on a daily basis. I want to be in a more laid back environment that is efficient and productive, but it's focused more on people who want to self accomplish and Christine and Isreal are people like that. I'm already interested in what I'm doing because I want to know how far I can reach with this self-ran motivation on tasks that people may seem tedious and can't accomplish.

What can you do in the immediate future to improve yourself and your experience in the above areas?
Hm, improve myself. I think right now, I'm testing how I react to a working environment. To be honest, I was happy to get sort of a short workday. But in the end, after I started working, I really enjoyed coming here. One of the things I focused on improving is learning the ways of social networking. Christine is a very happy and social person, I hope to pick up the confidence she has to be able to talk to people even in tough situations. I also like expriencing business which is going to be in my final project. We'll be making a marketing plan for 2010 and I think planning financial things is important. I hope to experience how it is to budget or what things may take a lot of money or how much things actually cost. I'm not the sort of person to spend money so I'm still trying to understand the saying, "You gotta spend money to make money."