Final Entry

Now that my internship is complete, I believe that it was a great experience for me. I learned a lot about marketing and the marketing industry. It was very interesting to see how one company like Home Depot works with so many different industries. Octagon does their marketing, Initiative does their advertising, and therefore Home Depot works with various teams and TV companies. The whole process of making a business work is a lot clearer to me, which is going to be important in years to come. It has also become clearer to me on why communication within and between the companies is so important. When doing a project the slightest miscommunication can cost you hours of make up time.

The end of my internship was a true test of my patience and dedication. I had to complete a competitive report, which consisted of sitting in a cubicle for eight or more hours a day researching companies such as Lowe’s, Menards, Rona, Walmart, Sears, and various tool companies. I officially hate Lowe’s because they do not disclose any information. Researching all of the different companies was really interesting. For example MLB, Lowes, and Scotts all have a turf fertilizer where that bags are custom made for the town they are being sold in’s home team. Now I find myself watching commercials, or NASCAR, which is a sin in itself, to see how #20 Home Depot’s driver is doing or #48 Jimmie Johnson Lowe’s. The internship has just made me look at the world a different way. I notice how business is being done via TV, and Internet.

I also learned a lot about social networking and media. It was my job to put together a presentation on cool Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube, promotions that happened with sports. It really made me realize how important social media is. Fun fact: 95% of companies use Linkedin to hire new employees. I have now been able to help a few people with their websites. I am sad to admit it, but Twitter, when used properly, is actually pretty cool. Social media is communication. It is a completely different way of communicating, but it all ties into fast and easy access to people.

Overall I think that this summer was good for my professional knowledge. I had no idea what an actually business was like or how things were run. I think that this summer really helped guide me, and help me realize what I do and do not want to do as my career.

Post 2

Continuing with my internship has been both fun and stressful. As I mentioned in my previous entry the other intern and I have been working on the Competitive Report really hard for about two weeks. We have been communicating with other people in the office as well as amongst ourselves to gather all of the information that is necessary to complete the report. Looking up this information can be stressful especially when you’re sitting in a cubicle for eight hours a day. I have learned a lot about the competitors and now when I’m watching TV or out with friends I notice advertising and marketing a lot more than I did before. I was watching sports center the other day and noticed Lumber Liquidators advertising and I was able to add that to our report.

I have been able to attend more events than just the Braves game. I worked at The Home Depot hospitality tent for the Peachtree Road Race, The BMW Tennis Tournament, and my favorite event so far, the Women’s Professional Soccer All-Star Game for Puma (I got some sweet new shoes). At the Peachtree Road Race we checked employees in to the tent. We had to meet at work at 4:30 in the morning and left the event around 1pm on the fourth of July. At the BMW Tennis Tournament I was signing people up to test drive BMW’s. If they signed up they got a free dry fit and hat. At the Puma event, there were a lot of things going on. They had a huge cube/tent set up where inside they had face painting, tattoos, photos being taken, and a thing where you could make a 7 second video and it was turned into a flip book. I was not assigned to work in the cube; I was part of the group of people who got to take care of “Section Puma.” Every game Puma designates a specific section and that section gets a ton of free stuff: Bags, Jerseys, balls, horns, posters, etc. I loved this because as I said before I was president of the spirit club and ran pep-rallies in high school so I was able to bring my energy to the fans and get them pumped up.

I have taken on a leadership role with the other intern. I am order than him, but I do not think that that has anything to do with it. I am extremely organized at work, I work hard, and I am extremely productive. I have actually started to get frustrated with the work ethic I see from him. I am having a hard time communicating to him that I need him to work harder than he is, because I feel as if it is making me look bad. Hopefully I will be able to work that out.

Internship 1st post

Beginning an internship at Octagon has been a very interesting experience. Octagon is a Sports marketing company, with clients such as Home Depot, Michael Phelps, and Apolo Ohno. Personally I work on the Home Depot account and have had the privilege of attending Braves games and Kids Workshops.

On my first day at Octagon, my boss Patrick, walked up to Bola (the other intern) and I and said, “So one of us is going to dress up in the Homer outfit, the Home Depot mascot, and possibly be on Turner Field (the ATL MLB Stadium) during the tool race.” I immediately raised my hand and exclaimed, “I’ll do it!” I am extremely qualified for the job, seeing that I was the president of the spirit club in high school. I was so excited. I GOT TO GO ON THE FIELD IN THE MIDDLE OF A BRAVES GAME! I couldn’t help but think that this was the best first day of work that could possible ever happen. (Come to find out I would sweat my ass off and end up getting hit in the face with a battery pack and a fan… simultaneously.) Before the game started, we helped kids build helicopters, which is part of a program that Home Depot does called Kids Workshop. I really enjoyed the experience, because we got to go behind the scenes at Turner Field and see the corporation behind the games, and because I love kids, and we got to help the build something that they normally would not have been able to do.

After the initial day of excitement, the experience wound down a bit. Myself and the other intern were given the summer long task of updating the Competitive Report. This is a report that is 100 slides long on Power Point. It is my job to update all of the Home Depot sporting event contracts on the report and it is also my job to update every single one of Home Depot’s competitors sport contracts i.e. Lowe’s, Scott’s, K-mart, etc. We also have to update a Sponsorship Overview booklet that physically holds all of the contracts Home Depot has and write a brief summary about each one.

Doing this internship has been a huge help with my professional communication because I have had to learn how to communicate with the business community in a different way than I’ve ever had to communicate before. I am also trying to take on a leadership role between myself and the other intern. He knows less about the professional world than even I do, and I have been sure to try and take the reigns when it comes to the larger summer projects.

One communication issue that I have stumbled upon in the company is that their IT people are terrible. It is our fourth week into the internship and we still do not have printing capabilities, and we cannot complete some tasks because we need to load stamps.com and print mass amounts of postage. However in order to load anything on the computer you need an administrative password that NOBODY in the company can seem to give us. It’s getting ridiculous and quite frustrating.

I have also become a fulfillment expert. Entering data, packing 500 items, and shipping them is no easy task.