Things are just chugging along

Really nothing exciting to note in the past week or so but there are a couple of points of interest worth noting.

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to sit in on client pitch for some web banners we had done. These were in no way glamorous at all — just your standard web banners, but it was exciting and new to sit in and see how it all works. I had been under the impression that you go into these meetings with a few options to give the client and you talk about them and how they meet the objectives of the brief followed by your recommendation. While that is how it goes down, what I found interesting (and I am sure this varies based on project and based on client) but the pitch was more or less done via ad-lib. In other words, most of the dialogue coming from our end of the phone was based on reading how the client reacted to certain pieces — the ones they react favorably to more or less became our "recommend."

I would imagine that for higher profile pieces that you are willing to fight very hard to have your recommend the final choice, but when dealing with this kind of work, it is best to just let the client make the call. Just tryin' to pay the bills in this case.

A couple of days ago, about a third of the interns got together to discuss feelings towards the internship program with a HR representative. I gathered some interesting tidbits from my peers regarding the program but really, it is hard to objectively make comparisons as only two of the six people there are in the same line of work I am. But I have been, overall, very happy with my experience here. I have learned a lot about myself as well as some intimate knowledge into how agencies run which has been encouraging as it has helped solidify my belief that this is in fact what I want to be doing.

I only have a couple of gripes concerning my time here...things I think could improve things for interns as well as the agency (granted they really have no expectations of their interns which they told us all up front.) For one, only a select few even noticed that there were created interns to assist with projects. I keep meeting employees and almost every time I get "Oh wow I didn't even realize we had interns right now." I don't expect the agency to shut down so that we can be introduced to those who may have contact with us, but some way of notifying people would be beneficial I would think.

Secondly, I would like to be "integrated" better with other creative teams. I posted early on how great it was on my second day to tag along with a creative and help concept...to see that dynamic firsthand was great. Then to go to all appropriate meetings regarding what we had done was also nice, but since day one, that interaction has been all but nonexistent. Now I don't blame anyone for this...for the most part everyone I have come in contact with has been very eager to help us and lend a hand, but at some point it gets to be too much to always be nagging other to involve us. Perhaps if they would just dedicate creative interns to a specific team or two that issue would not come up (and this is how interns in other disciplines have been integrated here.)

Like I said though, overall this has been a great experience so far. I think it really is up to me to seek out what I want to get out of this (like with a lot of things, of course "Outliers" puts some interesting perspective on what effect outside variables have on what happens to us) internship and if I try to involve myself more I now I can milk this place for all its worth.