First day on the job- Vera Wang

         Interning for Vera Wang has been an interesting experience from me in both obtaining the internship and now actually working for them. Because I am originally from a suburb in Chicago, taking a train to work was a foreign concept to me. On my first day I left early guessing I was going to get lost on the way there. After finally figuring out the route, I made it to the store with time to spare. I walked in the store in a business dress and heels. This is what the Human Resources woman told me was the dress code. After being in the store for two seconds I realized this was not the case, but I figured better to be over dressed than under dressed. For my first day I spent it getting aquatinted with the merchandise and learning all the information about the store. They showed me the back stock room and where to find all the extra clothing and sizes when customers were in need of another size. I quickly caught onto this because of my previous retail experience.

         After getting to know the store a little more the manager started to have me go to the back stock room to get different sizes. All though it was a challenge learning where each item was placed in the back stock room, I learned to get the hang of it and made progress throughout the day.. Although it was tough starting an internship in a state I wasn't familiar with, I have began to be more open to new experiences.

Lauren Pettersen

  

Changing Perspectives

In February, when I applied to HSI, I was not really sure of what I should expect from this internship. I originally applied with the mindset of wanting to work on shoots and to constantly be on set. I had the naive idea that all I wanted to do was to work on set and that everything else was subsequent to that process. Fortunately, while this internship has given me opportunities for working paid shoots, the majority is learning the pre-production and wrap processes. This focus is far more beneficiary for my goals because although it takes creative talent to direct commercials and music videos, it does also require the ability to navigate and maneuver through the various stages of production. Just this past week I worked as a PA on a commercial shoot and had made friends with the coordinator who there after got me another gig as an office PA, helping the crew wrap everything up. In my initial mindset I thought that the first half, working on set, was all that I wanted. As it turns out, I'm grateful to learn and help in all corners of the production to see how these various components come together to create something.

Week 4: Changing Perspectives at Phase One Network

Originally when I applied for an internship in the music industry and eventually when I started at Phase One Network, I wasn't totally sure what to expect, regarding the culture and atmosphere of the company. Initially, I thought the company would be very fast paced and hectic, where all the employees wore fancy clothing; however, none of this seemed to be the case. The company is very laid-back and all the employees have a strong social relationship. In staff meetings everyone feels comfortable speaking their mind and promoting new ideas they may have, and everyone seems to listen. I've realized that this type of environment seems more lending to success opposed to an uptight community where employees are too competitive and fear their higher-ups. Also, at most companies people work the classic 9-5 hours or something along those lines; but at Phase One Network, I was told to come in between 11:30-12:30 and stay until 6-7. At first I thought this was a bit strange, and assumed only my boss showed up at these times, but I noticed everyone who works here arrives and stays until those times. Personally, I was thrilled that I could sleep latter than usual. I'm not completly sure why the company chooses to open at such a late time, but I assume it allows all the workers to get a lot of sleep each night and therefore everyone at work is complelty focused on the task at hand rather than dozing off due to lack of sleep.

Week 3: Overcoming Obstacles at Phase One Network

This summer I have been mainly focusing on A & R and discovering new producers/DJ's for my company to possibly work with and sign. If I find an artist that showed some potential, I would let my boss know. If he enjoyed their sound as well, he would reach out to them with an offer. My boss recently told me he has really liked the talent I had been discovering and explained that we both have a similar ear for music; do to this, my boss gave me the opportunity to try something new and gain a valuable experience: ingesting music into iTunes, Beatport, and RED. For those who don't know, Beatport is an online music store that mainly comprises of Electronic Dance Music as opposed to iTunes which is comprised of all genres and RED is Sony Music's distribution service. I was really excited about this opportunity because I always wondered how musicians uploaded their music into these outlets and now I was finally going to learn. Another employee gave me a sort of "music ingestion 101" class and explained to me how to actually upload the music to these sites. Eventually, my boss assigned me albums and songs to upload on my own and it has been a very valuable experience. 

Baseware Remote is the outlet Beatport uses

iTunes Producer is the outlet iTunes uses

RED is Sony Music's distribution service 

The Last Week at Cantor Fitzgerald

The Last Week at Cantor Fitzgerald- Victoria Dey

I can't believe my time at Cantor is coming to an end, it feels like yesterday that I was writing my first post about how nervous I was. This past week has been very busy; on Tuesday, we had our intern party at Lavo nightclub in the city. I had a lot of fun and got to meet the CEO, Howard Lutnick. He made a speech and really took the time to personally introduce himself to all of the interns, asking questions about how we liked the internship and about our personal lives. This was a really great setting to engage with the traders and just get to know them in a stress-free environment.

Howard Lutnick speaking at Lavo

 

This has also been the week where our groups present our final presentations. The first group went on Tuesday, going over their marketing structure proposal for Cantor. Our group went this morning where we explained our proposal for improving Cantors Account Management List (AMS). We made an excel sheet on our own terms of the underperforming accounts and made sure to point out how close the main Cantor office is to the office of the account. We proposed one way to fix this is to make sure the accounts office is assigned to the closest Cantor office so Cantors relationship with the client is very strong. Our main takeaway was that communication is key between all Cantor floors and offices.

                                                      Market Structure group presentation


Overall, my experience at Cantor has been great. I have learned so much over the past eight weeks and really made some great connections. Although I didn't know much about this field coming into the internship, I worked very hard and took the time to learn through the other traders, interns and assignments I was given. I hope I was able to make an impression because Cantor Fitzgerald really made an impact on my goals for the future.

Marketing Madness

Every intern at Atlantic Records gets to participate in a competition called "Marketing Madness". So far, It's been a really great learning experience overall. First, let me explain what marketing madness is: 

As I already mentioned, marketing madness is a company-wide competition between all the interns at Atlantic. The first week at our orientation we were all split into teams of about 7, each team contains one or two interns from each department. This way, we can all contribute what we are experiencing day to day and learn from the other members of our group. With our team, our job is to create a marketing plan surrounding a new Atlantic artist (We had to pick either, Francesco Yates or Kevin Gates, my group chose Francesco Yates). The marketing plan includes creating a budget, developing a tour and various ideas for how to advertise and promote the artist. The idea behind the competition is that we come up with new and intuitive ways to promote these new rising stars in ways that Atlantic may have not thought of before. At the end of the internship each group will present there marketing plans to various executives at Atlantic who will then choose a winner. 

Since the internship is coming to a close that means that we are starting wrap up our project. My group and I have been consistently meeting once or twice a week in order to fulfill all aspects of the project and I have to say I think we are doing a really great job, so far! It's been really great being able to learn about the other departments involved in developing artists besides just A&R. There is so much planning and hard work that goes into building a budget and creating different promotions that I would otherwise have no exposure to if not for this competition. Moreover, it's been great working with a team of hard working individuals who come from such different backgrounds... At U of M I usually find myself pairing up with friends or acquaintances that I've met in class, but here I'm working with interns from all over the country, studying everything ranging from art and design to music business. I've found it incredibly rewarding working with such driven and talented individuals.

The presentation is set for two weeks from now, so hopefully all goes well! I'll be sure to keep you updated!

Also, check out Francesco Yates his new song "Call" is great. 

Looking Back

Looking back at my high school experience, I realize that it did little to prepare me for real world scenarios. For most of my life, I attended a private, Catholic school that failed to expose me to different races or different world views. For the second half of high school, I attended a large public school, but still didn't get a taste of all there was to know. Finally, comes my first year at the University of Michigan. I have met more people of different ethnicity and cultures in the last year than I have my entire life. I'm finally taught and exposed to both sides of the argument, and I know how to interact with many different types of people.

When I started my internship, I was unaware of how lucky I was in high school to have dedicated teachers and staff. Now, I know that Detroit students aren't as lucky in their school system. Too many students don't graduate and those that do sometimes can't afford an education post high school. Now, in my internship I am using my liberal arts education to spread the word about this issue in Detroit, utilizing my writing in blog posts and through social media. 

The only thing I didn't expect to find through the internship was that I would be just as busy as I am during the school year. For one man that I interviewed for the company's blog, I had to meet him at 5 o'clock where he does his designing. I agreed, but after working 8-4 and then hopping on the expressway, ASAP, I knew approaching 5 that I would not be there in time. I felt horrible and I knew that running late was highly unprofessional, especially to someone doing me the favor of giving the interview.

Walking into the interview, not knowing how the man would react, I decided that I would do (or not do) two things:

1) I would not make excuses for why I was late (I was working, there was traffic, I needed gas, etc.)
2) I would not let this set the mood for the interview

So, I walked in and apologized and let him know how much I appreciated his taking the time to do the interview. When he said it was alright, I was relieved, and I thanked him for his patience. After that, the interview went smoothly sans traces of stress from running late. 

Now, I learned that I should plan out my days better, and always leave a little bit earlier :)

Changing perspective

When I started this internship I thought it would be, for lack of a better word, more glamorous. I thought that I would be campaigning like they do on tv. However, this was not the case. My internship has been nowhere near as dramatic as the campaigns you see on the news and tv shows. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but everything is on a much smaller scale since it is a local race. This is cool because it offers a learning experience in a much more controlled and easy to handle environment. Instead of national news debates, the candidate I am working with did a debate at the local news paper. I got to see an interview conducted at the local news television station. That was one of my favorite parts of the internship, it was so cool to see the taping and the reportor/candidate banter in real life!

I have learned to not allow my self to get too stressed out because everything generally will turn out ok. When I was working on making mailing lists I would find myself getting stressed that I wasn't finishing fast enough, but instead of stessing I put my energy into working on the lists and doing my best. I would finish on time without the unneeded stress.  I also was really stressed out about knocking on doors, but that turned out to be not that big of a deal. 

Overall Insight About My Experience with The Red Project

I only have two weeks remaining at my internship with The Red Project and I can honestly say it’s very bittersweet. Looking back I have learned so much from my experience there and it’s been awesome how many great people I have had the chance to meet and interact with. Things were not always easy, and in fact there were times I got very frustrated, but I stuck it out because this cause and these people are now apart of me.

There are many ways my education at U of M has prepared me for this internship but there are many ways it has not. Lets start with how it has. First of all, my biology background helped out quite a bit when I was going through my HIV Test Counselor training because I already had some prior knowledge about the biology of HIV. This also came in handy for when I did my research for my presentation on Hepatitis C because I already was familiar with a lot of the scientific terms involved with viruses. Another aspect of my U of M education that prepared me for this internship was being exposed to a diverse group of people. I’ve learned to listen about where others come from and become aware of the immense differences between people, but also be able to make many connections. To my surprise though, Grand Rapids is a much more diverse place than I initially realized and I’ve almost felt more exposed to diversity here in my own hometown compared to Ann Arbor. But because of my classes like IGR and a lot of the Women’s Studies classes I’ve taken, it’s helped me open my eyes to what I can learn from a diverse community and I’ve definitely taken advantage of that during my time at The Red Project.

What my education at U of M, has not taught me is what the real world holds, and in my opinion this is what a lot of college experiences lack. College is an awesome time of our lives filled with the ability to choose our own path, register for so many different kinds of classes and be involved in numerous extra curricular activities but what does all of that really mean? I am a TRUE believer that in order to learn about something, you must go out there and experience it yourself. I’ve learned more at my internship with The Red Project about HIV, Hepatitis C, overdose prevention and non-profits than I ever would have been able to in a classroom. That is why I think there is so much pressure for college students to get summer internships and go out and experience the field they want to go into before settling because it makes a world of difference. Almost anyone can sit in a classroom, memorize equations, read textbooks and do their homework, but it takes a dedicated, knowledgeable and experienced person to commit to a job in a certain field and stick with it.

A fellow co-worker and I modeling our matching "This is Red" t-shirt in front of the office.

Final Reflection

Reflecting on my time in New York City, I see three different internship experiences. The first of which I spent in the Pediatric Mood and Anxiety Disorders laboratory, studying with a post-doctoral neuroimaging student. This month-long experience informed and guided my academic interests, helping me better understand the world of research at medical institution. The laboratory environment was tough, competitive, but ultimately, cut-throat. Each grant was a battle and each publication was a shaky step forward. Getting your name on the publication was all that mattered and somehow the clinical focus had been lost. I was repulsed by the tension and frustration that was so present in the lab and quite surprised by the lack of collaboration. When the post-doctoral student announced her move to clinical trials, I couldn’t help but question my future. A career in clinical psychology would require me to invest a significant amount of my time in research. Would I be able to endure what she could not? Better question. How could I possibly know that now? Though I was unable to learn functional magnetic resonance imaging in this month, I learned a great deal about the logistics of conducting research.

After a month with this laboratory, I switched to work in the Pediatric Food Allergy and Immunology Lab. This experience allowed me to work in the Jaffe Food Allergy Clinic with the lab coordinator. Together, we spoke to families in the clinic and introduced a complimentary psychiatric adult and child screening. These assessments allowed us to develop a better understanding of the mental health issues that pervade the psychosocial environment. After each screening, I analyzed the results, spoke the families, and potentially introduced the idea of meeting with the psychiatrist to discuss strategies and tips to better manage anxiety. I shadowed the psychiatrist at each of these visits. Beyond the clinical aspect, I was able to pursue my own research in this laboratory. I was thrilled by the great mentorship the lab had. After reviewing the literature, I decided to examine the relationship between child autonomy and parental anxiety in the food allergic population. In doing so, I used retrospective analyses to assess the correlation. I gained experience in reviewing data, cleaning data, running analyses, and determining significance. After discussing my results with the director of the laboratory, I am currently working on writing an abstract to submit to an allergy conference. Moving forward, I will continue to collaborate with this lab and hope to attend psychological conferences with their team in the coming year.

Lastly, I spent most of my time at Mount Sinai working with a developmental pediatrician in her Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Follow-Up clinic. In this environment, I also worked with a social worker and occupational therapist. After studying the manual thoroughly, I developed the skills to administer developmental testing to her patients. For young patients, I spent my time observing her neurodevelopmental assessments. Beyond my time with her in the NICU Follow-Up clinic, I worked with her in the Seaver Autism Center. I shadowed her for each of her patient evaluations, and subsequently, reviewed her notes to formally write her evaluations. Working with children directly was my favorite part of my internship. I look forward to applying the skills I developed in my developmental research in the Infant Cognition Project this coming fall. 

My Team

Throughout the summer I have had the opportunity to interact with all the members of the eCommerce Digital Marketing team that I am interning with.  My team is in charge of handling all of the web content that is on the Order Express website that is used by pharmacies all over the United States and Puerto Rico to order inventory for their pharmacies.  Our team is broken down into 4 subgroups that all work together to make Order Express function.

The first group is the Client Services team.  This is the team that I am working with the most closely this summer.  This team works with our internal clients to help them publish content to the website that is relevant to our customers at the pharmacy.  We have weekly meetings to talk with the clients about what campaigns and promotions they will be running and relay that information to the Web Operations team.

The Web Operations team is in charge of publishing the content that the clients want to see on Order Express.  The help to write the codes and oversee the projects from an idea to publish on Order Express.  They work closely with the User Experience team to make sure that the content they are publishing is user friendly and will be relevant to the customer.

After the content is published and is live on the web, the Data Analytics team tracks the content and measures how many people see and click on different pages.  They can also help associate how much revenue is made by associating how many people click on different pages and their buying patterns.

My team has been great to work with this summer and I enjoy learning about different aspects of the Digital Marketing.      

Post #4 - Changing Perspectives at Elvis Duran and the Morning Show

When I first started my internship at Elvis Duran and the Morning Show I was honored to have the opportunity and was excited to be working in a fast paced environment with a lot of responsibility. Though I still feel this way, I have learned through my experience that sometimes you have to go above your outlined responsibilities in order to prove your worth as an employee. Prior to beginning this internship I figured that the work I was given would fill my hours spent at the station and that I would be given enough experience to allow me to become skilled at using the system. As it turns out though, there aren’t very many commercials and promotions to edit and since the two other interns that I work with in the production department are very skilled and have a lot more experience than I do, they typically take the reins on those projects. Some days I don’t do any editing at all!

Since the radio industry is a creative one though, a lot of the work we do in production is projects that we come up with on our own. I have used my extra time spent at the station to help brainstorm various projects we can create for our different social media websites. As I mentioned in my last post, Clear Channel Radio has a relationship with the social media site Keek and has asked the Elvis Duran show to get involved. I came up with several ideas for videos we could post to our Keek account that would also help to expand our other social media sites.

Working at such a well-known show has obvious advantages and resources that allow us to make our ideas come to life. It took me some time to figure this out, but it’s really exciting to finally see some of my thoughts being executed! For instance, I thought it would be funny to find some weird/mean/funny tweets and comments on social media sites directed towards the members of the show and have the mentioned person read it for a camera (similar to what Jimmy Kimmel does on his show). Ronnie, the production manager, loved this idea and sent out an e-mail to everyone who works on the show to see if they had read anything about themselves on social media that was either strange or rude. We got great feedback and have already produced a few videos and posted some to our Vine account, titling the segment “Weird Tweets”! We hope to combine a bunch of the footage we capture for our Keek account and the Elvis Duran website to eventually make for longer segments. The following are links to the Vines we have already produced!

Carla Marie: https://vine.co/v/M2QaZ7zMPe1

Greg T: https://vine.co/v/MEm5zqgQgKx

             

Changing Perspectives

Prior to my experience at Clarion Partners, I felt as though the office would be very high strung and uptight since I was working in fast-paced, downtown LA.  I believed that the work day would be grueling, as investment management is a very competitive industry, and stress would ensue.  I have found some of this to be true, but the workplace environment is definitely not all what I envisioned it to be.

While employees work very long hours and have a lot on their plate, I have not seen them get as worked up as I imagined them being.  They are constantly joking and having light banter, which I feel helps get their minds off of what is at hand.  I have learned that one’s time at the office does not always have to be work and that productivity and morale can be boosted by taking social breaks.  Many of my colleagues are in the office from 8 AM until 7 PM during the week and it simply isn’t plausible to work the entire time. 

Balancing work and social time can be difficult, but I have learned that it really is important to be happy and laid-back while you are in the office because it allows you to accomplish more.  The workplace is much different than college, in that it isn’t an option to simply miss it if you don’t feel up to going, so your attitude is pivotal to your sanity.  I look forward to my future in the corporate environment and I believe that my time at Clarion Partners has really prepared me for the transition.

Post #4 - Changing Perspectives at Katz Direct

As I mentioned in my first post on this internship, this is really my first experience in an office/cubicle environment. Through working at Katz I have learned a lot about working in a professional atmosphere and have gained a really meaningful experience that continues to develop and expand as the weeks pass on. Though there is always work to be done and people who need assistance, the work can get very monotonous. The data that needs to be entered is often very similar, only varying in the name of the commercial or the television station on which the commercial will air. The process can therefore get a bit repetitive. Similarly, the filing can get excessive and the information on the documents is usually just confirmation of the allocations.

With all that being said, I am still thankful to have this opportunity and networking experience. I have learned a lot of useful information about office computer programs such as Excel and DDS as well as information on advertisement placement. My co-workers have all been very friendly and extremely appreciative of my assistance. Though I was expecting more opportunities to learn about the television industry, I am grateful for the experience and knowledge that I have and will hopefully continue to gain through the rest of this internship.

My job has not altered much throughout the first half of this experience although I do feel as if I am entrusted with more responsibility with each passing week. While the majority of what I do involves entering data into the system, I am definitely learning more about how the DDS system works. Though at first I was just doing allocations, entering the title and phone number linked to the advertisement, I am now creating new contracts and making more intricate changes in the system. This increase in workload has minimized the downtime I have during the workday, which I appreciate greatly. Prior to this change, I would finish the little work that I was given very quickly and would therefore have a lot of unproductive time to myself. I appreciate this change of pace and am glad to be able to make the most of my time at this internship.

Learning Experience

Earlier this week my co intern, Spencer, and I got to have a personal meeting with the EVP and Head of A&R here at Atlantic Records. This was probably one of the most rewarding experiences I've had so far here. Being able to hear his story of how he made it to where he is now was quite inspirational. Not to mention how unbelievable it is that he has worked with so many well known artists and how he played a real part in their success (teaming them with certain producers/songwriters).

Naturally, since working here I've had a lot of questions about the industry and working with artists. A lot of them have been answered by doing my day to day work and asking supervisors in the office, although, talking to an executive was definitely the most informative.

There's no better way to learn than to ask questions and talk to those who have already experienced what you're currently going through.

- Andrew

RockShrimp Productions: The Final Week

It is so crazy to think that this is my final week here at RockShrimp Productions. It has been a long, trying 10 weeks, but boy have I learned a lot!

With the filming of "Beat Bobby Flay" firmly in the rear-view mirror, the office has gotten a lot quieter than it was at the beginning of my time here. There are very few people in the office now, but there is still much that I have learned on the marketing side of things here.

With this being a down-time on the production side of the company, it has almost been compensated with putting a further emphasis on the marketing and recruiting side of the business to ensure future growth and success of the company. The head of marketing here, Shai, has allowed me to shadow her, and I was even able to sit in on a meeting with a new TV show on the Food Network that would like to use the production abilities here at Rock Shrimp.

While many of the newer clients RockShrimp has been receiving have come as a result of an increase in social media activity, primarily LinkedIn, the Food Network is familiar with the company because of their on-going relationship via Bobby Flay.

It has been a very great time here, I have met a bunch of great people, and I have learned a great deal. Thank you!

Week 5: Learning from mistakes

This week was a very successful based on the fact that our external user testing in New York City led to valuable feedback. On Tuesday morning, the team met at a small coffee shop near our meeting location to prepare for the days user tests. Although we were anxious and nervous of how the day would turn out, we were very much excited to be out there to show our work. We met with several professionals in various fields to show them our application and to learn more about their experiences that led to their careers. It was a wonderful opportunity to gain feedback and to learn more about their lives and the companies they worked for. I learned and took away a lot from the conversations we all had. However, the one lesson I learned that stuck the most was career paths and college education do not necessarily align. Our education can lead us down one field but it does not mean it will simply stop there. Once we are finally out in the working world, the only thing that can stop ourselves from trying new things is ourselves. I realized I should never say no to an opportunity to learn new things. It can only lead me to something better out there that I originally could never reach if I do not try.

(NYC SalesForce Meeting Room)

Also, from the very beginning of the internship, my employers emphasized the concept of being bold and not to be afraid of making mistakes. During this past week, my co-worker and I were assigned the task to contact more individuals for our external testing. For this process, we went through the LinkedIn connections of our employer and compiled a list of professional who we believed are related to our cause and could provide beneficial feedback. We drafted several outlines of emails and sent them out through LinkedIn or Gmail. However, we recently discovered from our employer that we had phrased a few words incorrectly for our population as well as not considering the legal aspects of our requests. It was a grave mistake that we had committed. Luckily, our employer was not mad but emphasized this was part of the making mistakes process and now we had to learn from it. I am extremely grateful and blessed to have this type of understanding and mentoring employer to shadow and learn from. I realize now I should always reconfirm with my employer before showing anything to public eyes as well as considering the perspective of those we are communicating with. This has been an incredible learning process and I can not wait to see what else I learn with these few remaining weeks. Hopefully, I do not make any more mistakes. If I do though, I will sure to learn from them and make sure not to commit the same thing again.

Looking Back

It's crazy to think that my summer internship is already coming to an end! The time flew by, and as excited as I am to go back home and then back to school, I really will miss the internship. I had an amazing experience and really think I learned things that will help me in future jobs. But most importantly, I learned how to work. This was my first real job since I've always been a camp counselor in the past, so I didn't really know what to expect. I've never experienced working in  any sort of office-setting, so this has left me a great first impression. I respect the people that I worked with and know that they are the ones who really taught me how to be a diligent worker. They were role models for me all summer. I looked to them for everything, including their work ethics, and followed as best as I could. If they would have been sitting around checking their phones all day, I would have done the same thing. But their hardworking attitudes and determination to complete each task to the best of their ability motivated me to perform in a similar manner. Throughout the summer I have be thinking of things I learned in class at my office. Once they even mentioned "beat reporters," which I remembered was on one of my midterm exams last semester. However, it is not just my schoolwork that was reflected in my internship; my internship will be reflected in my schoolwork. I will be able to take things I learned this summer and apply them to my classes, making the experience extremely beneficial.

CEO for the Day!

I really got to see how all of the departments come together during the Wish-A-Mile Bicycle Tour and Heroes Hurrah, the finish line celebration for the tour. Communications has to make sure there is proper signage, the volunteer coordinators manage all of the volunteers, the wish department takes care of the wish families, and so on. With all of the departments in action at Heroes Hurrah, I was able to see areas that I think could be improved upon.

If I was CEO for the day, the first thing I would do is sit down with the communications team to improve their signage. All of the signs at Heroes Hurrah looked great but they weren’t always very informative. For example, many people were confused about where to park and where to go after they parked. As a result, we had to use some volunteers to direct people even though we really needed them to be doing other things. This could’ve been avoided if we had better signs. There should’ve been arrows on the signs or even arrows spray painted on the cement to direct people where to go.

The next thing I would do if I was CEO for the day, is suggest to the Volunteer Coordinators that each staff member has the opportunity to meet their volunteers off-site before the day of the event. Staff members had a very hard time keeping track of their volunteers the day of the event because they often blended into the crowd. This could also be avoided if volunteers were given brighter shirts that would stand out more. I also noticed a lot of volunteers standing around doing nothing throughout the event while staff members were scrambling around. As CEO, I would make sure that volunteers had clear instructions on what they should be doing and who to go to if they needed something to do.

Make-A-Wish also has some weird volunteer restrictions. For example, you have to be 21 to be a wish-granting volunteer or to ride in a support van for the Wish-A-Mile Bike Tour. As CEO I would change this to 18 years old so that more people could experience the awesome-ness that is Make-A-Wish.