Summary of Internship

Overall, I would say that this internship was very challenging but also very rewarding. I learned a lot about marketing and also a lot about the other parts of what makes a business successful. It really helped me understand why each subject in my degree is relevant. Sometimes it is hard to understand why we learn about accounting when our degree is marketing, but it really helps understand how to meet and make budgets, how to evaluate certain ratios, especially ROI of certain promotions. Again, since the internship pulled everything together, I feel I will know how and when you use certain theory behind what is actually being implemented. The only thing I could recommend to someone else taking this internship is to possibly do it in the summer and not during the school year if driving back and forth to Kansas City. Although it was very worth it and I enjoyed what I was doing, it became very expensive and took six hours (from driving) a week from other things I need to be doing.

Week 4 and 5

Halfway in to my internship has really presented some great opportunities and I am finally catching on to the lingo of the industry and KC Ballet specifically. I am finally remembering names, familiarizing myself with the MAC (almost to the point the I forget how to do things on my Gateway), and feeling like a part of the organization. Here is a look at what I have been up to in the last 2 weeks!

Week 4 (to be posted)

Week 5
Monday:

Wednesday: Today we started off with a staff meeting and a meeting with the box office crew to discuss routine and new events and information. Before lunch, I tackled several little tasks. I finished up the subscriber postcard I have been working on in InDesign, updated the Facebook and Twitter pages with a show review and reprinted some e-news for the archivist that is here this week. I learned how to post some media releases on to infozine.com and also posted the Kansas City Youth Ballet's upcoming performance to the KC Kid's Directory website. After lunch we met with the Ellen that does our media releases for lingo for the upcoming show and learned more about the shows that are coming in May which was very exciting!

Week 3

I only worked one day last week but it was a cool day. I started off with the Facebook and Twitter posts and continued until lunch on the Ballet Ball program I was working on. We had lunch at Union Station and discussed the upcoming promotion plan for when the new Bolender Center opens.

The rest of the day I worked on the program in InDesign which was nearly finished by the end of the day. Although InDesign is somewhat frustrating at times, I really love working with the program! I look forward to this coming week because I get to start new projects and overlook the executive of marketing while he plans budgets.

Feb 10, 2010

Today at my internship was great. I arrived about 30 minutes early and was able to sort through old email and get started immediately on my social media posts on Facebook and Twitter. Today's first post was
"Artistic Director William Whitener speaks with choreographer Robert Hill about his work, Piano Concerto #2, to be performed on Feb. 25-28 by Kansas City Ballet. Check it out on YouTube!"
and the second post was
"Check out this exciting Fox 4 special ‘Behind the Scenes’ of our upcoming winter show, Lambarena!"
two very exciting posts for the day. Also with social media, I created a Boilerplate line for the monthly e-news letter to incorporate Facebook and Twitter.

Also, I continued to work on the program for the Ballet Ball. I really love working in InDesign because it is new and challenging but also very fun and rewarding when I figure new things out about the program. I added backgrounds, played with text attributes and I think eventually the program will be very impressive.

Probably the most exciting thing I did today was deliver Lambarena materials to Union Station and Central Library downtown. I never realized how pretty the downtown of KC actually is. There are so many pretty historical buildings. Union Station is absolutely beautiful.

I LOVE THIS INTERNSHIP! :-)

February 8, 2010

Today I was able to create a post for Twitter and Facebook to encourage followers to purchase a ticket for the upcoming show as a gift for their "Sweetheart" for Valentines day.

I have been working on a project on InDesign which is to create a program for the upcoming Ballet Ball in March. InDesign has been a challenge but I am really picking up on it and really enjoy using the program. I really like my internship so far and always look forward to coming back. I think marketing may be the right area for me!

We also had a few meetings, and I am starting to pick up on what events are going on, what organizations host certain events and beginning to remember names! So far all is well and I look forward to going back on Wednesday!

2-3-10

My second day at the KC Ballet was just as fun and eventful as the first. I was able to make a couple social media posts - 2 on each Twitter and Facebook. Check them out at:

Twitter - kcballet
Facebook- Kansas City Ballet Fan Page


After the two media posts, I attended a meeting with the whole staff of the ballet. It was nice to get a clear picture of how the whole organization works as a whole and to see how each department relates to another and makes it understandable why we learn about departments that may not be directly related to us. I haven't really spoken out at meetings yet, so my goal is to become more accompanied and comfortable and be able to give input from my standpoint. I eventually feel I will get to this stage after I have been around for a few weeks.
After the meeting, I was able to watch the dancers rehearse with a special guest, Judith Fugate, to an upcoming performance as well as take pictures of this as well. I used this as my second post on FB & Twitter and they received a few good "likes" and posts.

After lunch, we met with the media person that writes press releases and decides what materials are sent out and discussed the winter marketing/PR plan. Some of the ideas were great and will be interesting to work on as well as see implemented.

At the end of the day I was able to create a poster for the upcoming Ballet Ball to hang for school parents to see and request to attend. Although it wasn't exactly planning of marketing, it was a small part of the promotion of an event.

Another great day and I look forward to a fabulous semester with them!

Internship - Day 1

Feb 1, 2010

So today was my first official day in the fabulous world of Marketing. As I said before I am working at the Kansas City Ballet.

When I first got the, I jumped right into Social Media - immediately updated Facebook (Kansas City Ballet Fan Page) and Twitter (kcballet), check them out if you would like! They were both posts about the upcoming season that the Kansas City Star released in its issue today. Also, I used another media site that helps shorten links to post to Twitter, since there are so few characters. It is found at http://bit.ly/ and is a very useful tool for Twitter. Also, there is a social networking site/tool called Tweetdeck that allows you to update posts to Twitter and Facebook from the same site. It is a useful tool, but also very annoying because every time any new post of any follower/followee is posted, it immediately pops up onto your desktop. I will experiment to see if I can make better use of it and reduce the popups.

I also had two meetings, that I had no idea what the people were talking about...one word - JARGON! They are very helpful at explaining what is going on, what the jargon they use means. It was interesting to sit in on my first "real" meeting, and seeing things that I have learned about actually being done and implemented.

I had a big project throughout the day, and it was a great challenge for me, especially since I have little familiarity with MacBooks. I was assigned to create an invitation to an upcoming event using InDesign (Adobe) which I had never used at all. I played around with the tools, and eventually figured out the basics. I was very proud of myself for figuring out the program with minimal help.

Overall, I couldn't ask for much more of a successful first day in the marketing world!!