<Theresa's Summer>

	How I spent my summer… Theresa Gould Communication, ‘05 MUSIC SOOTHES THE SOUL A blog detailing the down and dirties of my internship at 107.1 WA1A radio station. Thursday, January 20, 2005 The First So, this is my first blog for my internship. I started there on the 11th of January and have been busy-busy ever since. Since I arrived, I have participated in several POIs, which are known as point of influence marketing hits. We take one of the promotional vehicles to a specific ZIP code that is shown to be popular for that radio station, and try to register people for prizes and giveaways. I have also attended one remote event, which was a two-hour appearance at a business that paid the station to broadcast from their site. I attended one at the County Line for Pirate radio on a Friday night. I served as a point of contact for any fans and helped set up for the event. In addition to that, I have already created a few spreadsheets to log the POIs that the interns do throughout the week. Eric wants to get with me starting Monday to begin working on the recap for the Bridal Show. It will involve a detailed analysis of the event, to include numbers of people that attended, the different types of advertising used and which were the most effective, and some compilation of surveys and other data. It will all be organized into a presentation of sorts to be distributed to his boss as well as to all the vendors who participated, so they too may know the outcome of the event. Thursday, January 27, 2005 Work in Progress So far I have worked three days this week. I have been pretty busy, actually. Starting this week, I have been working mainly on this Bridal Show Recap. I have made about 18 pages, as of right now. It is going to be a pretty impressive report when it is done. It includes a lot of statistics about the advertising they did, as well as copies of all the ads, banners and articles. I also chose to include blank copies of all their satisfaction surveys. I still have to write the introduction page, design the cover page and scan a few more things. Eric said that he showed it to someone above him, and he said the guy was very impressed with it. So, I'm tracking on that one. Learning a lot about the power of radio, let me tell you. I will probably spend tomorrow finishing that up, which means I will have met my deadline of one week. I am scheduled to go on a remote with Dana on Saturday from 2-4 p.m. at Nissan of Melbourne. Basically, I have to go and help set up, and we just hang out, register people for the Super Bowl tickets and serve as a promotional agent for the station and the jockey who is there. Should be fun, although I've heard that not too many people come to the car remotes. That's all for now. Other than that, Eric said I am a stud. After my first few days, he made me head intern. He even said if I keep going, he fully intends to offer me a job once I graduate. Yea! Wednesday, February 02, 2005 Finished! Sort of… Today Eric and I began wrapping up the bridal recap project we've been working on. We made some final changes to it, then printed out almost 40 copies. We put them in nice presentation binders, included a renewal form and a cover letter, and we are going to send them to all the vendors who participated in the show. I got the first copy, hot off the presses, to add to my portfolio. I guess I will be helping him give a presentation to his boss Dan, the general manager. Not sure when that will be or what it will entail, but shouldn't be too bad. Also, reworked some of the POI folders and what-not. Eric decided he wanted to track hours on POIs rather than the actual number of POIs done. So I just put an info sheet inside each one of the binders. Also, entered some remote information into PromoSuite all by myself today! I remembered how to do it and everything! (Dana wasn't there to help me, so I was a little nervous that I might mess it up.) Have my own desk now. Makes me feel needed. Eric again mentioned that he wants to offer me a job once I graduate. He was asking me who I have sent my resume to … think he either (1) wants to know what other companies I am considering so he can bash them, or (2) wants to make sure I get myself out there. (Think he believes in me!) Can't do any remotes this weekend since the only ones are on Saturday when I have drill. Tuesday, February 08, 2005 Long One So, I finally finished up that bridal show stuff. On Friday, I packed all 40 or so of those booklets into envelopes, addressed them to all the vendors who participated in the show, used the automatic mail machine to enter the postage on each one and then sent them packing. Sounds like an everyday routine, but not at a radio station. It was really complicated. Had to go buy envelopes...then bought the wrong size and had to go back. Then had to write out all the addresses, track down Eric to figure out who was a prime sponsor vs. a title sponsor vs. a corporate sponsor, and then deal with the nightmare of a postage machine. I was glad to have them out of my life forever. On Monday, I began to re-evaluate the POI system we have in place now. I guess before Eric became the promotions director (only like three months ago), they never really did POIs and never did them correctly when they did. So, we are going through a major trial-and-error cycle, trying to figure out what is the most important and effective. I developed a schedule for all the other interns to go to certain ZIP codes on certain days. I am also revamping the logging system, so that it focuses more on the goals of 132 hits a week. Tomorrow I am going to set up a reward system for the interns. I am going to assign them a certain number of POIs a week, and if they complete all of the POIs they were assigned, then Eric will reward them with movie passes or something like that. Going to use a sales, goal-type approach to the whole thing, so they really understand what they are responsible for. Also, voiced my second commercial today. Talked with Bob (the production guy) about commercials and software and what-have-you. So, if you happen to hear a commercial for a Dr. Castellano, laser surgery doctor, then I am the girl who is being told about the procedures. A+ for my acting abilities! Well, that's all for today. Thursday, February 17, 2005 The future's so bright....I gotta wear shades! So, the last three days have been all about major overhaul. Eric was on my butt everyday about the POIs, and how we are not reaching our "goal." So, I finally just told him that what he was dong wasn't working, wasn't going to work and he was going to lose his interns. I told him they were unhappy. You see, I am the only intern who gets to do the things I have been writing about. Mainly, because Eric thinks I am the most high-speed one there. I always do what he asks, when he asks and I know how to do most of it on my own. But everyone else is stuck doing POIs the whole time because corporate said that we needed 132 hits a week and that was all the interns were supposed to do. I told him we needed a better rewards program, and they need to be responsible for fewer hits each day so they have time to come back and do production or studio work or whatever they are interested in. So, we had a big meeting to address the problem. He called his boss, who is the one responsible for coming up with the guidelines for the program, to find out what we could do. Turns out we had solved most of it ourselves. A month ago, we were doing 0 POIs, so she said that since we are doing an average of 60 now, we are way ahead of schedule. Our real 100% goal is only actually 100 hits! And we only need to be doing 50% right now, technically. So, she said reward them, have curriculum ready for the days that they want to do something else, etc... So, we solved our own problem without even realizing it. So, I am organizing a meeting this Sunday for all the interns, so I can brief them all on how the program is going to run as well as fix some little problems with their paperwork skills. I guess I just felt like if I was one of them, and did nothing but POIs, I would hate it. I would rather take finals than just do that all day. So, I had to look out for my guys. Hopefully now we can concentrate on some other things. Other than that, Dana and I did a few POIs ourselves the other day. Yesterday we organized and inventoried the prize closet. It was kind of boring, but we need to figure out a way to lose less inventory to sales people with grubby fingers. That's all for this week so far. Wednesday, February 23, 2005 This is way cool! I am posting from work today since my computer is fried, and I can't really do much else right now. Water is not good when it's on your keyboard. Anyway, I think the majority of the interns have relatively good communication skills. Several of them are great on air, and are having a lot of fun interacting with the DJs. The one thing I have noticed, however, is their lack of pride in their work. I can't imagine coming to work and not doing the very best I could. It's weird because sometimes I feel like I have more experience in certain things then even some of the older people here, but I suppose I do have a very good college education. I never thought I was experienced or had any special skills that everyone else didn't already have, but since working here that assumption has changed somewhat. I feel valuable and smart. Crazy, isn't it? I also learned some really cool stuff yesterday. Adam asked me to design a CD cover for a compilation of sob stories from the Hitkicker morning show. I felt a little overwhelmed, as I haven't used Photoshop that much in a long time—since my layout and design class, I think. He ended up showing me a bunch of new tricks in Photoshop, and the end result was great. Then we used this thing called a stomper that centered the CD labels he created on the CDs almost perfectly. The whole package looks really amazing. They almost look like real CDs. I guess he said they have machines that actual print on the CDs themselves, like screen printing, so it's a little bit different. I think they are going to be selling them to listeners or something like that. It really made me feel like I work at a radio station. I guess I would say my biggest challenge to date has been those kinds of things. I like being creative and designing things, but since I haven't been here that long, I am afraid that my work won't be good enough or impressive enough for them. The bridal recap was the most overwhelming project, but the hardest part was trying to make it the way that both Eric and I wanted it. I would come up with things that maybe he didn't want, and since it was his project, I would want him to be happy. So, I am just trying to adjust to that. All for now...it's lunch time. Friday, March 04, 2005 The bad news... Totally has been eventful so far. We found out this morning that our boss, is being sent to Afghanistan and will be leaving for training on March 28. This throws everything into a spin. Now we no longer have a department head. It is only Adam, Dana and I here now. We have to try to run the whole place on our own. Will be interesting. He said he’ll be gone for 18 months, so it'll be a long time before he comes back. So, our big car show event that was supposed to happen in April is cancelled. We are in the beginning phases of planning a food festival, called A Taste of the Space Coast, set to go off in May. Eric figured we would just cancel that one too, but Dana and I really want to do it. Or at least see if we can do it on our own. So, Eric went over some stuff with us, and said he will draft up an initial proposal for the restaurants we end up choosing. So, this is officially our baby. Not 100% sure that we will go through with it, but we would really like too. Also, since Eric is leaving and they have more money now and need someone to help out in this department, they have pretty much officially offered me a job here once I graduate. Whether or not it is full time, I am not sure yet, but I would like to stay on at least until I go to OBC sometime in the summer. After that, I am probably headed to Afghanistan myself. So, I think Adam is going to head up the department while Eric is gone. He is about my age, but has been here forever and has a really good handle on what needs to be done around here. I am about to go on Spring Break, so will be signing off for about a week. I have scheduled all the POIs for the next week, and hopefully everything will go as planned. Tomorrow I am helping out with the Strawberry Festival pretty much all day. Not sure what I will do besides stand there and look cute in my new Cumulus Promotions polo shirt, but someone's got to do it. By the way, the intern recruitment event we had at Florida Tech last week was pretty successful. We got about 4-5 people that seemed interested. One of them is a sophomore comm. major in ROTC with me. Another one is a grad comm. student. We are planning to go out to BCC, UCF and some other schools in the future. Hopefully, we get some quality interns to help out over the summer and next year. Sunday, March 20, 2005 I'm Alive Whew, this week has been totally hectic. All this week, Eric has been trying to give me as much information and training as possible. I think this week was his last full week, so it's just us from here on out. He told me my new official title at the station is public relations/media coordinator. I am going to continue on with heading up the internship program, and then also be responsible for all of the media coverage of the station. This week I wrote three different commercials, and Eric walked me through the process of getting trade agreements and schedules approved. Basically, we ask a magazine to trade some of our airtime in exchange for placing one of our ads in their publication. So, we do a trade agreement, saying what each party is responsible for. He showed me who signs it and who it gets faxed to. Then we meet with the customer and try to absorb as much information about their business as possible so we can then write a really effective commercial. I did that with Meredith's Bridal and Formalwear. I met with the guy, Steve, and he told me all about his company and I explained the whole process to him. I was kind of surprised at how much I actually knew. Then Dana and I came back and wrote a commercial for him, which we then handed over to Bob to get produced. I still want to spend a day with Bob and have him show me exactly what he does to produce a spot. I saw a little of it when I voiced a spot for him, but still so much to learn. Then we went into a program called Maximiser, which keeps track of all of the demographic data about the station, and tried to create a schedule. We played around with using different amounts of money on different stations at different times during the day to see which combination would give us the best reach and frequency (reach: the total # of people who come in contact with your commercial; frequency: the total # of times a person comes in contact with the commercial). Then that has to be signed by Dan (our GM) and the company. Then it gets put on the air and all is finished. I am supposed to meet with someone from Channel 6 and the Florida Today next week so Eric can introduce me and tell them I will be taking over the relationship while he is gone. I'm a little nervous, but it's all a learning process. Well, that's all for now. Sure I will have tons more to update with next week. Tuesday, March 22, 2005 Me Thought I would post my official job description. PUBLIC RELATIONS / MEDIA COORDINATOR JOB RESPONSIBILITIES: Coordinate all newspaper publications/ads for station advertisements and promotions. Contact representatives from newspapers to ensure stations have presence in the publications. Develop relationships with other media personnel (Television, Newspaper, Magazines) in order to get a presence and coverage on any events, community service project or news worthy information. Work on all trade agreements with trade accounts ensuring they utilize the trade amounts by the end of the contract agreement. If not utilized, extend trade agreements for them to finish out trade. Turn in all production and copy for trade accounts or any ads running for Marketing Department. You may need to write copy yourself. Continue developing internship program, by exposing student’s first hand on the value in interning with Cumulus Broadcasting. Hold events on college campuses and high schools so students are more aware of our presence in the Market. Coordinate POI program by organizing and training interns and setting the geographical areas of interest i.e. (Hot Zips). This is something Eric and I came up with together, although he actually typed it, so don't blame me for any grammar misusages. Honestly, I am a little nervous...I have a lot of responsibility, and none of this has been done before. I feel like there is a lot riding on me, this lowly little intern. Although Eric says if I screw up, no one will really know. But I'll know. I am afraid I will mess it up...so many legalities and deadlines and on and on... Anyways, just thought I would share my insecurities with the blog world. Monday, March 28, 2005 Midterm Eval. Underway Well, seeing as how Eric is already gone, I e-mailed him and asked him to send me an evaluation of my performance. He left on Friday, so we are officially on our own now. Feel like a duck out of water, but I am sure I will get my footing. As far as I know, I will be hired full time once I graduate. But I am fulfilling the duties of my job now, without being paid. So, technically I am still an intern, but not really. I am a free employee I guess. However, I am scheduled to go to AT for National Guard May 14–28, and then to NYC May 29–June 1, so I may not actually start working until June. Then I am here in Melbourne until September 25 when I leave for OBC for the Guard. I still plan on putting in resumes at any jobs I find, though. In fact, Zach and I are planning on putting together some videos for MTV. He wants to be on the Real World and I am begging for a job (they are like my big fish). We plan on getting together in mid-April and filming some stuff. Then I am going to help him compile it into a video using Adobe Premiere. I think my video is going to be a video resume, spoofing Diary. If you've ever seen on MTV, the Diary of So-and-So...I am going to do a mock version of that as my resume. Zach said his cousin did an internship there last year, so he has the name of a guy we can send our videos to (avoiding the HR department, like I learned in Prof Comm.). Speaking of videos. I made the video for our Military Ball this year … it ended up coming out pretty well. I was able to burn it onto a DVD, as I tried to download the program Amanda recommended to me, but it wouldn’t work in time. Might still mess with it. But the video is cool … it's 10:33 long and is like a whole mission … From planning to preparing to executing. Some swear words in the music almost got me in trouble though … oops. Tuesday, March 29, 2005 Getting into the groove... Did a lot today … I got in touch with the publishers of several of the publications we are trading ads with to try to figure out when we want to run their commercials and what ads of ours to run. I am trying to pick up where Eric left off, which is kind of challenging because he didn't really leave me a lot of information. I have had to be a sort of detective to figure out who I need to contact and what ads (sizes, colors, etc) we have been running and plan to run. I think things will actually run a lot more smoothly now that Eric is gone and I have more control over this section of the department. He was a sort of procrastinator and would come to us the day a commercial was set to air and be like, “I need the trade agreement, fax this, fax that, get this signed, write a commercial, get it produced and approved” … all in one day. So, then we were late with commercials and last minute with ads. I think it made us look bad, so I want things to be different. Thursday, March 31, 2005 Few Forgottens I forgot to mention what fun stuff I've been doing. The other day I spent a lot of time creating 160 gift bags for anyone who enters the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Charity Golf Tournament that Hitkicker is sponsoring. That took me quite a while, but it was fun. Also, voiced another commercial. While I was up there, Bob walked me through finishing up a commercial that I had written. He had Adam and Kevin voice it, then show me how he added the tracks together (it's just like with movie tracks) and added background music and everything. He uses Adobe Audition, which seems pretty easy. Still want to spend a little more time watching him from start to finish. Spent a bit of time working on the final project. Have two identical binders going. Am sure they'll turn out nice. Still haven't had a chance to go and sit in the studio with one of the jocks. The one jock that I was going to go with, Carlos Morales, left for Louisville, Kentucky recently. But Timmy Vee seems to like me, so may try to get in with him, or Kelly, who is usually on when I am there. We'll see. No work till Monday … going to be out in the field with ROTC. Wednesday, April 06, 2005 Oh yeah... Even though I am planning on starting here in June, I am still keeping my eyes open for any good jobs, perhaps for after I return from OBC in January. I want something media-related...fashion, music, TV, production assistant maybe, something, anything along those lines. So, if you happen to know of a place or hear of a job, feel free to let me know. ::sneeze:: So, unfortunately, I have been out in the woods and out sick since Thursday. Still feel icky, but what can you do. So, I am moving right along with my final report/presentation. It doesn't look like I am going to be able to do that video, however, since I reviewed my footage the other day and it's not really enough to make an exciting video. I wish I had more time to film some more, but I have too much work to do both in and out of this internship. Even so, the binders look nice. I still need to write the actual report, but that shouldn't take me very long. Then it is just a little presentation and I am all done. Have been working on these trade negotiations the last few times I've been in. One of the publications, Space Coast Chronicle, doesn't want to write their own spots. It wouldn't be such a hassle if they just wanted us to advertise their magazine, but they have all these weird PSA-like stories they want us to promote on air. So, last time I wrote a spot about colon cancer and sexual abuse in children. This time around it was about the school shootings at Columbine and helping Miss Florida win Miss USA. And the copy points they give us are these cheesy, almost church sermon-like excerpts from their magazine. Makes my job tough. I am going to be at County Line this Friday night from 8–10 p.m. setting up a remote for Pirate. It will be my first remote on my own, so I am a little nervous. Thankfully, I don't have to set up any tents or bring any prizes or anything, just have to banner the place once I get there. I am also doing an A1A remote with Dana from 2–4 p.m. on Saturday, so I can have one more big remote to practice on before I go out by myself. We are going to be with Timmy Vee, so I may get a chance to do more on-air stuff, but who knows. I had a bit part the last time I worked with him, but the jockey dropped the mic when she sent it over to him, so it was never recorded. It's pretty neat. They have a system here that automatically records anytime the mic is turned on in the studio. I think other companies use it, but I'm not sure. I always wondered. So, maybe I'll have some other voice stuff to add to my portfolio, along with the three commercials I have written and the other two I voiced. Monday, April 18, 2005 Woops... Sorry, things have been particularly hectic … both inside and outside the internship. So, mostly I have been trying to straighten out this trade issue. I have been going back and forth with this guy from the Space Coast Chronicle for over a week now. Basically, I wrote him a script, he changed it, wanted me to write another script, so I wrote the other script, he approved both scripts, sent me the schedule, I made the schedules, got them signed by Dan, got them signed by Rosa, faxed them to him, then... I get an irate and kind of rude phone call from him, he wants to know why I think he would want to run his commercials the last week of the month. I'm thinking, heck, I dunno, it's your magazine. Astounded, I reply, because you said you wanted all the spots run by the 24th of April...he says, Yeah, DONE running. I was like, oh ok, well send me the schedules back and I'll just adjust the dates. Like he was all mad, saying how we have messed up his schedules two months in a row, and blah blah blah. I was like, I don't know what Eric did, that's why all of this has been a mess, because he didn't leave me anything. Plus, this dude isn't even paying us, so my bosses could care less about what he wants. In the end, we sort of resolved it, but I really have no interest in dealing with him. THEN he has the nerve to take until Friday at lunchtime to send me the schedules back, so at this point, traffic tells me that it's too late for the spots to start running on Sunday. I was like, whenever they can start, that's fine, I don't care. It's his own fault for taking so long. So, that's been my life for the last week. Oh, and I made a video recap for Adam. It was for the OJ Big Game Get-a-Way event we had in January. Basically, we gave away a trip to the Super Bowl on a yacht, and had to do a recap of how we did it. Adam had already put the pictures from A1A in, so all I had to do was the Pirate portion. We even added audio tracks of the winner calling in. It was pretty cool … will try to get a copy of that today. I participated in another Pirate remote on Friday. They had me help set up and they pulled me on stage when they announced the band (which was a really famous Motley Crue tribute band that really did sound like them) and had me throw prizes and such to the audience. The band was a little weird though—one of them, dressed like someone from Kiss, decided to kiss me on the forehead … yeah, I was a little weirded out. Not sure what's left for me for the remainder of my internship. May spend a little time with the Pirate guys, who seem to have opened up to me now that Eric is gone, and watch them in the studio. Oh yeah, and I think we have to do inventory again. Ugh. Wednesday, April 20, 2005 ::tear:: Well, I guess this may very well be my last post. Sitting at work today, I come to the realization that this is the official end of my internship. I'm no longer "Theresa, the hot intern." I feel almost saddened since it means a separation from my one source of sanity … my outlet when I wanted to bash the heads of publishers or strangle interns. This is the end of my blog. I know, it's tragic, please try to dry your tears. I know everyone out there who reads this will miss my bi-weekly reports. I know it will be difficult to carry on without my constant updates from the Cumulus promotions department, detailing the status of the Space Coast Chronicle. Anyways, the last few days I have been trying to wrap things up here. I have been working on my project and presentation a lot. Did that pesky inventory on Monday … it wasn't too bad. Also, since I will not be working here for the entire month of May, I am trying to get all these accounts to a point where they can hopefully sustain themselves until I return. I sent new black and white ads to the TGIF section of the Florida Today. These are different than our usual ads since they are advertising our book promotions for each station. Also, am trying to get May's spots and schedules done early, so Adam doesn't have to deal with it, and he won't throw a fit this time. And the same goes for a few others. Hopefully, everything will run smoothly in my absence. Have a meeting with Dan, the general manager, on Tuesday to discuss my job. I guess they even hired Kevin, the UCF marketing intern, but only for part time. I don't think he wanted to be here full time though. Well, I suppose that's it for me. It's been real, it's been fun … now leave me alone! (kidding)

Theresa

Theresa 2

Theresa 3

How I spent my summer…

Theresa Gould

Communication, ‘05

MUSIC SOOTHES THE SOUL

A blog detailing the down and dirties of my internship at 107.1 WA1A radio station.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

The First

So, this is my first blog for my internship. I started there on the 11th of January and have been busy-busy ever since.

Since I arrived, I have participated in several POIs, which are known as point of influence marketing hits. We take one of the promotional vehicles to a specific ZIP code that is shown to be popular for that radio station, and try to register people for prizes and giveaways. I have also attended one remote event, which was a two-hour appearance at a business that paid the station to broadcast from their site. I attended one at the County Line for Pirate radio on a Friday night. I served as a point of contact for any fans and helped set up for the event.

In addition to that, I have already created a few spreadsheets to log the POIs that the interns do throughout the week. Eric wants to get with me starting Monday to begin working on the recap for the Bridal Show. It will involve a detailed analysis of the event, to include numbers of people that attended, the different types of advertising used and which were the most effective, and some compilation of surveys and other data. It will all be organized into a presentation of sorts to be distributed to his boss as well as to all the vendors who participated, so they too may know the outcome of the event.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Work in Progress

So far I have worked three days this week. I have been pretty busy, actually.

Starting this week, I have been working mainly on this Bridal Show Recap. I have made about 18 pages, as of right now. It is going to be a pretty impressive report when it is done. It includes a lot of statistics about the advertising they did, as well as copies of all the ads, banners and articles. I also chose to include blank copies of all their satisfaction surveys. I still have to write the introduction page, design the cover page and scan a few more things. Eric said that he showed it to someone above him, and he said the guy was very impressed with it. So, I'm tracking on that one. Learning a lot about the power of radio, let me tell you. I will probably spend tomorrow finishing that up, which means I will have met my deadline of one week. I am scheduled to go on a remote with Dana on Saturday from 2-4 p.m. at Nissan of Melbourne. Basically, I have to go and help set up, and we just hang out, register people for the Super Bowl tickets and serve as a promotional agent for the station and the jockey who is there. Should be fun, although I've heard that not too many people come to the car remotes.

That's all for now.

Other than that, Eric said I am a stud. After my first few days, he made me head intern. He even said if I keep going, he fully intends to offer me a job once I graduate. Yea!

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Finished! Sort of…

Today Eric and I began wrapping up the bridal recap project we've been working on. We made some final changes to it, then printed out almost 40 copies. We put them in nice presentation binders, included a renewal form and a cover letter, and we are going to send them to all the vendors who participated in the show. I got the first copy, hot off the presses, to add to my portfolio. I guess I will be helping him give a presentation to his boss Dan, the general manager. Not sure when that will be or what it will entail, but shouldn't be too bad.

Also, reworked some of the POI folders and what-not. Eric decided he wanted to track hours on POIs rather than the actual number of POIs done. So I just put an info sheet inside each one of the binders.

Also, entered some remote information into PromoSuite all by myself today! I remembered how to do it and everything! (Dana wasn't there to help me, so I was a little nervous that I might mess it up.)

Have my own desk now. Makes me feel needed.

Eric again mentioned that he wants to offer me a job once I graduate. He was asking me who I have sent my resume to … think he either (1) wants to know what other companies I am considering so he can bash them, or (2) wants to make sure I get myself out there. (Think he believes in me!)

Can't do any remotes this weekend since the only ones are on Saturday when I have drill.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Long One

So, I finally finished up that bridal show stuff. On Friday, I packed all 40 or so of those booklets into envelopes, addressed them to all the vendors who participated in the show, used the automatic mail machine to enter the postage on each one and then sent them packing. Sounds like an everyday routine, but not at a radio station. It was really complicated. Had to go buy envelopes...then bought the wrong size and had to go back. Then had to write out all the addresses, track down Eric to figure out who was a prime sponsor vs. a title sponsor vs. a corporate sponsor, and then deal with the nightmare of a postage machine. I was glad to have them out of my life forever.

On Monday, I began to re-evaluate the POI system we have in place now. I guess before Eric became the promotions director (only like three months ago), they never really did POIs and never did them correctly when they did. So, we are going through a major trial-and-error cycle, trying to figure out what is the most important and effective. I developed a schedule for all the other interns to go to certain ZIP codes on certain days. I am also revamping the logging system, so that it focuses more on the goals of 132 hits a week. Tomorrow I am going to set up a reward system for the interns. I am going to assign them a certain number of POIs a week, and if they complete all of the POIs they were assigned, then Eric will reward them with movie passes or something like that. Going to use a sales, goal-type approach to the whole thing, so they really understand what they are responsible for.

Also, voiced my second commercial today. Talked with Bob (the production guy) about commercials and software and what-have-you. So, if you happen to hear a commercial for a Dr. Castellano, laser surgery doctor, then I am the girl who is being told about the procedures. A+ for my acting abilities!

Well, that's all for today.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

The future's so bright....I gotta wear shades!

So, the last three days have been all about major overhaul. Eric was on my butt everyday about the POIs, and how we are not reaching our "goal." So, I finally just told him that what he was dong wasn't working, wasn't going to work and he was going to lose his interns. I told him they were unhappy. You see, I am the only intern who gets to do the things I have been writing about. Mainly, because Eric thinks I am the most high-speed one there. I always do what he asks, when he asks and I know how to do most of it on my own. But everyone else is stuck doing POIs the whole time because corporate said that we needed 132 hits a week and that was all the interns were supposed to do.

I told him we needed a better rewards program, and they need to be responsible for fewer hits each day so they have time to come back and do production or studio work or whatever they are interested in. So, we had a big meeting to address the problem.

He called his boss, who is the one responsible for coming up with the guidelines for the program, to find out what we could do. Turns out we had solved most of it ourselves. A month ago, we were doing 0 POIs, so she said that since we are doing an average of 60 now, we are way ahead of schedule. Our real 100% goal is only actually 100 hits! And we only need to be doing 50% right now, technically. So, she said reward them, have curriculum ready for the days that they want to do something else, etc... So, we solved our own problem without even realizing it.

So, I am organizing a meeting this Sunday for all the interns, so I can brief them all on how the program is going to run as well as fix some little problems with their paperwork skills.

I guess I just felt like if I was one of them, and did nothing but POIs, I would hate it. I would rather take finals than just do that all day. So, I had to look out for my guys. Hopefully now we can concentrate on some other things.

Other than that, Dana and I did a few POIs ourselves the other day. Yesterday we organized and inventoried the prize closet. It was kind of boring, but we need to figure out a way to lose less inventory to sales people with grubby fingers.

That's all for this week so far.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

This is way cool!

I am posting from work today since my computer is fried, and I can't really do much else right now. Water is not good when it's on your keyboard.

Anyway, I think the majority of the interns have relatively good communication skills. Several of them are great on air, and are having a lot of fun interacting with the DJs. The one thing I have noticed, however, is their lack of pride in their work. I can't imagine coming to work and not doing the very best I could. It's weird because sometimes I feel like I have more experience in certain things then even some of the older people here, but I suppose I do have a very good college education. I never thought I was experienced or had any special skills that everyone else didn't already have, but since working here that assumption has changed somewhat. I feel valuable and smart. Crazy, isn't it?

I also learned some really cool stuff yesterday. Adam asked me to design a CD cover for a compilation of sob stories from the Hitkicker morning show. I felt a little overwhelmed, as I haven't used Photoshop that much in a long time—since my layout and design class, I think. He ended up showing me a bunch of new tricks in Photoshop, and the end result was great. Then we used this thing called a stomper that centered the CD labels he created on the CDs almost perfectly. The whole package looks really amazing. They almost look like real CDs. I guess he said they have machines that actual print on the CDs themselves, like screen printing, so it's a little bit different. I think they are going to be selling them to listeners or something like that. It really made me feel like I work at a radio station.

I guess I would say my biggest challenge to date has been those kinds of things. I like being creative and designing things, but since I haven't been here that long, I am afraid that my work won't be good enough or impressive enough for them. The bridal recap was the most overwhelming project, but the hardest part was trying to make it the way that both Eric and I wanted it. I would come up with things that maybe he didn't want, and since it was his project, I would want him to be happy. So, I am just trying to adjust to that.

All for now...it's lunch time.

Friday, March 04, 2005

The bad news...

Totally has been eventful so far. We found out this morning that our boss, is being sent to Afghanistan and will be leaving for training on March 28. This throws everything into a spin. Now we no longer have a department head. It is only Adam, Dana and I here now. We have to try to run the whole place on our own. Will be interesting. He said he’ll be gone for 18 months, so it'll be a long time before he comes back.

So, our big car show event that was supposed to happen in April is cancelled. We are in the beginning phases of planning a food festival, called A Taste of the Space Coast, set to go off in May. Eric figured we would just cancel that one too, but Dana and I really want to do it. Or at least see if we can do it on our own. So, Eric went over some stuff with us, and said he will draft up an initial proposal for the restaurants we end up choosing. So, this is officially our baby. Not 100% sure that we will go through with it, but we would really like too.

Also, since Eric is leaving and they have more money now and need someone to help out in this department, they have pretty much officially offered me a job here once I graduate. Whether or not it is full time, I am not sure yet, but I would like to stay on at least until I go to OBC sometime in the summer. After that, I am probably headed to Afghanistan myself.

So, I think Adam is going to head up the department while Eric is gone. He is about my age, but has been here forever and has a really good handle on what needs to be done around here.

I am about to go on Spring Break, so will be signing off for about a week. I have scheduled all the POIs for the next week, and hopefully everything will go as planned.

Tomorrow I am helping out with the Strawberry Festival pretty much all day. Not sure what I will do besides stand there and look cute in my new Cumulus Promotions polo shirt, but someone's got to do it.

By the way, the intern recruitment event we had at Florida Tech last week was pretty successful. We got about 4-5 people that seemed interested. One of them is a sophomore comm. major in ROTC with me. Another one is a grad comm. student. We are planning to go out to BCC, UCF and some other schools in the future. Hopefully, we get some quality interns to help out over the summer and next year.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

I'm Alive

Whew, this week has been totally hectic. All this week, Eric has been trying to give me as much information and training as possible. I think this week was his last full week, so it's just us from here on out.

He told me my new official title at the station is public relations/media coordinator. I am going to continue on with heading up the internship program, and then also be responsible for all of the media coverage of the station.

This week I wrote three different commercials, and Eric walked me through the process of getting trade agreements and schedules approved. Basically, we ask a magazine to trade some of our airtime in exchange for placing one of our ads in their publication. So, we do a trade agreement, saying what each party is responsible for. He showed me who signs it and who it gets faxed to. Then we meet with the customer and try to absorb as much information about their business as possible so we can then write a really effective commercial. I did that with Meredith's Bridal and Formalwear. I met with the guy, Steve, and he told me all about his company and I explained the whole process to him. I was kind of surprised at how much I actually knew. Then Dana and I came back and wrote a commercial for him, which we then handed over to Bob to get produced. I still want to spend a day with Bob and have him show me exactly what he does to produce a spot. I saw a little of it when I voiced a spot for him, but still so much to learn.

Then we went into a program called Maximiser, which keeps track of all of the demographic data about the station, and tried to create a schedule. We played around with using different amounts of money on different stations at different times during the day to see which combination would give us the best reach and frequency (reach: the total # of people who come in contact with your commercial; frequency: the total # of times a person comes in contact with the commercial). Then that has to be signed by Dan (our GM) and the company. Then it gets put on the air and all is finished.

I am supposed to meet with someone from Channel 6 and the Florida Today next week so Eric can introduce me and tell them I will be taking over the relationship while he is gone. I'm a little nervous, but it's all a learning process.

Well, that's all for now. Sure I will have tons more to update with next week.

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Thought I would post my official job description.

PUBLIC RELATIONS / MEDIA COORDINATOR

JOB RESPONSIBILITIES:

Coordinate all newspaper publications/ads for station advertisements and promotions. Contact representatives from newspapers to ensure stations have presence in the publications.
Develop relationships with other media personnel (Television, Newspaper, Magazines) in order to get a presence and coverage on any events, community service project or news worthy information.
Work on all trade agreements with trade accounts ensuring they utilize the trade amounts by the end of the contract agreement. If not utilized, extend trade agreements for them to finish out trade.
Turn in all production and copy for trade accounts or any ads running for Marketing Department. You may need to write copy yourself.
Continue developing internship program, by exposing student’s first hand on the value in interning with Cumulus Broadcasting. Hold events on college campuses and high schools so students are more aware of our presence in the Market.
Coordinate POI program by organizing and training interns and setting the geographical areas of interest i.e. (Hot Zips).

This is something Eric and I came up with together, although he actually typed it, so don't blame me for any grammar misusages.

Honestly, I am a little nervous...I have a lot of responsibility, and none of this has been done before. I feel like there is a lot riding on me, this lowly little intern. Although Eric says if I screw up, no one will really know. But I'll know. I am afraid I will mess it up...so many legalities and deadlines and on and on...

Anyways, just thought I would share my insecurities with the blog world.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Midterm Eval. Underway

Well, seeing as how Eric is already gone, I e-mailed him and asked him to send me an evaluation of my performance. He left on Friday, so we are officially on our own now. Feel like a duck out of water, but I am sure I will get my footing. As far as I know, I will be hired full time once I graduate. But I am fulfilling the duties of my job now, without being paid. So, technically I am still an intern, but not really. I am a free employee I guess.

However, I am scheduled to go to AT for National Guard May 14–28, and then to NYC May 29–June 1, so I may not actually start working until June. Then I am here in Melbourne until September 25 when I leave for OBC for the Guard. I still plan on putting in resumes at any jobs I find, though.

In fact, Zach and I are planning on putting together some videos for MTV. He wants to be on the Real World and I am begging for a job (they are like my big fish). We plan on getting together in mid-April and filming some stuff. Then I am going to help him compile it into a video using Adobe Premiere. I think my video is going to be a video resume, spoofing Diary. If you've ever seen on MTV, the Diary of So-and-So...I am going to do a mock version of that as my resume. Zach said his cousin did an internship there last year, so he has the name of a guy we can send our videos to (avoiding the HR department, like I learned in Prof Comm.).

Speaking of videos. I made the video for our Military Ball this year … it ended up coming out pretty well. I was able to burn it onto a DVD, as I tried to download the program Amanda recommended to me, but it wouldn’t work in time. Might still mess with it. But the video is cool … it's 10:33 long and is like a whole mission … From planning to preparing to executing. Some swear words in the music almost got me in trouble though … oops.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Getting into the groove...

Did a lot today … I got in touch with the publishers of several of the publications we are trading ads with to try to figure out when we want to run their commercials and what ads of ours to run. I am trying to pick up where Eric left off, which is kind of challenging because he didn't really leave me a lot of information. I have had to be a sort of detective to figure out who I need to contact and what ads (sizes, colors, etc) we have been running and plan to run.

I think things will actually run a lot more smoothly now that Eric is gone and I have more control over this section of the department. He was a sort of procrastinator and would come to us the day a commercial was set to air and be like, “I need the trade agreement, fax this, fax that, get this signed, write a commercial, get it produced and approved” … all in one day. So, then we were late with commercials and last minute with ads. I think it made us look bad, so I want things to be different.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Few Forgottens

I forgot to mention what fun stuff I've been doing.

The other day I spent a lot of time creating 160 gift bags for anyone who enters the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Charity Golf Tournament that Hitkicker is sponsoring. That took me quite a while, but it was fun.

Also, voiced another commercial. While I was up there, Bob walked me through finishing up a commercial that I had written. He had Adam and Kevin voice it, then show me how he added the tracks together (it's just like with movie tracks) and added background music and everything. He uses Adobe Audition, which seems pretty easy. Still want to spend a little more time watching him from start to finish.

Spent a bit of time working on the final project. Have two identical binders going. Am sure they'll turn out nice.

Still haven't had a chance to go and sit in the studio with one of the jocks. The one jock that I was going to go with, Carlos Morales, left for Louisville, Kentucky recently. But Timmy Vee seems to like me, so may try to get in with him, or Kelly, who is usually on when I am there. We'll see.

No work till Monday … going to be out in the field with ROTC.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Oh yeah...

Even though I am planning on starting here in June, I am still keeping my eyes open for any good jobs, perhaps for after I return from OBC in January. I want something media-related...fashion, music, TV, production assistant maybe, something, anything along those lines. So, if you happen to know of a place or hear of a job, feel free to let me know.

::sneeze::

So, unfortunately, I have been out in the woods and out sick since Thursday. Still feel icky, but what can you do.

So, I am moving right along with my final report/presentation. It doesn't look like I am going to be able to do that video, however, since I reviewed my footage the other day and it's not really enough to make an exciting video. I wish I had more time to film some more, but I have too much work to do both in and out of this internship. Even so, the binders look nice. I still need to write the actual report, but that shouldn't take me very long. Then it is just a little presentation and I am all done.

Have been working on these trade negotiations the last few times I've been in. One of the publications, Space Coast Chronicle, doesn't want to write their own spots. It wouldn't be such a hassle if they just wanted us to advertise their magazine, but they have all these weird PSA-like stories they want us to promote on air. So, last time I wrote a spot about colon cancer and sexual abuse in children. This time around it was about the school shootings at Columbine and helping Miss Florida win Miss USA. And the copy points they give us are these cheesy, almost church sermon-like excerpts from their magazine. Makes my job tough.

I am going to be at County Line this Friday night from 8–10 p.m. setting up a remote for Pirate. It will be my first remote on my own, so I am a little nervous. Thankfully, I don't have to set up any tents or bring any prizes or anything, just have to banner the place once I get there. I am also doing an A1A remote with Dana from 2–4 p.m. on Saturday, so I can have one more big remote to practice on before I go out by myself. We are going to be with Timmy Vee, so I may get a chance to do more on-air stuff, but who knows. I had a bit part the last time I worked with him, but the jockey dropped the mic when she sent it over to him, so it was never recorded. It's pretty neat. They have a system here that automatically records anytime the mic is turned on in the studio. I think other companies use it, but I'm not sure. I always wondered. So, maybe I'll have some other voice stuff to add to my portfolio, along with the three commercials I have written and the other two I voiced.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Woops...

Sorry, things have been particularly hectic … both inside and outside the internship.

So, mostly I have been trying to straighten out this trade issue. I have been going back and forth with this guy from the Space Coast Chronicle for over a week now. Basically, I wrote him a script, he changed it, wanted me to write another script, so I wrote the other script, he approved both scripts, sent me the schedule, I made the schedules, got them signed by Dan, got them signed by Rosa, faxed them to him, then...

I get an irate and kind of rude phone call from him, he wants to know why I think he would want to run his commercials the last week of the month. I'm thinking, heck, I dunno, it's your magazine. Astounded, I reply, because you said you wanted all the spots run by the 24th of April...he says, Yeah, DONE running. I was like, oh ok, well send me the schedules back and I'll just adjust the dates. Like he was all mad, saying how we have messed up his schedules two months in a row, and blah blah blah. I was like, I don't know what Eric did, that's why all of this has been a mess, because he didn't leave me anything. Plus, this dude isn't even paying us, so my bosses could care less about what he wants. In the end, we sort of resolved it, but I really have no interest in dealing with him.

THEN he has the nerve to take until Friday at lunchtime to send me the schedules back, so at this point, traffic tells me that it's too late for the spots to start running on Sunday. I was like, whenever they can start, that's fine, I don't care. It's his own fault for taking so long.

So, that's been my life for the last week. Oh, and I made a video recap for Adam. It was for the OJ Big Game Get-a-Way event we had in January. Basically, we gave away a trip to the Super Bowl on a yacht, and had to do a recap of how we did it. Adam had already put the pictures from A1A in, so all I had to do was the Pirate portion. We even added audio tracks of the winner calling in. It was pretty cool … will try to get a copy of that today.

I participated in another Pirate remote on Friday. They had me help set up and they pulled me on stage when they announced the band (which was a really famous Motley Crue tribute band that really did sound like them) and had me throw prizes and such to the audience. The band was a little weird though—one of them, dressed like someone from Kiss, decided to kiss me on the forehead … yeah, I was a little weirded out.

Not sure what's left for me for the remainder of my internship. May spend a little time with the Pirate guys, who seem to have opened up to me now that Eric is gone, and watch them in the studio.

Oh yeah, and I think we have to do inventory again. Ugh.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

::tear::

Well, I guess this may very well be my last post. Sitting at work today, I come to the realization that this is the official end of my internship. I'm no longer "Theresa, the hot intern." I feel almost saddened since it means a separation from my one source of sanity … my outlet when I wanted to bash the heads of publishers or strangle interns.

This is the end of my blog.

I know, it's tragic, please try to dry your tears. I know everyone out there who reads this will miss my bi-weekly reports. I know it will be difficult to carry on without my constant updates from the Cumulus promotions department, detailing the status of the Space Coast Chronicle.

Anyways, the last few days I have been trying to wrap things up here. I have been working on my project and presentation a lot. Did that pesky inventory on Monday … it wasn't too bad. Also, since I will not be working here for the entire month of May, I am trying to get all these accounts to a point where they can hopefully sustain themselves until I return. I sent new black and white ads to the TGIF section of the Florida Today. These are different than our usual ads since they are advertising our book promotions for each station. Also, am trying to get May's spots and schedules done early, so Adam doesn't have to deal with it, and he won't throw a fit this time. And the same goes for a few others. Hopefully, everything will run smoothly in my absence.

Have a meeting with Dan, the general manager, on Tuesday to discuss my job. I guess they even hired Kevin, the UCF marketing intern, but only for part time. I don't think he wanted to be here full time though.

Well, I suppose that's it for me.

It's been real, it's been fun … now leave me alone! (kidding)