Last Day

Today is officially the last day of my internship! Meaning today I am continuing to wrap up projects and make sure everything is done. Also I need to make sure everything I have created is in my electronic portfolio so I have a copy.

Over the past year my internship at NEDC has taught me a lot. I have definitely developed my creative design skills and writing skills. I've improved editing copy and fixing grammar/spelling. This was a great internship and it really taught me a lot, I can't believe it's over and I'm graduating a few days!

This week I worked 16 hours

Wrapping up the semester

This week I am trying to finish up all my small projects I've started throughout the past year. Of course the main one would be the 2010 Abstract.... which is still waiting review and finalization.

Other than that nothing big just slideshows, letters and a few designs.

Proposals

This week I redesigned our proposal packet, the previous one was very outdated, and helped gather information for an upcoming proposal. Most of the information was already in the Abstract, which is still waiting final approval.

This week I worked 16 hours.

Computer evaluation time. I'm checking all the monitors, keyboards, CPUs, and software programs on all the computers in NEDC.

Hopefully my boss will get back to me this week about finalizing the Abstract.

This week I mostly worked on computers and finalized a few small projects. I had to run all over town yesterday to find computer adapters, it seemed that everywhere either was sold out or didn't carry them. Eventually I found them at RadioShack, which I had no idea even existed in Norman.

Last week I worked 16 hours, forgot to post that.

This week I worked 17 hours, had to run additional errands during lunch one day.

This week I am finishing up a powerpoint presentation for our new touch-screen monitor. Also I am helping Don write a letter about everything NEDC does for the community.

Still haven't heard a quote from Transcript Press, I will be calling and emailing again this week. This will make it at least a dozen times I have tried to get this quote from them in the past month.

COLI

Cost of Living Index collection was last Thursday, so this week I will be inputting all that data. I really like the reports they send analyzing the cost of loving around the US.

Other than that just putting final touches on the Abstract and maybe figuring out when to have Econ. Summ part 2! And maybe working on the National Weather Museum logo some more, I am so glad I took Ad Copy & Layout and know how to use Photoshop.

Econ Summit take 2 got postponed. So after weeks of going non stop things are finally slowing down for a little bit. That said I have COLI collection this weekend (Cost Of Living Index) so I will be driving all around Norman Thursday morning for work. I love getting the analysis of the COL across the nation, lets me look at different places I might want to live later in life.

I am not a graphic designer

That said, I'm creating a logo for the National Weather Museum. Now it's come a long long way from the first draft, but I'm still not sure how professional I can make this look. I have to bring in my laptop from home to work on it because my work computer only has Illustrator, and for what I need to do I need Photoshop. I'm sure you can do it on Illustrator, but I'm a lot better with Photoshop and actually know how to do what I have imagined in head. Not that I expect it to come out how I imagine it but still, this gives me the best chance of having it look nice.

Abstract.... again

Fixing the Abstract again. Just small changes that either I didn't catch or my boss wants changed. I proof read each page a dozen times, but because I'd been staring at the same thing for multiple months I'm not too surprised there were still a couple typos. After a while everything just blends together, they were easy to fix though. Now I'm trying to get a print estimate from Transcript Press, hopefully this time they will reply.

This week I worked 16 hours

Economic Summit Take 2

We are currently planning a follow-up to the Economic Summit to field any questions/concerns in regard to the bad press following the first one. Hopefully this will help improve relations with the community, we have already begun working on things with OU.

More crisis management experience!

Working on another press release for webaPeel and a letter to the NASA representative where we get our grants from. Over all a lot slower than it has been for the past couple weeks preparing for the Agio announcement.

Next week I will be talking with the PR rep from Agio again to analyze the success of the announcement and what we should be doing now.

This week I worked 17.5 hours.

Agio Announcement

Over 100 people came to the announcement yesterday! I met Andy Rieger, managing editor of the Norman Transcript, and Jason McCarty, public relations coordinator for the State Commerce. I helped set up for the announcement and the luncheon, but by that point there wasn't much left to do. I was running around before the event making sure the press release was sent out, everyone knew where it was and the programs were ready. It is so incredibly relieving to know that this event is done and it was such a success.

So far it has been picked up by the Norman Transcript, who printed the whole press release and then also wrote an article about the expansion, and KSBI 52 news had a 30 sec. clip over the announcement.

The location of the AGIO announcement is changing, and considering the event is one week from today that throws us a pretty big curve ball. Also I am still waiting on confirmation for the press release and invitation so I can send those out, I keep calling and talking to people there but because there are 5 people assigned to over see each step it's impossible to have anything finalized.

Lesson of the week: delegate to one to two people, simple tasks do not need a whole committee.

*Forgot to post again, this week I worked 16 hours

Spring Break

With the AGIO announcement next week I still had to do a couple things over spring break. They finally sent me a revised version of the invitation, and after a few more drafts we finalized that and sent it out.

I learned I need to constantly check my email, even when I'm not working. I remember Dr. Veil saying PR was a full time job, and you're never really completely on vacation. For the rest of the week I always had my phone on me and checked my work email everyday.

Total I worked 2 hours.

Following Suite

I am currently working on a announcement for a new company in Norman and with such am creating invitations and programs for the event. As of Tuesday I had only received a low quality copy of their logo, which made it very hard to design anything because I didn't know what the rest of their marketing materials looked like. Yesterday they sent me examples of stationary, business cards and presentation folders! I was able to break them apart and use the design, fonts, and high res logo and add all these items to my invitations and programs. Now everything matches and looks much more cohesive!

And I have officially turned in a final copy of the Abstract to my boss, hopefully I will be completely finished soon!

This week I worked 16 hours.

Real Crisis Time

While we had a mini crisis at the Summit, we are now handling a real one. Press coverage has not been very nice or accurate since the event. We are having to combat a reporter who didn't pay full attention to the speaker and therefore wrote a quite misguided article about the speaker and the purpose of the event.

This week I have a feeling I'm going to be doing some serious PR work to turn this around.

Mini crisis

Summit is over, there was a small crisis with the name tags and checking people in. Around 20 of the name tags were misspelt and had to be reprinted at the last minute, so when people were checking in I was trying to replace name tags as fast as possible. Also around 200 people had to sign in within a 20 min. time frame, which caused a little chaos in general. Everyone said the Summit was much better than years past and the updated style was well received. Overall I proved to myself that I can work under pressure and keep calm when an unforeseen crisis arises, which is a very valuable skill to have.

Now I am working on a dedication ceremony for AGIO next month, I have a meeting with the President of AGIO in an hour, and gathering my last piece of data for the Abstract. Almost done!

This week I worked 16.5 hours

Economic Summit Prep

Thursday I had to run errands to get ready for the Summit, finish up pamphlets and design a program for the event. (Last week I worked 16 hours)

Now the event is tomorrow! The office is going crazy trying to finish up last minute items. The program is still being finalized and hasn't even begun printing, we need around 300 for tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'll be up there working at 7 a.m. preparing for the meeting and registering people.

Entrepreneur's Conference

The second annual Oklahoma entrepreneur's conference is going on today and tomorrow, so we are in crunch time to prepare for it. The conference begins today at 12:30 p.m. and goes until 7 p.m. tomorrow night. NEDC is hosting two tables to promote the eTec incubators and hopefully find new tenants.

I have prepared a new brochure over eTec incubators and created a sign printed on foam board to hang above the tables. I sent in the order for the sign yesterday, then had to reformat it a little bit to ensure clear printing. Today they told me I needed to confirm the order before they would begin printing, we needed the sign by noon. Thankfully when I called to confirm the order and beg them to rush it they informed me it was already printed and ready to be picked up.

Next came finishing, editing and fixing the brochure and flyer followed by printing and folding.

Tomorrow morning I will be working the tables at the convention.