As you might’ve picked up on if you follow me on Twitter, I’m working with a herd of interns to monitor media coverage for Eugene 08 (the Olympic Track and Field Team Trials). Most of the work is being done remotely with everything being exchanged via email and reports are uploaded to the Socialtext wiki (right now it’s private, but when the trials are over, I’ll clean up the confidential stuff and let you see how it worked for us).
As such, I would be hard pressed to pick out most of the interns in a line up. But a few are taking this opportunity to stand out and make a good impression. Here’s how they are doing it.
- Do good work. One intern in particular has wowed me with her thoroughness and diligence. Her reports don’t have to be edited and I’ve sent them to the others as an example to follow.
- Go with the flow. We’ve had to change direction a couple of times because none of us have ever done this before. Typically in an agency there aren’t 10 folks working on a single client’s coverage report and that’s presented a unique challenge. Those interns who have paid attention, read all the directions and been able to adapt are excelling.
- Be self-motivated. I often run into this challenge with interns who work with my firm. Because I work from home, I don’t have “an office” where interns can come work several hours a day or week. This can be really tough (trust me! I know!). A self-motivated student will do a good job of checking email and communicating via the online tools available.
We’re just three days into the Olympic Trials and I love working with these students. I think they’ll take these skills into future internships and continue to wow those they work with.
(P.S. I know this post will show up in the interns media coverage search – no need to include this in your report!) 🙂
