Blog Entry 3

It Can Get Ugly

Despite the fact I could probably write the sequel to Intern Nation in place of this blog post from my experiences over the last few weeks, I will try to pick a specific part of my internship and relate it to a communication theory / aspect.

A few weeks ago I was offered a full time position within the company / parent company I am currently interning for. The position I was offered was a great one, however the position was not one I felt was suited to my strongest suits and one that I would enjoy thoroughly, and so I respectfully declined. The changes that occurred over the coming weeks were phenomenal.

The biggest difference was the change in communication style. Whilst typically over the past few months communication has been very much rapport talk, there was a monumental shift from rapport to report talk. As a project leader, I’ve for the most part been left to my own devise, with my supervisor and mentors calling and dropping by when needed, often in a casual manner. Now however, it’s simply restricted to a work only conversation, often extremely brief, conducted via email. My communication with my clients remains unchanged, it is far less linear and often the meaning of the conversation is generated as the conversation goes on and it is far more rapport than report. Within my internship, it’s much more linear with a more ‘call and response’ feel to it. It is obvious (as we discussed in our meeting) that they no longer feel the need to provide as much guidance and time to me, seeing as I will not be becoming one of their assets. The amount of communication has dwindled and I often find myself in the dark a lot of the time, but I guess that’s all apart of the learning experience. I will certainly be going into more detail about this situation in my executive summary.

Blog Entry 2

The Struggle is Real...

We're well into the project now, and like the title suggests, the struggle is real. Really real. When things get tough, and people get busy outside of work, it's amazing how quickly communication channels breakdown, how demeanor changes, and reactions to criticism become more personal. I would say, "Well what else would you expect" but to perfectly honest I had no idea what to expect, and it's been interesting to see how the dynamic between team and leader has changed. Whilst we used to be one well integrated unit, I now find myself having to use a lot more report talk, a lot more commands, and having to implement required communication channels (weekly reports etc..) to keep the group moving in the right direction.

Aside from managing the team, there's also the aspect of managing the client. It's easy to talk to clients when everything is moving forward as scheduled and there isn't a hiccup in sight. But when shit hits the fan (excuse my French) it takes every ounce of personal restraint to stop personal feelings boiling over into professional communication, and if there has been anything I've learnt in the last few weeks, it's certainly been the art of controlling communication. What I mean by that is the ability to purposely control how I communicate both verbally and non verbally, as to put on a facade when needed. Unfortunately the real world and real clients aren't always the dream you had hoped it would be, and learning how to adapt on the fly, learning how to read a situation and adjust my communication accordingly has been a key learning piece for me.

Blog Entry 1

Starting From the Ground Up

Unlike most internships, there isn't much pencil pushing or coffee getting around here. If I had to describe it, it would be like getting thrown into the deep end of the pool with a collection of olympic swimmers all treading water, ready to help you if you need it. And it's awesome.

I currently lead a group of around 7. 2 designers, 3 market researchers, an account planner, and a copywriter. Our project is to build a lateral support brand for a huge print company that is struggling to connect with small businesses and individual consumers. (The project is real too, not fictional!)

We're in the first step stages right now, looking at the market landscape, comparing competition and talking to the print company about their wants and expectations. Naturally in these first stages, there is a lot of communication happening. Who is talking to who, who's doing what, and a lot of group concepting. Whilst it would seem logical to thing that the majority of talk taking place is report talk, there is a large amount of rapport talk too, probably due to the fact that the team are very familiar with each other. We are all about the same age, the majority of us are undergrads at CU and the majority of my team are Advertising majors. (5/7 I think). So we haven't had to work hard on creating a group dynamic, and a materialized 'friendship' because it already existed.

However, this kind of group can also have its downfalls. I find myself constantly having to use rhetoric as a key tool to establish leadership. Although an actual hierarchal structure does exist, it can be difficult at times for the team to respect leadership when the leadership isn't a grizzled, older veteran of the industry. Thus we find ourselves in a situation where rhetoric is king. Hopefully as the semester goes on I will be able to talk about this unique dynamic more; There are some great articles to compliment it, but that will do it for now!