My Most Rewarding Projects

Since working here at SHM, I would say there have been two projects that I have worked on that I would say have really been rewarding and beneficial to my career development. The first project is the monthly work done with the Communications Dashboard. This allows me to take into account multiple communications channels such as social media, HMX and Cision/Google Alerts. Doing this monthly project has really given a great window of opportunity to learn a lot about Marketing and PR as a whole. It also has been great because Brendon and Ashley have been allowing me to do my own work with this project and as a team we have worked together to create what we believe is a strong Communications Dashboard. With this project I am learning a whole lot of information and skills that I can use in my future career development. 

For example, I had no idea what Cision was until I started working here at SHM, but Brendon and Ashley let me do the monthly reporting of media on SHM in Cision. This is a great skill for me to have at future jobs to say I created media lists as well as created Excel documents using Cision. Another thing that the communications dashboard allowed me to do is do social media reporting and tracking using Tweeter Feed and Google Analytics to see how well SHM is doing using social media. This really has been a great way for me to measure myself on how I am doing with social media and what I could be doing better to make SHM social media more successful. 

Another project that has been really helpful for me is the creation of the 2013/2014 Media Kit. This has taught so much not about just PR and Marketing at SHM but SHM in general. Leading the Media Kit project is awesome for me because its letting me learn a lot about myself as far as work ethic and making timelines. So far Brendon and Ashley have been an awesome help with the whole process and again are giving me awesome feedback when I need it. It is going to be great to see what the final project looks like when I am done and look back and say I did that! These are what I think have been my most beneficial and rewarding projects so far!

PS. This is random but I still need to be tested if I know the lyrcis to every Lil Wayne song! hahaha Feels so long since having that meeting where we had to answer Meredith's crazy questions!

I knew eventually there would be a really difficult blog question and I guess today is that day.  I was hoping this was going to be another question where I could write about my dogs.  I really like my dogs, but ok time to be serious.

The most rewarding project I’ve worked on during my co-op so far was the project with market research.   Market research was something I was interested in before starting my co-op here at SHM and I was very excited when I learned I could be a part of it. 
 
The website for making and sending surveys was not user friendly and it didn’t help that the marketing department wasn’t familiar with it.  Through trial and error, we figured out how to use the site.  It was a very frustrating and rewarding experience to learn this skill along with my department.  I didn’t feel like a co-op, I felt like a full time employee because my ideas and opinions were important to completing this project.  I look forward to future market research projects.  For example, analyzing the results of the surveys and creating surveys for the membership department. 

And for the record this is my rating for Surveymonkey’s tec. support team:

What has been your most rewarding task or project during your co-op with SHM so far?

Thanksgiving Break

Here is the most exciting thing that happened to me over Thanksgiving break: I SAW MY DOG!!! You might be thinking I had a lame Thanksgiving break if that was the most exciting thing to happen to me, but first you must know that I have the world’s best dogs.  When I got home Wednesday night they were so excited to see me, well they were as excited as 12 year old dogs can be.  I love them!

On Thanksgiving I watched the oh-so- wonderful Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with my little sister.  And enjoyed the tradition of having my dad complain through the entire parade that there are too many performances and not enough parade, I guess my dad would enjoy watching people walk for 4 straight hours.   Since I am an expert cook, I made mashed potatoes.  Not to sound full of myself, but they were the best mashed potatoes of all time.

My best friend spent every night sleep on my couch witch was awesome because I can never spend enough time with her.  We went to the mall on black Friday in the late afternoon to go to Victoria Secret and I met her new boyfriend.  He is her RA, so that seems like a problem.  Also, my little sister bleached her hair and dyed it purple, so that was kinda weird. 

Thanksgiving!

My process of getting home for Thanksgiving did involve quite a bit of struggling, with me flying across the country to California with laryngitis. I'm actually quite surprised I wasn't quarrantined prior to entering the plane with all the frightened looks I received.

My Thanksgiving dinner was of course, very food-filled.

No holiday dinner is complete without apple cider! It was really great seeing my little cousins, especially the 7-yr old who asked me if I was married yet. (apparently if you're in college, you should be married!)

For the most part, I was very sleepy either due to food coma or my mounds of medication. Thankfully, by the time I returned to Philadelphia I was mostly better and my voice came back! Thanks to the wonderfully warm weather. I also realized coming back here, that Philadelphia is too cold. I will soon turn into a snowman.
 

Of Giving And Thanks

Thanksgiving has always been my day.
Home with the family, even Grandpa Ray.
A day of feasting, A day of football
Not again, I sigh, Houston has the ball.

Kitchen's a bustle, foods being made.
Sit at the table, everyone's prayed.
Gravy and Turkey, Potatoes and Stuffing.
I ate to much, my breath is huffing.

Valiant was I, four plates done.
I eyed up desert, maybe just one.
Now's all said and done, no more time to play
Goodbye everyone, hope you had a good thanksgiving day.

 

Turkey Day

 

My Thanksgiving  was phenomenal. My train to Harrisburg got delayed for an hour due to a commercial power outage in New York (what the heck New York!). But I made a friend while waiting and then we got to be filmed by the news crew, so that was awesome and totally worth getting home an hour late!

 

I was going to surprise a friend at work with her favorite drink from Starbucks but I guess my not so subtle questions about what time she worked until and where she parked gave my surprise away. One thing I learned from that is I will never be able to join the CIA, sorry dad.

 

It was great to see all my family under one roof even though it always involves some heated discussions. But once everyone downed a few glasses of our traditional Thanksgiving red wine, the day became much more interesting and everyone loved eachother much more.

 

My cat, Mark, was extremely happy to see me ... for about five seconds.

 

I went black Friday shopping with my mom and sister and will NEVER do it again. Being around large groups of people who would knife you in the foot without a second thought just to get 50% off on those Hulk Hands for their little heathen of a child with a temper problem just isn't my thing... sounds a lot like Greek life if you ask me, which also isn't my cup of tea.

 

Spent probably 95% of my break with my friends. Tacky Christmas sweater shopping, having bon fires, playing Nickelodeon trivial pursuit while watching American Horror Story ... ya know, normal boring stuff.

 

 

Now it's just a countdown to CHRISTMAS! Bring it on!