So, what's to come...???

      So, it is time for this summer internship at the Bowers Museum to come to an end.  The summer has escaped me completely!  But what is that saying, "time fly's when your having fun?"  But while the History 398 course is closing, I still have one more week in my internship, to wrap up all the loose ends.  So let me detail what my last duties will include.  

      Now that the contact list binder is complete, organized, and a marvel, there are a few remaining steps to take, to get the Public Relations department into a prime, oiled, high-performance machine.  Below, I took an aerial photo of the binder, to show the organization and segmentation.  Not to mention the hundreds of sheets of paper.   

      Next would be to call PatronMail, and ask them to delete the old lists, that I have now edited and updated.  Then we will upload the new lists to the PatronMail system, where we pull our contacts directly from, to email press releases on new exhibits or coming events the museum is hosting. 

      Next, I need to make a conglomerate Excel sheet, while I wait for PatronMail to scrap the old lists.  One for all of the "Media" contact lists and one for all the "University Related Information" contact lists.  The steps of this project all seem to be simple, which they are, but it is the time that each steps takes, and the maticulous focus it demands.  But it will all be over by Wednesday, August 15th! 

Quick Peak

                A Quick Peak before the Big Reveal
  

  As promised, I have taken a few photos of this infamous (in my opinion) binder of located, edited, and formatted contact lists of the public relations department of Bowers Museum.  I made the cover real clear to understand what the binder contained.  The binder contains the folder of "Media" lists, "University Related Information," and "PatronMail" lists.  Each folder is alphabetized and user friendly.  Clean, clear, and educational was the aim of this binder.




       Inside the cover is a "Numbers Breakdown" sheet.  This notes the percentage of "bad emails" or "opted  outs" calculated.  These percentages are a significant reason why the Public Relations department was not performing to its highest potential.  Unfortunate to report, but not all 51.5% of the "Media" PatronMail emails were found.  Nor were all 25.8% of "University Related Information" PatronMail contacts found.  A few needles in those haystacks had quite the disguises.



        The next photo is a snapshot of one of the printed Excel document, to show my reader what the binder of roughly thirty-two hundred sheets of contact list filled paper looked like.  This is one of the "Media" sheets, displaying the Outlets Name, First and Last Name of the contact, their Title, and their Email.  The binder, minus two more folder of the "University Related Information" lists, is almost over compensating at this point.  And it weighs about nine pounds.  It will be humorous to see my boss' face, with the finished project.

Celebrations and Excel Sheets

This week was my 21st birthday on Tuesday, July 31st.  So to celebrate just a bit, I brought in some chocolate strawberries for my boss, and two other employees I have formed a relationship with.  My boss was excited to celebrate with me, to say the least.  It just so happened that chocolate strawberries were also her favorite dessert.  That may be why we work together so well.

     Back to business, I continued on with the hardcopy contact list project.  I got roughly 30% more completed.  I am now through with the "Media" contact list section.  Now there is only the "University Related Information" contact lists to go, which will not be completed in a days work.  There are roughly 34 excel documents, some containing up to four tabs.  And the project continues.  There will also be photos to come of the binder, so that my readers can have a visual of what I have been detailing for the past seven or so weeks.  

     The photo above shows my work environment. Or should I say, my cubicle.  I have not taken any time in the four months of my internship to do any decorating, just because it may make me sad to un-decorate.  But while the environment is simplistic, it is educated and inspiring, with magazines and new clippings of past exhibits framed and hung up on the walls.  

Digital to Print

This week in my internship, July 24th and 25th, I began taking my contact list project from the computer to a hardcopy format.  As I discussed last week, my boss wants me to provide her a hardcopy record of the new, concise, edited, formatted, and updated contact lists, as a safety measure.  Not to mention the fact that she loves binders, and she has a hardcopy of every exhibit that decorate the walls of her off.

     So this process of taking the digital excel sheets to hardcopy form is, surprising, not as easy as simply clicking the "Print" button.  First, I pull up the excel files, one at a time.  I highlight and "copy" the list, then "paste" it to another "worksheet" on the same excel file.  Then I delete the unnecessary information for the printed sheet.  The necessary information, that my boss wants to see, includes the name of the organization, the contacts name, their position, and the email.  Next, I highlight the text, then "set the print area," followed by "previewing" the print.  In most of the cases, I would rotate the paper from "portrait" to "landscape," which would allow me to fit all of the columns of necessary info on less amounts of paper.  I do like to conserve a tree where I can.

     So after formatting the excel sheets into a printable version, I began to shoot off the copies to the printer.  Then I gathered up the roughly one hundred or so pages of contact lists, hole punched, then stapled the related lists together, alphabetized the lists, and set them in the corresponding folder in the contact list binder.  I am only about 30% through this project, so there is much work to be done.  And so it continues. 

Same old, Same old

This week I continued working on my locating, editing, and updating of the museum's contact list project.  I have moved on from the Media Contact List folder, since those are as clean as I can possibly make them.   It is nearly impossible to find every single "bad email" or "opted out."  As it is, there were about 789 "bad emails" or "opted outs" in the exported PatronMail list that contained 1,363 total media emails, from the entire database.  That is 57.8%.  Tracking down those 789 emails is mission impossible.  A strong majority of the emails were located under understandably labeled Excel sheets, but the goose chase for roughly 130 of those emails took me about two weeks to find few, then get annoyed and move on, with my boss' permission of course.

     Now I have turned my attention to the University Related Information folder.  There are roughly 842 "bad emails" and "opted outs" out of 3,254 in this folder, which is 25.8%.  This folder, I am cleaning up relatively quickly, compared to the Media folder.  This is namely due to the fact that the majority of the emails are to be found in an understandable location.  For example, if I have a "bad email" from the Japanese History Professors list, I can easily find it under the "Japanese History Professors" list in the "University Related Information" folder, under the Public Relation's "Contact Lists" section.

     My boss has high aspirations for what this ultimate, clean, dynamic, high-performance, supreme contact list compilation will do for the museum.  Next week I will begin on the hard-copy procedure of the project, which I am excited for.  It will give me something new to do, shake the routine up a bit.  I just hope my boss likes my vision for what is to come.  Stay tuned.

Co-workers Joy!

        This week, my internship got a happy surprise!  Let me give you a bit of background to begin with.  Last summer, when I entered my marketing internship at the Bowers Museum, there was an intern in the Graphics and Communications department, who had about a year experience with the museum and the Marketing department’s protocol.  Her name is Eleanor and she was a friendly face to ask any concern or curiosity to.  She dabbled in some of the marketing work, along with what she did under Nancy Johnson with Graphics.  She sat in the Graphics and Communications department, which housed four desks.  Those desks are occupied by my boss, Nancy Johnson, her right arm, Sasha, the website orchestrator, Vincent, and Eleanor.  I actually sit at the desk Eleanor use to, last summer.  She is a sweet, determined, talented young woman.  Last summer, we would have lunch together, so we grew close, noticing that we both love to cook and have an eye for photography.  

        Eleanor, on Tuesday, July 10th, walked into the Graphics and Communications room, and gathered the group.  So Sasha and I walked over to Nancy's desk.  The second Eleanor said, "I have an announcement," I knew exactly what she was going to say.  My boss legitimately screamed when Eleanor announced she was pregnant with her and her husband's first child.  I was so excited for them, not just because I love babies, but because I know Eleanor and I have become familiar with her husband through our lunchtime conversation.  They are both very smart and have tender hearts, so I know they will make excellent parents.  

Thumbs Up and Celebrate!

This week, my internship flew by so fast, namely because of the 4th of July celebrations.  It did surprise me that the 4th of July happens to be my boss's favorite holiday.  A peculair pick for a "favorite" holiday, but to each their own.  Mine would have to be Thanksgiving, for the food, of course.  It was very nice of Nancy to order all her interns, there are three of us for the summer session, to take the rest of the week off, seeing as she would not be in the office either.

      So Tuesday, July 3rd, was relatively mellow.  I got into work at 9:30am, and immediately continued to work on my joyous, never ending Excel contact list project.  Nancy, my boss, was in a meeting for roughly the first hour I was there, but when she retreated to her desk finally, she asked to speech with me, regarding my advances with the project.  But, at that time, she was not ready to speak.  She still had to run around the building, getting some of her own work done.

     She settled into her desk chair at about noon, and I walked her through what I had been doing.  She essentially just wanted to double check that I was cleaning the system in an efficient way, rather than confusing myself and making a more dramatic mess of the chaotic database.  She enjoyed seeing the progress I had made thus far, and instructed me on how to advance.  Her instruction, little did she know, was my idea.  I knew how I wanted to proceed, she just happened to read my mind.

     So I continued on down the path for this project for another few hours, then left work on Tuesday at 2:30pm, ready to start my weekend essentially!

Excel Sheet After Excel Sheet

This week, I continued with my contact list process.  Let me explain, in detail, the following step, after inputing the lists into the PatronMail system.  PatronMail exported a list of “bad emails” and “opted outs.” I then focused on continuing to search out and delete those emails.  To say this process is tedious to the point of going a bit insane, as I scanned roughly twenty excel sheets, for these obnoxious emails, is not a dramatization.  I spent all of Tuesday, June 12^th, and half of Wednesday, June 13^th, trying to wrap this up.  But what I was not aware of, was that this project would be endless.

            As I went through the lists, finding these emails, I track my progress in a clear way.  As I erased the bad email, I kept the other info from the contact and marked the email column with “Bad Email from PatronMail List 6/12.”  This way, I could evaluate how old some of the lists were, based on how many of the contacts had this bold, underlined, red label. 

            While my boss also enjoyed seeing how I had tracked the bad emails, through the excel lists, she advised me on how to proceed.  She told me to print the lists out, so we could have them on record.  Then she advised me to go ahead and delete the entire contact that had a bad email.  Her reason was intelligent, saying that if the email was bad, then there is a fair chance the contact does not exist anymore.  And this summarizes my eighth week on the job.     

Hiccup

This week, my internship had a hiccup.  I can into work on Tuesday, June 19^th, with the beginnings of a head cold.  The museum had the opening of a brand new exhibit, Faberge: Imperial Jeweler to the Tsars, coming within days.  With that, my boss was not reluctant at all to tell me to go home.  I’m sure she wanted me to rest and get better, but she was more threatened by the potential contagion of her entire staff, which could not happen at that critical moment, when every second counts. 

            So I gladly retired for the day, went home and rested.  But the next Monday, I woke up feeling worse.  I emailed my boss to let her know my condition, and she response was very humorous.  I knew she would have no intention of wanting to see me until I was one hundred and fifty percent better, which she communicated saying “for my sanity, please remain in your bubble.  My bubble is too fragile right now.”  So I did not make it back to work until the following Tuesday, June 26^th, when I was in perfect condition.  Luckily, I will work over 150 hours at the Bowers Museum this summer, which is twice what the History 398 asks for, so this hiccup will not affect that factor.

Flashback

My internship for week 6, June 12^th and 13^th, was occupied with the same extensive, tedious, administrative project I have been handed of locating, editing, and updating all the contact lists of the entire Bowers database.  Unfortunately, I am not sure what to discuss this week, with already having explained the entire process of how I go about this project, step by step.  So instead, this week I would like to describe the environment I work in, contrasted to my environment last summer.

            I sit in the Communications and Branding department, which is different, was last summer, when I interned at the museum. Last summer, my desk was in the Marketing department, which is a descent size room, holding four cubicles and a five-person conference table.   The two other interns for the marketing department in the 2011 summer session were hired on about two weeks after myself.  The three of us (Megan, Gentry, and myself) had an exciting summer, full of loud laughs.  Our boss, Nancy Johnson, would have to come around the corner at least once a day to hush our laughs.  But even though we were a bit hyper for a museum, the three of us had a great, creative mix flowing.  We wrote multiple press releases that stunned our boss. 

The desk I occupy this summer is about ten feet from my boss, Nancy Johnson, but not within eyesight.  She repeatedly forgets I am even there and finds it stunning how quiet and attentive I am this summer.  It is a much quieter room, with the walls stacked with binders, each one containing all the information to catalogue every exhibit the museum has opened.  This of course serves a pertinent purpose.  If, for some tragic reason, the museums’ hard drives get destroyed, than at least there is a hard copy.  That way, if the museum gets an exhibit to return, we do not have to start from scratch in composing a successful exhibit.  We have the entire life of the exhibit already catalogue for reference.  Very smart, in my opinion, but then again, I naturally organize everything.  

Needles in the Haystacks

            Week 5, Tuesday June 5th and Wednesday June 6th, I continued working on the contact lists project in the database.  With the work I had completed the week before, all the contact lists had been gathered, formatted, and the duplicate lists had been deleted.  From this point, I uploaded these updated lists into the Patron Mail System.  This system is where all of the museums’, hopefully, up to date contacts are contained.  This system makes it easy and efficient for the museum to send out email blasts of coming exhibits, events, speakers, workshops, etc. 

            So what I did, to make the “updating” stage of the now organized contact lists easier, was to input the lists into the Patron Mail System.  Then I sent out a mock “e-blast,” to see which emails bounced back as “bad emails” or contacts who “opted out.”  The list I got back from Patron Mail was exhausting looking!  Out of roughly fourteen hundred emails, I got seven hundred and eighty two that bounced back on me.

            Next stage of the tedious process, I began the search for the needle in the haystack.  The list purely contained the bad emails.  There was no indication of which list the email was from, or the name of the person whom the contact belonged to.  So I basically had to go on a crazy hunt, through roughly twenty-five lists, each with hundreds of name, organizations, phone numbers, addresses, and emails, to find the bad emails and delete them. 

            Inputting the lists into Patron Mail took all of a half an hour.  It was the mad search for each needle in the valley of haystacks that consumed the rest of my week.     And the process would continue into my 6^th week on the job, but more on that when it comes.  This entire project is exhausting and obnoxious, to say the least, but in the long run, is type of work is what is key to making a non-profit not only thrive, but purely live.  

The Daily Grind

This week, when I got into the office around 9:30am, Tuesday May 29^th, my boss had an overwhelming look of excitement.  Unfortunately, she knows me all too well, and what I am proficient at, which is not necessarily what I always enjoy doing. 

I am a person who finds contentment in organizing just about anything and everything.  So when Nancy announced my next project, she knew I would be happy to take on the hours and weeks of tedious work that would be demanded.  As I mentioned earlier with the radio stations’ contact lists, the museum, throughout its entire database, has roughly eight contact lists.  Some short, some long, some with different contact information for the same correspondent at a particular station, some with information that had not been edited since 2005.  This all just for the radio station category.  As many marketing departments in arguably all organizations or firms, our category of contact lists are numbers, from different cultures, to religions, to airline magazines and online at forums, to yacht clubs and the Red Hatters. 

So what my boss was so eager about, she wanted me to swipe the entire database for all of the contact lists, compile, edit, and update.  I began the project with first locating all the lists, in their various locations, most of which were in some very obscure places that made no logical sense.  I brought the total of ninety-eight lists into one folder.  I next formatted them into the same font, size, color-coding, and spacing.  This makes it easier on the eyes and less straining to have to de-code.  Not having to scour lists to find out what is necessary, expedites the process.  Then I collected every list of a related category, for example airline in-flight magazines, and put them into one excel sheet with the different tabs.  I did this for every different category, which was taxing for sure, but in the long run, make the system run much more smooth.  This is what constituted my activities for Week 4 on the job.  A tedious task, but a great experience of what the daily grind looks like to oil the system that Bowers operates on.

 

Seeing Results

This week began with me, on Tuesday May 22^nd, revising my email blast to the radio stations, then sending it out.  A had a nice response from Radio Disney.  They communicated how they had partnered with the Bowers Museum in the past, and enjoyed the experience, agreeing with myself on the mutually beneficial, intrinsic relationship between the two party’s.  We communicated through email, back and forth, brainstorming ways to promote one another this upcoming summer.   Naturally, promoting Bowers Kidseum on Radio Disney’s website event calendar was an immediate avenue.  Bowers Kidseum is our friendly museum fitted to the enjoyment of adolescents.  We have yet to set-up a “shout-out” deal.

Getting a “shout-out” on air is not a simple phone call.  Most stations’ sell “shout-out’s,” which I addressed in the initial email to the stations’, given the museum is a non-profit organization serving to educate and entertain our community, the museum’s marketing budget is very small.  So landing a “shout-out” is tricky to say the least.  Then there is a script that has to be drawn up, for what will be read off on air.  And there are time constraints to how long the “shout-out” will be, so appropriately fitting a script into that time is another concern.  This whole “shout-out” business is a work in progress, as evidently clear, but I am very optimistic of the outcome.    

I got responses from other stations, but I noted my experience with Radio Disney, because it was a positive step in my non-academically trained marketing interests.  I really enjoy marketing, especially when it goes smoothly, but I am sure I am in for some bumps in the road.  

The Art of the Job

Week two on the job,  I began working on re-establishing the Bowers relationship with radio station’s whose audiences are compatible with the museums.  My boss was very enthused to have me taken on this project.  I was confident this would be easy for me, given I made a lot of these relationship pretty solid last summer.  These relationships could be very strategic to accessing the museums community via a different path; through the radio.  Marketing successfully with a radio station to bring in new or returning audiences to the museum, requires a clever and creative way of approaching the stations’ audiences. 

            The first step in this project is to find what pre-existing excel contact lists we have of radio station.  It is important to find out what information we already have, what information we need, and what information is out of date.  Also, how have we reached out to the radio stations in the past?  Have we emailed or made a personal call?  How have they responded and what work have we done with them?  All this information can be accessed through the “notes” tab on every excel sheet.  The museum takes precaution in noting its history, so that new employee understand the situation they are walking into. 

When looking through “the pool,” which is the hard drive database on the computers that contains everything that deals with public relations, there are multiple excel sheets and word documents, which need editing, revising, and examination.  The contact lists were scattered and a giant mess, to say the least.  I comprised every excel sheet into one master document, then went through and deleted the duplicates, creating a clean, concise, and efficient contact list.

            After understanding the situation the museum had and hopefully currently has with the radio stations, then it was time to gather the information that we want to promote.  Being concise and clear is important.  People do not have the time or interest to spend reading a lengthy email, so communicating concisely makes both party’s happy.  This is what I worked on this week: finding, updating, and formatting the pre-existing list, then composing an email blast.  

First Days on the Job

My name is Brooke Frazier and I am interning this summer, 2012, with the Bowers Museum of Cultural Arts in Santa Ana, California.  I am a History and International Studies major at Loyola University Chicago.  I will be commencing my senior year this coming fall.  I was born and raised in Orange County, which is why I am familiar with and natural selected the Bowers Museum to apply for an internship.  I am actually a returning intern to the Public Relations department of the Bowers from last summer, 2011.  I will be working under my old boss, Nancy Johnson, Director of Communications and Branding. 

The Bowers has been serving the Orange County community, as a non-profit, since 1936.  The museum was founded by Charles and Ada Bowers.  The Bowers closed  in 1986 for a period of self-study, but reopened in 1992, due to community request.  The Bowers mission is to enrich the lives of its community through the world’s finest arts and cultures, which it achieves through offering lectures, exhibits, art classes, and travel programs.  

Week one at my internship commenced with a meeting at 9:30am, Tuesday May 8^th, to discuss with Nancy my hours and projects I will be heading up this summer.  Hist 398 only requires a 75 hour minimum for the semester credit, but I arranged to work Tuesday and Wednesday’s for 5 hours each, for 15 weeks.  This will give me 150 hours for the semester.  Since I am a “veteran” to the job, as Nancy puts it, she has me jumping back into the radio station gig.  She essentially wants me to be the liaison between the museum and the radio station’s whose audiences are compatible with the museums.  This will be easy for me, given I made a lot of these relationship pretty solid last summer.  Working as Nancy’s right hand, she will also have me doing multiple other projects and tasks that will come about on a moments notice.  We will see.  It is always an exciting time and the weeks fly by!