Recently, I asked our summer interns, Anne Mitchell + Hannah Adams, to write a blog post on why college juniors, seniors or recent grads should intern at See.Spark.Go. I was THRILLED to see their response! If you’re interested in interning at SSG, email me with your resume at brittany [at] seesparkgo.com.
Reason #9: Athens
This one speaks for itself. I mean really, who wants to drive all the way to ATL during football season!
P.S. Lots of UGA blood in the SSG family.
Reason #8: Big agency experience – small firm relationships
One thing we’ve noticed/come to LOVE in our time here at SSG is the agency’s ability to incorporate business and great relationships into their work.
As an SSG intern you’ll have the opportunity to work intimately on big name national accounts and be included in decision-making processes. You’ll get an inside look at what goes on in meetings with the movers and shakers of the PR world, not to mention great guidance and friendship with your fellow colleagues.
Reason #7: Creative reign
Every skill you bring to the table will be used in your time at SSG. Every SSG intern gets an invite to brainstorming sessions and your input is always welcome and appreciated. Trust us – It’s AWESOME to have people who listen to your ideas and actually even use them from time to time!
Reason #6: You’re part of the team
You won’t be just making copies or fetching coffee here at SSG (though trips to Chic-fil-A and Jittery Joes aren’t uncommon). At SSG you get thrown straight into the fire, in a good way of course!
As an SSG intern you’ll be doing some of the same things as the head honchos and getting real world experience with really great guidance and leadership. You’ll learn the secrets they don’t teach you in school!
Reason #5: Prime Location
This office is what we call ‘primetime locale.’ You are within a mile of 2 Chic-fil-A’s, Five Points Deli, Barberitos, Panera, and Hannah and my personal favie- Publix (home of the pub sub for the uneducated sandwich eater). Occasionally we take office trips to Last Resort and Yoguri. Just sayin’.
Reason #4: The Other Intern
Over the course of this summer, Hannah and I have shared an obsession with Diet Coke, a weirder obsession for The Bachelorette (don’t get us started on Jake & Vienna) and most of all a love for SSG. We hope the next crop of interns is as lucky.
Reason #3: Carson
If you’re lucky, you might catch this little snuggler in the SSG office. He’ll probably try to get you hooked on Dinosaur Train and he LOVES to play in photobooth.
Reason #2: Expanding your network
As SSG interns we learned quickly that owners Brittany & Andy know any and everyone in town/the Southeast, probably the country. We’ve literally never been anywhere with them where they didn’t know someone. Naturally, they are great people for you to know as well!
Reason #1: Brittany aka ‘boss lady’
Co-owner, Brittany, is undoubtedly the best part of the SSG internship experience. Of course we chat about all things PR, but we chat about the celeb gossip, The Bachelorette and life in general too. Truth be told, we couldn’t have thought up a better mentor ourselves. We hope you’re lucky enough to meet her too!
Last week, SSG attended the Chick-fil-A Leadercast as a guest of our client, Booster. The speakers were phenomenal, the entertainment was mediocre (kidding – Booster was responsible for the entertainment and did an incredible job!), but the insights…the truth that each and every component of the day offered was remarkable and worth repeating. Daily.
Here are a few of the nuggets I took away:
On Leadership…
“Leadership is who we are in all areas of our life, every role, every relationship.” – Connie Podesta
“Talent is God given, be thankful. Praise is man given, be humble. Conceit is self given, be careful.” – Tony Dungy
“You can’t take anyone to higher ground, until you find common ground. Leadership is influence. Influence requires connecting.” John C. Maxwell
On Success…
“Greatness is not a function of circumstance – it is a matter of constant choice and discipline.” –Jim Collins
“Starbucks didn’t reach store No. 5 until they were 13 years old. Most ‘overnight successes’ are 20 years in the making.” – Jim Collins
“Success, born of hubris (arrogance) leads to failure.” – Jim Collins.
“The signature of the greatest executives we studied is their humility.” – Jim Collins
“You have to be working for more than your financial bottom line. Every enduring institution has an answer to this question: what would be lost if we disappeared?” – Jim Collins
“Great companies are built on a purpose beyond making money and a set of core values that are unshakable. Purpose ahead of success. If we lose our values, we lose it all.” – Jim Collins
On building a team…
“The right people are on a mission and they don’t write better stories, they make the story better.” – Jim Collins + Mark Sanborn
“We hire ambitious people. The most important job you have is the job you’re doing.” – Ed Bastian, Delta CEO
“Employees take care of your customers, so take care of your employees.” – Ed Bastian, Delta CEO
“If you treat people like they’ll do something great, they’ll do something great.” – Jim Goodnight, SAS CEO
On inevitable change…
“We’re schizophrenic to change: part of us wants it, part of us doesn’t. And if you don’t like change, don’t have kids.” – Chip Heath (ha!)
“Positive change comes from focusing on what’s working and doing more of that.” – Chip Heath / When’s the last time you asked, “What’s working?”
“Providence follows the prepared mind.” – Steve Uzzell
“To the 6 questions of journalism—who, what, when, where, why and how—add this: are you sure? Making sure you know what you know is the key to being prepared.” – Steve Uzzell
Brilliance…
Dr. Ben Carson, pediatric neurosurgeon, was utterly brilliant and closed the day with powerful teaching. Learn about his scholarships at http://carsonscholars.org/.
And I’ll leave you with this pic of our friend John Maxwell wearing Booster’s fancy red Converses on stage!
The first of its kind, Nike launched a store dedicated to bringing Nike Running to life at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto this weekend and See.Spark.Go got to the tell the story. But we’d be amiss if we didn’t let you all in on the scoop, too!
It’s more than a store, Nike Running Stanford is designed to be a runners’ hub — with the Runners’ Studio, where you will find even more specialized products, services and individual help to meet your goals. It is the place to go to get setup with the individual workout tracking of Nike+, the most fun and effective way to keep track of fitness progress digitally. It also offers the ability to customize kicks with NIKEiD, or take a new pair of shoes for a free trial test run. Of course, you can always join Nike Run Club for a group run of your choice of a 3, 5 or 7-mile route. (You can join Nike Run Club in other cities with a Nike Store as well!)
Check out the Nike Running blog for more info. Have a running tip you’d like to share? I’d like to know!
It’s already May believe it or not. Where did April go? I’m always amazed at how quickly time passes and I’m equally amazed that we are back on the road for the 2010 Aha Moment Tour (note: I’m not personally on the road)! Our friends at Skadaddle Media have put together a whole new crew (read their blog), a freshly updated, custom 34′ Airstream trailer designed as a mobile television studio and selected 25 brand NEW cities to visit across the U.S. for this year’s tour. What is the Aha Moment Tour you ask? It’s part of Mutual of Omaha’s search for real people with real stories to feature in their next national TV commercial spots.
The ‘aha crew’ has already visited Fresno, Calif., and will be LIVE in Tucson, Ariz., tomorrow and Saturday. Read more in today’s Arizona Daily Starnews brief.
I’m also including a link to view the top moments from the ’09 tour that are currently on air. You may have even seen one during Celebrity Apprentice, Dancing with the Stars, LOST and/or lots of other shows in the aha-lineup. Enjoy!
We’ve got big news stirring with our friends at U.S. Nike Stores. We’ll post more after May 5… Stay tuned! But until then, watch this FastCompany video from its Innovation Uncensored conference and Nike CEO Mark Parker on why his design background is critical to Nike’s success.
For the past 3 years, See.Spark.Go has had an incredible internship program that’s attracted some amazing talent (from whom I learn something new every day!). This post belongs to the one and only Mary Catherine Kinney (MCK as we call her, or just plain “Rockstar”). Take it away, MCK!
Mary Catherine the Intern here! It’s a sunny day in the Classic City, but a busy day around the office. We are all a-buzz preparing for Mutual of Omaha’s 2010 Aha Moment Tour in May and busy brainstorming for all of our clients. Brittany just asked me what I’ve learned about PR from See.Spark.Go and I just had to share with you my life as a member of the SSG family!
My experience at See.Spark.Go has given me great insight and experience in the wide and ever-changing field of PR. From pitching client events to crafting press releases, my intern days have been far from the water cooler and copy machine tasks.
As a senior in the Grady College of Journalism at the University of Georgia, I’ve had several years of PR teaching, instruction and knowledge. However, the classroom can never teach what you learn from being in the PR “trenches”. My internship at SSG has given me tangible real-world experience in Public Relations. I recall my first week working for Brittany. We had an event happening in Pismo Beach. There were media alerts to be written, lists to be made and reporters to call.
And I was clueless.
Brittany, however, saw a diamond in the rough. She equipped me with a quick lesson in Cision, Mapquest (Where exactly is Pismo Beach anyway?), and an expertly crafted press release and said those fateful words that led to great growth “Go for it.”
Through my internship, I’ve discovered the basics of writing press releases, developing media lists and building relationships with reporters while gaining clear insight into the real-world of PR that I wouldn’t have learned this anywhere else but at See.Spark.Go. This incredible experience equipped me for any PR job that may come in the future.
I just hope that wherever I land after my internship with See.Spark.Go also celebrates all accomplishments with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
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Read more from Mary Catherine on her blog and follow her on Twitter!
Passion Twenty Ten kicked off the year for us this January with a call to global awakening. Passion was held at Philips Arena and the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta with 22,000 in attendance and students representing 37 countries and nearly 1,500 campuses. What incredible story we had the privilege to tell!
Throughout Passion Twenty Ten, the ideas of worship and justice were wed as students engaged in opportunities to impact lives worldwide through the Do Something Now campaign as an act of worship.
The city of Atlanta was greeted by the initial outpouring of tens of thousands of towels and socks for Atlanta’s homeless community that students brought upon arrival to the gathering. By the final day, an overwhelming response to many of the initiatives included:
World Vision :: $62,160 covers 1-year sponsorships for 148 children & 1,000 kits packaged for AIDS workers
Bibles Unbound :: $8,198 given to send 8,198 Bibles to East Asia
CURE International :: $61,555 given to cover 111 surgeries for children with cleft palates in Afghanistan
OneVerse :: $69,603 given to translate 2,784 verses
E3 Partners :: $21,663 given to send 138 men to seminary in the Middle East
Operation Mobilization :: $85,473 given to fund 1 Education Center for the Dalit people in India
Living Water :: $111,513 given to build 22 wells
HOPE International :: $59,164 given to fund 295 small business loans to pull women from poverty in Haiti
Not For Sale :: $83,636 given to build 3 Border Posts to rescue women from the sex trade in Nepal
Compassion International :: $47,111 covers 1-year sponsorships for 189 children
Feed My Starving Children :: $16,589 and 108,432 meals packaged for the hungry
Gobena Coffee :: $21,927 donated to support orphans in Ethiopia
With a goal of $500,000, students far exceeded that goal giving a total of $668,597 in addition to bringing 15,000 towels and 74,000 socks for Atlanta’s homeless. A couple attending gave a matching gift to double that amount to $1,337,194!
You can track along with Passion throughout the year by texting your email address to 30644 and/or join the Passion268Generation Fan Page on Facebook.
Starting in May 2010, Passion will be going to Kiev, Ukraine; London, England; Tokyo, Japan; Hong Kong, China; Manila, Philippines; Sao Paulo, Brazil and Vancouver, Canada. See you there!
Our phone service provider, Grasshopper, became the inspiration for spontaneous creative session this morning with our team.
It all started when we noticed our phone line was down (it’s back up, thankfully). When looking for the customer support number on Grasshopper’s Web site, we came across this publicity stunt they did when announcing their rebrand. From their site: “We FedEx’d 25,000 chocolate covered grasshoppers … to 5,000 of the most influential people in America, including bloggers, politicians, celebrities, entrepreneurs, CEO’s, journalists, reporters, TV anchors and more to promote our new Entrepreneur Movement.”
One of the things I love about the campaign is the parallel of an entrepreneur and a risk-taker, begging the question, “Are YOU brave enough to eat one?” I guess you have to be a risk-taker to find out. (I know you’re all wondering – the answer is no, we didn’t receive any chocolate covered grasshoppers despite the fact we are a client and a pretty influential bunch if you ask us!)
The result? Our creative session led to some VERY BIG, exciting and doable campaign ideas for existing and potential clients.
Yesterday, I was asked this question: “What are you working on BIG?” I love that question and I hope I always have an answer. Do you?
As stated in a previous entry, PR is ultimately about the story you’re telling. What if I said I know 80 individuals that are going to change the world and they all happen to work for the same organization? Now that’s a story, right?
These particular people happen to work at Booster, a company in Atlanta, GA that offers a fund raising strategy for elementary schools through the promotion of fitness, education, and character. But they are not just any fund raising organization. This extraordinary team asks students to get pledges for each lap they run in the Boosterthon Fun Run, which is held at the end of their 2-week program. This unique strategy not only cuts out product sales, but it promotes fitness, which is quickly declining in the U.S.
While these students are getting the benefit of fitness through running, the big win with the Boosterthon Fun Run is what these students are gaining by way of character. Not only are these experience leaders enthusiastic, they are incredible role models (I can affirm that since I married one). They have taken it upon themselves to be a good influence for these young minds across the nation, and I have no doubt that any parent would be thrilled to know the hearts of these team members and how they are impacting their children.
The key to Booster is their corporate culture of building themselves from the inside out. If they do not have balanced, grounded character themselves, they cannot make nearly the impact they do on a daily basis. From the corporate office to the experience leaders, the focus is leadership development. From there, they will change the world one child and one leader at a time. Get fired up! (As they would say).
Enjoy!
