The Intern Epidemic
Here is a post many will agree is long overdue. The number of interns and more importantly the percentage of interns in relation to an organization’s overall size has rapidly increased over the last several years. Perhaps the economic decay acted as a catalyst for the “intern epidemic,” or maybe it is simply because businesses are legally allowed to employ free labor, but, whatever it is, I think internships have exploded and spawned into something they weren’t when I first remember interning while in High School.
This is not the case of every business “employing” interns, but I think many businesses have realized entry level positions have gone the way of VCRs and are increasingly becoming useless, so they thus begin eliminating entry level positions that are now to be filled by unpaid interns. Again, I stress this is not true of all firms with entry level positions, but many require the new employee to do meaningless tasks I believe will soon be outsourced. Can anybody even doubt one day soon there will be an executive whose “administrative assistant,” aka secretary will be an aspiring Bollywood actress answering calls from India? While one of the main benefits of interning is the ability to see if you, the intern, likes the industry you’re interning within, doesn’t it seem meaningless to have interns doing the tasks that will one day be unneeded?
A second flaw I find with businesses employing interns, especially start ups, is the percentage of interns in relation to the business’ overall size. I’m borderline embarrassed to say I interned without pay for a “company” with more interns than full time employees! As an unofficial official guideline to hiring interns, I want to recommend to employer’s a proper ratio approach. At a minimum, a firm should employee 2 full time (and paid!) employee’s for every 1 intern (paid or unpaid). The ratio strategy is similar to what you will find at a nightclub where the full time employees are girls and the interns are guys (sorry guys). Girls are of more value to nightclubs for obvious reasons, so they are the businesses full time employees while the interns are the guys who are less valuable.
I’ll continue on with the nightclub example to mention how a business can determine whether or not they need to compensate interns. When there are too many guys (interns) and not enough girls (full time paid employees), money is usually involved at the door of most nightclubs where the guys are forced into table service. Money acts as the equalizer to make sure the group is bringing something to the table (literally). So, in the office type of situation, for an intern to actually get something out of the internship, shouldn’t there be more full time employee’s around to impart wisdom? How much is the intern going to learn if he or she is mainly amongst people with the same skill sets and level of education? So, at least if you’re not going to learn too much as an intern, you might as well be paid, right?
Then, there are always the people who will say “internships are so vital to have on your résumé.” While this may have been true of most internships in the past (where, from my memory, internships were a little tougher to attain), what part of doing something meaningless is important for a future employer to see on your résumé? If an intern isn’t truly active in helping with the decision making processes and execution (the things of value), allowing them to show off their creativity, how valuable is intern experience to a future employer? On the reverse side of the coin, if the employer views a résumé with useless typical internship-esque bullet points all over the place and actually buys into the “internships are vital” viewpoint, how much should anybody really long to work for that employer? The employer clearly does not understand ideas and creativity are at a premium, not commodity type functions the résumé claims the applicant is fluent in. So I ask, with that hiring mentality, how long do you think it will be until that company goes the way of the VCR?
While I agree many great opportunities are the result of internships, the point of this post was to expose some of the negative, but often true aspects that come along with “the epidemic.” If you are an intern, ask yourself “am I a mere plug covering a hole in the ship (that is the business) bound to sink?,” or “am I helping charter the seas?” If you’re an employer, it is important to understand your duties when hiring an intern. It is your responsibility as the employer to make sure interns are doing meaningful work. Lastly, I apologize to employers who just lost their intern(s) who just read this post.
Doing What You Don’t Know
“When we write only what we know, we limit ourselves to territory we’ve already covered.”
The above is a quote from Steven Pressfield’s blog which I read no more than two minutes before I started writing this blog post. The quote is completely about creativity and how we create art. Rather than looking at “writing what we don’t know,” I’d rather explore the implications of “doing what we don’t know.”
Sometimes the more knowledge we have of a certain subject, the less likely we are able to make change in the category. Our biases and often times expert-like knowledge and abilities of something we do sets up parameters limiting our true creativity potential. To offer up an example, I’ll talk about about wine, a topic I’ve recently been actively seeking more information on, either in the its actual form through tastings, (to which I’ve found myself staring at many empty bottles) or in the form of different sommelier and wine expert writings online. The one downside of learning is: the more you learn, the less creative you’ll become if you were to produce art or in this case, wine.
Since I only have the primitive know-how I’ve read about wine making, anything I create is sure to be wildly interesting. Interesting can mean the worst wine, ever, or perhaps something truly great, garnering a cult like wine aficionado following. Or maybe what I will have created wouldn’t be wine by definition, but more of a new of a form of alcoholic beverage, assuming I have the fermentation process down pat. My limited resources (knowledge wise) will “unbound” me from certain traditions other’s with knowledge would never dare stray away from in the creation of something new.
One of the only reasons businesses seek out information on processes they undergo while making a product/service is to help protect themselves from taking a loss, money wise. While it seems like a grand idea to protect yourself from losing money by doing massive amounts of research, what you wind up doing is similar to every one of your current and future competitors. If you can research something and find information on it, well than so can your competitors and it is certainly not art if you’re set out on reproducing what is already available.
Here is something you can do. Attempt to produce something, it can be anything you are interested in but have little to no knowledge of. When you are done producing “it,” go ahead and Google it. If nothing comes up, well then you’ve created something new; no matter how good, bad, minuscule or majuscule it is, it is new and therefore, art. When nothing comes up on Google, you have beat Google, so pat yourself on the back; you’ve just won, and winning is what counts, right?
Now it’s on me to create something great, so I’ll get back to my production of ice wine from grapes crushed by penguins wearing custom Tom’s Shoes - I think I’ll call it “Waddle Wine.”
The Caring Mistake
Earlier today, I ordered a pizza to be delivered to my apartment. Oddly enough, the delivery itself spurred on today’s post, and not just because I was so hungry before the pizza, I could not seem to write one. When the pizza I ordered was delivered, the delivery guy did not have exact change, so I was semi-forced to give him the $20 in my hand and have him keep the change he nor I had. While the $2 extra tip is hardly a big deal, it was a reminder of my reading of Danny Meyer’s book, Setting the Table. One thing I recall taking away from Setting the Table is how Danny talks about dealing with mistakes. The delivery guy not having change was probably a mistake (or a clever move in hindsight), but mistakes are the easiest ways to show you care. Making mistakes is part of what makes a person or a brand human, so it is likely they’ll occur at some point or another. How a brand, for example goes about handling mistakes can make a world of difference. Had the delivery guy taken my money, went back to the pizzeria, pulled some change from the register and returned to my apartment door with it, I for one would have been surprised. Would I have taken the $2 back? Absolutely not. But would I be a customer who is likely to continue tipping well and returning often? Absolutely. One simple misstep like the delivery allows a person or a brand to do something extraordinary. The ability to show you truly care is one of the last factors going unnoticed with brands and is also one of the last factors that can uncommoditize (I think that’s a word) a product/service in a category full of similars. The act of caring is free and usually yields high returns. A walk back to my apartment with change: free; being loyal to the pizzeria and tipping well: high returns. It is hard to deny the overall power of caring in people, brands or even TV for that matter (it was why Vinny Chase fired Ari). While the delivery faux pas didn’t result in the pizzeria doing something extraordinary, it did result in a valuable business lesson reminder about caring.
Twitter Advertising 2.0
Twitter has been reluctant to fully launch their advertising platform for all brands to use; instead, a handful of early adopters, like Virgin Mobile and Starbucks are the guinea pigs of the program to work out any snafu’s that may show up. By now, you’ve probably seen ads when you search trending topics or terms on Twitter. What you’re seeing is what I call Twitter Advertising 1.0. As Twitter users are more comfortable with seeing ads and ad agencies find out ways to maximize the use of Twitter, surely the advertising on Twitter will evolve. Here is my guess as to where it will go. Most agree the background space of Twitter pages is mainly useless. If you don’t believe me, follow this link to Twitter creator, Jack Dorsey’s page; he is using a beyond simple brown background with a generic picture of five flying seagulls. Even if you use a custom background to match your personal brand or company’s brand, there is little to no functionality of the background. The inability to put hyper-links as your background image is very much the main issue. Without links, the internet is very brochure-like and just as bad as any other traditional media, if not worse. Linking images to other websites can be for personal advertising or for corporate advertising in what I call Twitter Advertising 2.0 With Twitter Advertising 2.0 (T.A. 2.0), Twitter will allow brands to choose and or bid on certain Twitter pages to advertise on, similar to Google Adsense, if not exactly the same. Every account will either allow or deny ads on their background space depending upon their preference. For those who choose to allow it, there will be a revenue sharing model used for the account holder and Twitter based on click throughs or impressions. Obviously, the more followers and influence a Twitter user has, the more they will be compensated for the ads on their background due to the higher demand for the page’s space. Advertisers can use websites like Twitter Grader to determine the value of an individual’s Twitter account; maybe it will work in conjunction with T.A. 2.0. With Twitter Grader, every page is given a score out of 100 points and ranked among every active account based on a secret algorithm. I wouldn’t even doubt various marketing firms going as far as concocting their own algorithms to suit their own needs and beliefs. With T.A. 2.0, bloggers and other types of influential individuals will be able to monetize their blog or personal brand from more than merely their website. For example, campaigns can be started where a blogger has Whole Foods advertisement on their Twitter page AND their blog. Most advertisers are well aware a consumer needs to see an ad an average of three times before it really sticks, so, a Twitter and blog combo campaign will already have two impressions down. 
Visualizing what Twitter can be for advertisers as well as users puts everything into perspective where we now realize how primitive Twitter currently is with respect to its overall potential.
My Background, Your Background
Above lies my current background for my Blackberry. If you get past my self-branding attempt, you’ll see a highly practical background for your phone. How many times are you exchanging your name and number with a new acquaintance at a loud club? Probably quite often, so this makes it a whole lot easier to exchange your info. Not sold yet? Fine, take the quiet and reserved type of person who doesn’t want just anybody to have their number; when you say your number aloud, you run the risk of other surrounding unsavory characters taking your number down as well! And a final use: the one digit off trick. Maybe you don’t want to give your real number out to a person you meet out, so you show them your phone with your fake number. Once they get passed your cleverness, they’ll never suspect it isn’t your real number.
So, if you’d like your very own The Real Mike Clemente type of background, email me your full name and number and I’ll send you a MMS back with your picture (with your name/number, not mine) for your phone.
I should also note, up until now, I didn’t realize I would be sharing my number with the internet - unless of course, I’m using the one digit off move? Tricky, tricky.
