Emily's Marketing Internship with UEA's Research and Enterprise Services -- Week 6

15-19 April

The weeks are flying by now. I have created a first draft of the logging in page for Pure users and gathered some information together for the Pure Help Guide.

My weekly meeting with the Assistant Director of Research and Enterprise Services was very productive. We discussed the copy writing that should be included on these documents.

I had lunch with the International Officer, Basma Hakim. Basma is a family friend and she let me know of other departments in the UEA that I may not be aware of.

Ever since Adobe Creative Suite has been installed, I have been experiencing a few PC problems. Hopefully the I.T Support department will be able to assist with this soon. I started to create a summarised time scale of the Pure Marketing roll-out plan to present in the Pure monthly meeting in May.

I made an appointment with a Careers Advisor at the UEA which I would recommend to anyone who is job seeking. I have recently updated my CV with my new Marketing Internship, and I wanted another pair of eyes to scan through. I arrived in reception and there were some leaflets on the table. One of them included my picture and quotation from my previous Internship with East Anglian Air Ambulance!

The Careers Advisor, Isla Hosking was positive about my CV and gave me some example CV’s to read while she read mine. They gave me some helpful pointers such as to focus my personal profile at the top of my page to a specific role when I apply for a particular job and to increase the line spacing between the bullet points in order to make it easier to read. The appointment definitely encouraged me into perhaps writing new sections in the future, such as an Achievements relating directly to work. I also mentioned that I would like a mock interview and they said to call up when I have my next interview offer.

Whilst I have been taking part on the UEA Graduate Internship Programme, I have noticed that the careers service at the UEA is superior and relevant to what graduates are facing today.

Katie's Customer Survey Internship with Flagship Housing Association

My time at Flagship Housing Association overall was a positive experience; especially after a long and frustrating search after graduating from university for a chance to prove myself in. This position was a perfect match to me as it not only gave me the great amount of personal responsibility and control over my work, but allowed me to develop within the role to my own pace. Basically in my internship I was responsible for finding out the levels of digital exclusion (specifically internet use) among Flagship’s customers through research. This was done through two methods, a survey and a focus group to gain a balance between raw data and the thoughts and feelings of customers’ experiences with digital technologies. However the focus groups did not fare as well as the survey as very few customers turned up in the end; a total of 3! Yet my activities, including the focus group, regarding the analysis were spread out among the three months that I was there.

January

January was one of my most hard working but least busy months with Flagship. It was hard because I had to find more work to do which involved me being proactive within my office to a great degree. Examples could be asking my fellow colleagues if they had spare admin work (often filing backlog) but most of my time was occupied with research on affordability and demand project on behalf of my line manager at the time. My lack of focus on the main project however was a result of not having any data to analyse and having most of the co-ordination in setting up the survey and focus group with more relevant departments after I have done my part in writing up the survey, focus group questions and chosen the relevant locations for the groups to be held. January was mostly a waiting game until the surveys started coming back in February and conducting the first focus group at the end of the month which only had two participants.

February

This month was quite busy, not that I was running around to different offices, I found that I didn’t need to travel all that much in my three months while I was there. I was busy doing the main part of my project which was entering the data from the flood of surveys that came through. Or maybe it just seemed busy as I was finally honing onto a project of my own after waiting for survey to be mailed. In the end more than 2000 surveys came back from customers provided a great basis for analysis and progress for research as well. However the final focus group was even worse than the first only one turned up! However I was not discouraged as they give us something worthwhile for the final report, even if it wasn’t for an urban / rural comparison, it just supported some of the correlations found in the survey data.

March

March. The final month. The hectic month. Month of nerves but of Triumph. This was the month that pulled all of my previous hard work to shame. Not only did I use previous research skills in the analysis of the survey data but I had to learn new tricks with Excel in order to correctly display the data in a chart. Also my writing skills were also tested as I had to exercise restraint in explaining what the results showed rather than attempt to write why some people had access to the internet or not. In the end the report came out beautifully concise and professional! Yet that was not the end of my internship there. I expressed that I wanted to do a presentation at the end of the internship to give a summary of my report to key members of staff whom would benefit best from it. It namely consisted of the entire marketing team some which helped coordinate the focus groups, IT staff members and the CEO who shook my hand after the presentation; so I think it went well!

My time at Flagship was an overall positive experience. I gained more confidence in my own abilities and how to conduct myself in a professional environment. Skill wise I found that I picked up at university, like my focused work ethic, organisational skills, and communication skills, all proved useful in the end. However I did learn the ability to ask for help in finding information, how to network and greater personal initiative. Even though I know the job market is not much better than when I started this internship I know I will be better capable for any future challenges.

Emily's Marketing Internship with UEA's Research and Enterprise Services -- Week 5

8th - 12th April

This has been my first full time working week at the UEA since I have started my Marketing Internship. I have had a meeting with Rachael Mold, Assistant Director of the Research and Enterprise Services to discuss the progress of my work during this week. I worked on the most frequently asked questions that are for the Pure help guidance sheets. I have now postponed working on the questions as we do not know all the relevant information to progress. I sketched a rough design of the Getting Started page. I asked Rachael Mold about the Pure web page and whether she would like the layout of the page to be updated or the copy writing. We went through the topics that needed to be updated. I also worked on the How to Get Started copy and we reprioritised my workload.

I have some great news! Adobe Creative Suite has been installed on my computer which means I will be able to start design work using Illustrator, Photoshop and Indesign. I read the original Marketing Communications plan I was given on my first week to see if I have missed any ideas that would be useful. I have been reading the internal design guidelines to check the ways in which the UEA logo is used, as I am starting to develop the Pure and UEA logo combined together.

I attended the Pure monthly roll-out team meeting which was led by Rachael Mold with a discussion of the progress being made by everyone involved. The Pure weekly working group meeting included a discussion on the progress of the technical side. The Head of Application support has set up my Pure account to be an Academic view which allows me to see what the Academics would be looking at when they log on which is really useful for the progress of my work.

I have looked through the instructional videos that are on the Pure site to see if I can understand how to use them, which will allow me to improve any manuals we create for Marketing collateral. I have tested the How to create a CV section and started to make one to see how easy it is to use, and to note any problems. My sister and baby nephew came to the UEA in my lunch break this week and we enjoyed the sunny afternoon.

Emily's Marketing Internship with UEA's Research and Enterprise Services -- Week 4

3rd-4th April

Well it has been a short couple of days because of the holidays. I have read a previous PURE article in October’s Broadview, which is the university’s newsletter. Published throughout the year, it covers a wide range of subjects concerning the UEA. I have also been logging onto PURE to familiarise myself with the system again.

I met with the Research and Enterprise Services Assistant Director and asked whether we can find out about the copyright of PURE branding so we can investigate whether we can use it on our Marketing materials. We went through an overview of the marketing documents I am working on, and prioritised them together. I shared some of my drawings in the meeting which included ideas for creating a visual of PURE and the UEA in one logo together.

I am also in the process of finding out whether Adobe Creative Suite can be installed on the PC I am using. My part time graphic designer work at Anglian Chemicals has come to an end. The good news is starting from next week I will increase my hours to full time during my internship at the UEA.

Emily's Marketing Internship with UEA's Research and Enterprise Services -- Week 3

25^th-27^th March

This week I have researched Marketing strategies from a variety of sources in order to give myself a better understanding of how to approach promoting the product. I have written an overview of the documents that need to be drafted up in the coming weeks. I have been looking at the layout of the weekly staff bulletin, as we may want to put some information about PURE in the future or advertise some workshops. I have been researching the different UEA twitter feeds just in case it could be another free route to promote PURE.

I have continued to research other University sites that use PURE and drafted a list of Marketing documents we may need and prioritise them. I have written a preliminary list of questions for other institutions to answer which focus on how they implemented the system across their University. I asked the Marketing and Communications administrator how long it takes to print internally which will help me with the timescale for the Marketing plan for PURE.

I have been finding out if I will be able to have access to the Adobe Creative Suite in order to draft some poster and leaflet designs to use as marketing materials as this would be a great chance to work on some creative ideas as well as the project planning. I am really looking forward to my break away to enjoy the University Easter holidays.

Emily's Marketing Internship with UEA's Research and Enterprise Services -- Weeks 1 and 2

Week 1 11^th-14^th March

My role on my 12 week Marketing Internship is to support the Marketing and REN department with the roll-out Marketing strategy of PURE. This is a system that provides real time information to individual staff and their academic managers. The University has purchased PURE from the software company Atira. PURE allows data about research projects, publications, research students and enterprise projects to be displayed in one place on a web portal rather than having access to many different databases.

The first week included being welcomed to the Research and Enterprise Services department. I was given a tour of various offices that I may need to use during my time here. In order to market this product, a clear understanding is essential.  I have been researching PURE documentation that the UEA have written and have access to the PURE portal in order to familiarise myself with it.

I have met with the Marketing and Communications manager from the Admissions Recruitment and Marketing department, who gave me an overview of the department. I had a practical session from the Marketing Administrator who gave me a run through of where information is on the UEA portal that I may need to access. I also had a meeting with the Communications Officer for internal communications within the University, who gave me a guide on the writing style of the University and explained her role.

I had a necessary Firewalk of the Arts corridor which is standard health and safety with anyone that is new to working in the building and had a meeting with the Science and Research Support Librarian to discuss her role with PURE and the current system of EPrints.

I had a meeting with a PURE working group. This was a discussion of the technical side of PURE. My week is split on working at two different desks in both the REN and ARM department. I found this a bit difficult finding my way in my first week but also refreshing being able to work in two different offices. I take every opportunity of being outside to enjoy the UEA surroundings in my lunch breaks.

Week 2 19^th-22^th March

In the second week of my internship I learned more about the PURE system and EPrints. I had a meeting with a Super user of PURE who discussed her role and involvement of EPrints, which is giving me a broader understanding of the move from EPrints to PURE and the way in which the product works. 

I also received some Life Ray Training from the Web Content Administrator from the Marketing department, which involved a practical workshop of how to use the CMS system. There were some technical problems when I received the training on the computer I was using; so I shadowed with a member of staff. However, I was assured that if I needed any help when using Life Ray in the future then I would get full support.

For part of my week I worked in the Admissions Recruiting and Marketing department so I have been settling in and getting to know more of the team. I had a weekly PURE user meeting where the technicalities of PURE were discussed. The system seems to be going ahead successfully which allows me to plan the marketing around the launch of it. I have spent some time drawing up a timetable of the work I will be doing for the duration of the Internship. It is a bit strange planning the next 10 weeks of your life; but I can see the benefits of writing down what you would like to achieve in a short amount of time. Part of my plan involves designing dummy printed marketing materials so looking forward to putting my creative hat on in the coming weeks.