The end of my first period of Internship part 1(Sen)

An old style beginning: Time flies.
From January 16^th to March 27^th, every Wednesday and Friday, two months has passed. I will finish my first period internship in CIDA today. Quite a busy day and I am full of gratification at this moment.

My work:
1) Research
I am not good at research at first and did not have relative experience before. But with the computer and Internet, the only thing I need to learn is how to screen information from the vast database. Take my latest research for an example. With the increasing promotion requirement of our Neoponic project, I need to find new web places for Neoponic advertising. The ideal place is like the website of Art Council England, which could offer a free post link for creative organizations and individuals. Actually, I tried to do the work  one month ago, but the websites I found is not meet the requirement. So this time, I tried to change the key works when I searching, from "post event information" to "post business opportunity", the websites just came to me one by one.

2) Web Editing
This is my favourite part of my job. Basically, I use the background program to edit CIDA website, the new site. Toks and Rebecca registered the account for me, with this account, I could add new post which contain events and job information of CIDA as well as creative industry. The first stage is also research, find right information to enrich our new website. So, as we can see, the jobs I am doing are connect with each other.

3) Social media promotion for Naoko
If Ridley and Lihua are the persons who working at the front page of Naoko project, I am the worker behind the scenes! Naoko, the Japanese girl who pursuing her singing dream in Western country is lucky as she could take advantage of Internet and social media. Generally speaking, my job is to find the right social media platforms and register the account on behalf of Naoko and the Blankrocket entertainment project. In the long term, keep update news and profiles of them. The whole project was composed by various supporting jobs, my part only took a small portion of it, but it enable me more familiar with the production process of CCI.

4) Making phone calls
I had to admit, making phone calls to selling our Cre8net tickets is always the biggest challenge for me. The long contact list, the information which need update, the strangers I should contact with...But when I see back, nothing is horrible and I did much better than I thought. I had to admitted that I still feel nervous when I pick up the phone, but I am sure I begin to enjoy the learning and challenging process. Communication is knowledge, how to convey your idea, your organization, your event to others is not just "say the thing". The communicating tones, pace even your attitude mean a lot. I confront with the challenge from inside rather than the outside working pressure, but I did it.

End of my Internship: Looking Back at my Time with CIDA

Now that I've completed my two months at CIDA as an intern, it's time to look back on the weeks of working with the Creative Industries Development Agency, and list all the things I've learnt here:

1. The East End of London is bursting with culture and creativity
Every Wednesday, our intern group takes a walk down Brick Lane to pick out a new lunch spot. During this walk, we cross paths with so many different ethnicities, hear different languages, notice new street art as well as new restaurants and bars popping up, and walk away with a taste of this eclectic, artistic urban landscape. There are always photographers capturing the graffiti landmarks, or stylists and models preparing for a fashion shoot. You can pick up flyer's showcasing upcoming exhibitions and concerts, and stumble upon vintage shops and markets for precious finds. This means that organically, we're learning a lot about the diverse forms of art communication, marketing, advertising as well as positioning and strategy. It seems - judging by the demographics towards the end of Brick Lane and closer to the Shoreditch area - if you want to become an artist or work in the industry, it's best to set up shop or at least spend a lot of time in Shoreditch. Here your art will get noticed, and you will network with a large crowd of peers, making competition tougher but also visibility more likely.

2. London's Creative and Cultural Industries are Social-Media-Friendly
It's surprising how almost all professionals in media, art, culture and other industries are easy to access online via Twitter or blogs ( I don't use Google+ and LinkedIn so I didn't try either platform). Even British MPs, celebrities and ministers have Twitter account; this gives the public direct access (or at least the illusion of direct access) to these figures and the information they can supply. Concerning the CCI, entire departments handle the social media platforms for major museums like Tate Modern and the V&A, with smaller spaces competing on all possible platforms to generate interest and marketing easier and faster than traditional media channels.Also, most information is available online, which shows great efforts at transparency on the part of industry leaders and members towards the public.

3. Garnering Media Attention is Difficult due to Competition
Because the creative and cultural industry is massive in London with several competitors of CIDA, it is difficult to attract the attention of journalists when seeking media coverage for a creative event. Or at least that's my reasoning when I emailed roughly 150 journalists and received probably no more than five responses about the upcoming Cr8net. This could also be due to several reasons: the email addresses could be outdated or the journalists could have changed positions, the email could be directed to Spam Mail, or its subject could possibly not attract their attention and get sent to trash. My email introduction could either be too formal or too informal, or the information hasn't been attractive enough to compel them to read further. Given my time constraint, I will not find answers to the questions as I can't email them again with a different format to see if that version is more successful.

4. Managing an Asian artist's career can be done from London and researched online
Even though I only sat in on one meeting with Naoko, I was very interested to see the presentation given by my colleagues, who had researched thirty different social media platforms and created profiles of the artist based on her concept, sound and personality. The artist herself was taken aback at the personal information they had found regarding her hobbies and tastes, all of which was available online. Of course, my colleagues' fluency in Cantonese and Mandarin as well as their familiarity with Asian culture gave them access to a wide audience and a wealth of information that a non-Asian speaking researcher would not understand. It was very interesting to observe how it's possible to create and design an up and coming artist's career from scratch here in London, planning the next months of music and video publicity as well as her clothing, appearances and sound.

Aside from these points, I've gained great experience in Internet research, in promoting a brand at a networking event, in attending group meetings and observing CIDA employees at work, in producing videos and speaking on camera about personal experiences and hopes for the future. I've enjoyed my interaction with CIDA's staff as well as my fellow interns, and I've learnt a lot about Asian and British culture, traditions and habits in the process. It's been a very educational time for me and I wish the CIDA team all the best!

Soraya

Behind the Scenes: Take Two of CIDA Intern Video Project

Six weeks after our first day on the job at CIDA, and we returned to our intern video project to film an update on our lives.

The first time we made our testimonial videos, we spoke about what we hoped to gain from our internship in CIDA and our plans for our future. The filming experience wasn't just about speaking; it was also about practising filming, editing and producing a video clip. I think it also helped us in terms of gaining confidence and articulating ourselves better.

Last Thursday, we regrouped in the CIDA meeting room to film the second instalment, where we could talk about the development of our internship program, what we'd learnt so far and whether our plans and outlook for the future had changed in any way.
Only this time, instead of just having a video camera and a mic, CIDA equipped us with two light boxes, a white sheet and a reflector as well as two different mics. Feeling a lot more professional, we eventually picked a spot for the interviews and I asked Ridley to stand in while we fixed the lighting and shadows on her face.

This filming was definitely a group effort, where we all took turns in filming, interviewing, being interviewed and holding the light reflector. Lihua gently gave suggestions on how to film and speak in order to make the editing process smoother. With her experience working in TV production, she gave very useful tips.

We alternated shots for each answer to give a more diverse testimonial compared to our first video. To make it consistent, we tried to replicate the same different angles for each video, and one person would stand in as the interviewer for the interview to look at directly when we took portrait shots.
While we were filming, whoever had no task would take photos of the filming on her smart phone to give a behind-the-scenes perspective.

We agreed on a set of questions that each person should answer, incorporating the question into the response so that the whole testimonial would run seamlessly without the interviewer's questions. We first introduced ourselves, then spoke about what we'd done and learnt so far in the past six weeks, which experience at CIDA was our favourite or most valuable, and what we hoped to learn in the future.

I think the experience was a positive one because we each learnt how to handle a camera, fix lighting, control shadows, ask interview questions, speak confidently on camera and create a video product. I'd be really interested in learning how to edit a video; it's a very important skill to acquire if you want to work in documenting or media coverage. Maybe if Lihua lets me, I will sit next to her while she edits our videos and try to shadow her work.

Soraya

Fashion networking event with CIDA( Sen)

This week seems busy as our reading week turns into workshop week. But fortunately, there still have something to cheer us up. The fashion networking evening! 

As the response to London Fashion Week, The organiser City Business Library holding a networking evening which is called: New Year, New Opportunities in Fashion on Wednesday 20th February. This event is held by David Jones Fashion Management and the Portobello Business Centre as well. CIDA attend this event as one of the representative agencies. We have a table in the library to promot our membership. Although CIDA is not focus on fashion, it is still a good chance for us to do networking with the fashion people.

We four interns caught the tube after our exam workshop.  We meet Rebecca at the reception of the CityBusiness Centre and set up the table in 10 minutes. The materials at our table including a promotion pack which contain the information of CIDA membership, a leaflet for the general information about CIDA, our cultural pen and the registration sheet. The display of those promoting materials is also art; Lihua and Rebecca pose the packs as a beautiful fan shape, which is very eye-catching.  

Basically, our responsibility is introduced CIDA to the guests which mean we should have a clear idea regarding what CIDA is, what CIDA do as well as what is the mission and main business that CIDA running. From the past six weeks, we had to learn some projects and programmes that CIDA doing, especially for a project called Neoponic. I fixed some pictures for this project for the past few weeks. 

At first, Rebecca only needed one people to do the promotion job with her. However, all the four interns did the jobs together with passion.  I was stuck at the English speaking problem, again.  I cannot image how can I communicate with all the professional people in the fashion industry! Rebecca asked me if I need her company, I said no for the first time. No one can help me during the whole learning and exercising process. I must depend on myself. Only in this way, I could grow up as fast as I can. My first client is a black young lady who just built her own brand and seeking for business support.  I tried my best to learn what is CIDA doing, and what level of our membership is suitable for her.  

 

Soraya also cheered me up, said I am doing well. I suppose the best way to find confidence is keeping practicing; forget my nationality and my first language at the same time. 

My first client is a black young lady who just built her own brand and seeking for business support.  I tried my best to explain what is CIDA doing, and what level of our membership is suit for her, how we can helped her to put her business into the next stage. My other guests including designers, self-employed manager, website developers …They have various background and their business locate in different stages and levels, how to cater their interests is the most difficult part. 

The speakers gave about 1 hour speeches; they share their own experience within the fashion business which is very useful for us to familiar with the fashion and the broad culture industry in London.  When the communication and networking session began, we interns have the opportunity to see around and learn more about other cultural organizations.

The event was ended at 8:30P.M. To be honest, this is our first time to participate in social cultural event in London, as a real participant. We really enjoy being part of the such a innovative event which we could memorized for our futher career. Moreover, I suppose the experience we learn today could applying to our Cre8net as well.

Sen's new challenge in CIDA

After several days of researching practice and learning, last Friday, I receive a new task from Rebecca which is making phone calls to some organizations and agencies for selling Cre8net tickets. This new test really shocked me. Making phone calls is always my weak point. The reason why Toks gave me this task is the "what the student want to learn from this internship" options which I chose three weeks ago in my internship agreement. Obviously, one of my choices is--to improve my English speaking ability.

This is the biggest challenge I ever met in CIDA yet, even in UK! Despite the truth that I did PR job before, I still do not like tale with strangers via phone. I am worried that I will ruin our event ticket selling. To be exaggerating, the fear is from inside rather than the outside pressure. Notwithstanding, I had no reason to escape from this challenge, this is a "must do" mission.

Rebecca is quite nice, she told me take my time and starts to call when I feel comfortable and prepared. In this period, my first step is to search the contact number from their websites, and take notes.

Fortunately, Ashley emailed me the Cre8net script which I could follow to read during my calling. He helped me practice via phone several times and taught some communication techniques. To be specific, the key note is: try to make myself slowly and clearly. Basically, people over the phone will ignore my accent and understand my meaning if I speak slowly. Moreover, he tried to correct my pronunciation with patience. Their help really means a lot to me.

Here is part of my script:
Hello there, my name is Sen  and I am calling from CIDA.  We are now running an event/conference on April 24^th, called Crn8et. I am wondering if you have heard about it? 
1.If they say yes---That’s great. I am wondering if you want to attend it? Or can I email you more information?
2. If they say no---Ok, fine, do you want to have more information about the event?
Ok, this is our third year running Cr8net; essentially it’s a conference for the creative industries. It’s a great chance for industry leaders, including academics to come together, debate and network. ..."

I used Google translate to translate every sentence, not for understanding the meaning but for listening to the correct pronunciation. Before I made every call, I entered the name of the target person in the translate frame and catch the standard pronunciation. I believe no matter in Chinese or Western Culture, speak the right name is the basic respect to others. At least I could leave a good first impression to customers.

It is not so that hard than I thought. The first person I contacted is quite nice. I think he could tell the truth that I'm a foreigner from my accent, so he listening to me with patience. Although he did not booked tickets via the phone, he was glad to receive our Cre8net information and further newsletter.

In this process, I updated my own script for three times, try to make myself comfortable and enable the listener comfortable as well. Usually the people who I got touch with could not booked tickets right away, so my primary purpose is introducing Cre8net, let them know our coming event.

You will never know your potential ability until you put pressure on yourself and have the first shot.