Friday, June 24, 2011

Day 14- June 14: Time To Make A Good Impression

It is an interesting feeling to wake up early for work when you really are not certain what you are doing on that particular day. That was my overwhelming emotion at the start of the day and it grew even stronger when Rich sent me a message saying that I could present my data to him at noon over lunch. It was great to have a meeting on the books…but I did not have anything to work on up until that point. Regardless, I decided that I would go to Lush around 10:00 am and brainstorm about projects that I could do in the future and new ideas for the businesses. This actually turned out to be a great way to spend my time. I came up with a number of good ideas and it gave me a chance to really analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each of the three separate businesses. By the time Rich arrived for lunch I was bursting with ideas and I was excited to present my data analysis. I have to admit, the way that I organized the data was pretty cool. I broke down each response into four categories: mindshare, race, sex, and location. Once I had put them all onto an Excel spreadsheet I created a system where you could sort through the data by limiting each field. I also made a PowerPoint with six pie charts to show the pieces of information that I found most relevant. As I explained what I had done, Rich seemed to be just as impressed as I had hoped. It was nice to see him pour over the numbers, ask questions, tell me how helpful it would be and say how I had gone above and beyond what he expected. After that I talked about the other ideas that I had come up with and we discussed upcoming projects that I could work on as well. He seemed a little surprised (in a really good way) when I talked about two of my ideas. I had identified the biggest problem that Gung Ho! Pizza faces as being the inability to communicate between the foreigners who order the product and the Chinese workers who work at the POS. I asked if they had considered online ordering software and he said that Jade had just come up with that idea a couple of months before and the contract for the software was sitting on his desk. He also really liked an idea that I had to create a link from the Gung Ho! Pizza website to the iF Juice (a fresh juice that they serve (also another girl on the trip is interning there)) website and vice-versa. After that we discussed the possibility of me running their big 4th of July party and setting up a number of mixers between foreign programs and Lush/ Pyro Pizza. Other ideas for projects that I could work on included doing competitor analysis and creating an English training program for new employees. Before Rich left he gave me a “Wu Krew” card that gave me 50% off any purchase I made at Lush or Pyro Pizza. After the meeting I spent the rest of my day planning and brainstorming for my new projects. When I got home I went with a group and ate at the Chinese restaurant within the Global Village. That night I started reading the first book that Jade had given/assigned to me, The E-Myth Revisited. It was a good day at my internship and I feel like I started to turn a corner in proving that I would have some worth to the company in my limited stay.

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