Don’t Intern Only to Learn About an Industry, but Also Where It’s Heading
It’s hard to believe I’m more than half way done with my summer internship at the branding/advertising firm Mechanica. I’ve learned a lot about the industry and the responsibilities of the different departments/positions within a firm. However, one of the highlights of my internship was the day I was fortunate enough to attend BostInno’s State of Innovation forum at Communispace in Boston. The forum covered four key fields: marketing, higher education, mobile, and retail/e-commerce. Six industry experts from their respective fields discussed the future of these industries in a panel.
The awesome part about these panels was that the experts were forced to respond to a series of statements concerning future industry trends on a scale of strongly disagree to strongly agree–prior to the forum without being able to see their fellow panelists’ answers. When it came time for the live forum, each panel member’s position was revealed on presentation screens throughout the room. It became obvious fairly quickly that these experts didn’t always share the same outlook; often they were quite opposite of one another. This panel format made the resulting discussion interesting and even somewhat heated. There didn’t seem to be a right or wrong answer most of the time. Each expert backed up his or her opinion with personal experience and hard facts.
This event taught me a lot about the future of marketing–my field of interest, but I also learned a ton fields I hadn’t known much about like mobile technology. The best part is that this event was open to students (for a reasonable price). I highly recommend attending BostInno’s and other companies events to learn truly valuable and awesome information. The networking opportunities alone would be worth the price.
Check out the video I’ve included from BostInno that shows highlights from the state of the innovation forum!