18MeganT – CA Work Experience Program

Day 8 – Last Day

I started out my day today meeting with Allison Boomer, a communication executive and three other marketing interns. We looked at ads and talked about how we could revise and change them to make them even better. The ideas that Allison came up with were very interesting, and like none I have heard before. Something as small as making a line with a curve at the end, completely straight. It was very interesting hearing what they all had to say. After the meeting, I met with Fareena, a HR intern. One of the projects that she has been working on is getting the hashtag #SASInternLife, to go viral. I gave her some ideas about using all social media platforms, and how Instagram might not be the best one because most people are private. We also worked through how to motivate the interns, maybe with some sort of prize to the winners? Kids seem to love competition. After I did this, all of the Cary Academy students met up with Kayla in one of the meeting rooms and we had a pizza party. We reflected upon our time at SAS and had a SAS career panel. This panel talked to us about their transitions from high school to college, and then from college to the real world. All of them were members of the YPN (Young Professionals Network) at SAS, and talked about their lives and college changes/major changes.

Day 7 – New side of HR

Today, I started my day at 9:00 a.m. meeting for coffee with Kate Ulveling, a marketing intern. Kate and I met so that she could tell me more about her job. We met last week briefly, but she wanted to meet with me again, so we could go over some more things. At 10:00 a.m. I met with a woman in HR named Katie Henry. Katie’s job was different from my mentor Kayla’s, because Katie worked in HR for R&D (research and development) as Kayla works for University Recruiting. The difference is that Katie manages the HR needs for a team of people, as Kayla recruit’s new employees. Katie talked to us about both the difficulties and the rewards HR as a job has, while also joking about her job relating it to Toby from “The Office.” It is interesting how Katie uses different ideas like mind-maps and Myers Briggs to bring her teams together. After meeting with Katie, we met with Kristen Stewart and she told us all about the intern programs. She mentioned how they try to plan things throughout the summer and work to get the interns involved. After this, we had lunch with Kayla, Kristen, and two NC State professors that teach about HR. It was very interesting to hear what they teach and how they approach teaching their classes. Both of the professors worked in the HR field prior to teaching. After lunch, we met with Danielle, who works in HR for diversity and inclusion. It was interesting to see how this was a rather new job (only 7 months old), and how once Danielle figured out what she liked, she made her job happen. Prior to her, there was no specific job at SAS as a diversity and inclusion employee. After this, we got to listen in on a meeting between Danielle, Kayla, and Kristen about how to manage diversity when recruiting different employees. This was all very interesting because it was a rather new topic in SAS, so they could make up what they wanted to do as they did it.

Day 6 – Overview of HR

Today I got to the office around 10:00 a.m., per usual, but instead of arriving at building C, I went to building Q. I started out the day shadowing Kayla Woitkowski, one of the managers in human resources. After spending an hour talking with Kayla, we sat in on a presentation she was giving to all of the interns. This was a very interesting presentation to watch because it was directed at students. Kayla had a game they played after each part of her presentation, kind of like a kahoot. It was interesting to see what she threw in there to catch the attention of the younger generation and how she revised her presentation based on her audience. After the presentation, we ate lunch with a woman on her team named Kristen Stewart. After lunch, we met back with Kayla and she gave us another overview of her job. She told us what type of things she’s looking for when she recruits and more about her job. From 2:00-2:30 we also met with a woman named Jessica McNulty. Jess works for the university recruiting also and showed us the process that one goes through if they are being recruited or applied for a job. At 2:30, we returned to Kayla where we sat in and gave feedback with an early-onset meeting of potentially putting SAS recruiting in an Instagram sponsored ad. The picture I have included is a diagram that Kayla drew on the board when she was giving an overview of HR as a whole.

Day 3 – Planning

I started out my day, getting to SAS 15 minutes earlier than usual, at 9:45 a.m., to meet Jennifer Chase, one of the Global Partner Marketing Managers. We talked with her a little bit to hear about her job. After this I met with Alli Soule. Allie runs the SAS social media and uses different technologies like HootSuite and Sprinkle to monitor what is going on all over social media. She explained different terms likes “Social Listener,” “Social Monitoring and Response Team,” “Employee Advocacy,” and “Influencer Marketing.” She explained how all of these work and have an impact on sales/marketing. She also mentioned with the uproar in social media within the past few years, the laws aren’t able to keep up with it. Just recently the U.K. passed a law called the GDPR which deals with privacy in social media. After meeting with Allie, I drove over to 940 NW Cary Parkway. Here, is where the social monitoring and response team is located. There are a bunch of people sitting in their offices answering chats, calls, and tweets, and emails sent to SAS. They get a notification anytime SAS is mentioned, where they can reply to the social media device that it is sent to. On top of this, they also monitor Dr. Goodnight’s person social media accounts.

During lunch, Liz and I ate with Kate, a marketing intern from Elon and we discussed the college process/internships in college/majors in college. It was very helpful because Kate and I discussed all the different paths. It was also really nice because Kate is originally from Cary, so we had a lot in common. After lunch, I listened to a conference call Liz had on the upcoming webinar. The call was in the early stages of the planning process, but it was nice to hear about it because this was a project Liz and I had been working on a little bit each day. After the conference call, I sat in on a meeting with about 25 people, planning an upcoming event in San Diego. This meeting was also in the more earlier stages of the planning process, but it was interesting to see how all of the different departments planned, talked, and worked together.

Day 2 – Meeting New People

I started out my day by arriving to building C of SAS at 10:00. The first thing I did was meet with a woman named Courtney Vigil. Courtney has one of the coolest jobs I’ve heard of. Her official title is “Global Social Selling.” Basically, Courtney travels to all different countries meeting at the SAS headquarters teaching their sales employees how to use LinkdIn. In the two years she has been working with SAS she has traveled to over 37 different countries. Courtney was telling me how important it is to be on social media and stay active. She also showed me a software that they use that shows how effective her meetings are and in each of the different countries what an impact it has on them. The countries that are not as successful are the ones that she focuses more on. Next week she is traveling to Dubai and Mumbai, and the week after she’ll be in Johannesburg, Africa.

After meeting with Courtney, I met with a woman named Beth Bullard. Beth works in digital marketing and deals with digital advertisements. It was interesting to hear Beth’s perspective on how the digital and social world works. They have data, and within that data, they could get 157,000 leads, but then only about 500 people actually register with them. After meeting with Beth, I helped Liz on a project we have been working on, then we watched a webinar during lunch. After lunch, I met with Shawn and he gave me a tour of all of SAS’s video studios and how video marketing is huge. The picture above is pictures that I took of building V, down in the videography studios.

Day 1 – Overview of Marketing @ SAS

I started my day at 10:00 a.m. today meeting with Christie Dougherty, who works for HR at SAS. Christie gave us a tour of the building and showed us all of SAS’s amazing amenities. Once we finished our mini-tour we sat in for a “SAS Culture” presentation. The presentation basically gave an overview of the history as well as what SAS does. They explained that SAS does everything from finding the quickest/most cost-efficient route for Boston school buses to figuring out when a debit card is being used fraudulently. The presentation was really cool and went over many aspects of SAS. After the presentation we went over questions and ate lunch. A fun fact is that the building in which we ate lunch in, was the same building that was used to film in the Ironman 3 movie. Some of the SAS employees even got to be extras in the movie.

After lunch I met my mentor, Ms. Liz Hamner. Liz Hamner is a senior marketing partner. We got to know each other and went over my schedule for the rest of the week. Liz also told me about a project that she was working on with the Harvard Business Review. After meeting with Liz, I spent some time talking with Mr. Scott Batchlor, the marketing partner manager. He explained to me the “Customer Journey.” The customer journey is a diagram which they base all of their sales and marketing behind. The drawing that Scott drew is the picture above that I chose to feature in this post. The funnel on the left is what most companies use (and SAS used to use), while the diagram on the right is their new adopted “Customer Journey.” We also talked about the marketing as a whole, and the difference between B2B (business to business) vs. B2C (business to consumer). Tomorrow I am very excited to meet with many different people and discuss their specific part of marketing!