This is my last week at my internship. I was creating a document with helpful hints for next year's intern, and came across hints for me left by last year's intern. After reading through the list of office-related factoids and bits of advice, I was shocked at how much the landscape has already changed --even in our small agency that is located in a small town.
Included in the previous intern's notes for me were instructions on where to find the company and client letterhead, as well as where my employer keeps envelopes and stamps. Funny, I haven't mailed a single letter my entire time working here!
Correspondingly, the previous intern left copious instructions for how to print memos, releases, calendar listings, etc. and put them together into packages to mail out to various media. Again, besides making a set of hard copies of all of the documents I have completed during my time here, I have never printed and compiled a package of information for a single journalist. Whereas a year ago press releases were printed into hard copies that were sent by mail, we completely digitized our process this year. I was responsible for creating pdf's of releases (complete with electronic letterhead) and other documents and sending them via e-mail. No paper or postage required!
There were also major changes in our dissemination lists. In the last year, our two local daily newspapers merged into one paper. This led to major restructuring of our media contact lists, as some journalists moved over to the new paper while others left the publication. Thus, the contact lists left me by the last intern were completely inaccurate only one year later (deadlines included).
Interestingly, the intern made no mention of social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter in her notes. This year, these sites have become integral pieces of our overall approach. Although we are not up and running on Twitter, we have spent a lot of time this summer putting together Twitter proposals and coming up with a model of how we could make Twitter work for our clients. We have created Facebook pages for several of our clients, and one of my largest responsibilities was monitoring and updating these pages daily.
Although some of my predecessor's advice was applicable and helpful, I was shocked by how much of the previous intern's advice was basically obsolete to me only one year later! It was almost hard to believe we were talking about the same position!
Have you had similar experiences or seen similar examples in your business? How much has your job changed in the last year?
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