My Time at Kinetic
Hey there everyone! My name is Haley and I have been so lucky to work with Kinetic as a student intern through my high school and school district. In this opportunity, I’ve gotten to experience Kinetic from a unique perspective. I’m not a paid employee, boss, or customer. I’d say I’m more of an observer and imitator with keen marketing interests – a sponge if you will.
I started at Kinetic at the beginning of my second semester in January. Coming into my first day, I was excited but uncertain as I didn’t know what to expect. When I arrived with my advisors from my school, Kendra Porrello, who I now know to be one of my supervisors and a ray of sunshine at the front desk, sat us down and we tossed curricular ideas back and forth. We laid out a plan of action for my internship, and then it was go time.
The first thing that I noticed about Kinetic was the lively environment. The space itself is very colorful. Just about every wall you look at is plastered with an encouraging or unifying quote. It’s just a great place to be, not to mention when it’s filled with such fun people. All of the employees were super welcoming and seemed to know me by name after only one day. The way they all work together is admirable in that they find the perfect balance between the nitty-gritty production and gregarious, bubbly experiences. There’s always a buzz in the office whether it’s people talking strategy, Skype notifications, client meetings, or any other piece of the hustle and bustle that constantly lingers.
Once I was familiarized, I jumped right in on meetings and status calls. I was taking notes, asking questions, and learning the basic project lifecycle to give me a foundation for my future tasks. Not only was I being structurally oriented but I underwent quite the vocabulary learning curve, as the marketing world uses more acronyms than you’d probably expect. Once these principal elements were in place, I began to mirror the processes I observed in my mock projects with brand development, press releases, social media audits, and just about everything else you can think of.
Some of the specific projects I got to work on were branding my high school’s business department, writing a mock press release, mock redesigns of City Brew’s fall campaign that Kinetic did, making holiday-themed posts for Kinetic’s team to use on their social media platforms, and more. I got to experience a little bit of every step of the process, and had great direction from everyone around me. Learning the industry from every angle like this was a chance that not a lot of kids my age receive. I can now confidently say that I have a good grasp on everything, especially concepts that I wasn’t so familiar with beforehand like certain vocabulary, budgeting and scope of projects, and digital and automated marketing.
Along the way, I was conducting one-on-one meetings with employees from every department of the agency. In doing so, I was able to achieve a deep understanding of all the positions at Kinetic and the value that each of them provides. And truth be told, every person I’ve met has proven to play a crucial role in the business. Kinetic has seventeen employees, each contributing aspects just as critical as the next. It is impressive to me how each employee is so well-versed in their step of the process. The creative side of marketing is what I was initially most drawn to so I had a blast observing and receiving feedback from the designers and copywriters. That said, I gained new exposure to the strategic side of marketing and have come to find it just as compelling.
This is an awesome place, equipped with a crazy-in-depth level of expertise. Throughout my entire internship experience, I always felt that I was learning from the best of the best. For someone who really wanted to broaden their marketing knowledge past the classroom level, this couldn’t have been a better opportunity. I’m so grateful for all the people that had a hand in my time here. At this point, I think this goes without saying, but it was awesome!
