I have just completed my first week as a Business Development and Marketing Intern at The Park. Marketing is a brand new field for me, so in just 5 days I have learned so much about how business operates through marketing and branding. The Park is currently in a bit of a transition phase, with a brand new location opening in the fall. Because of this, our introductory shifts involved a lot of explanation of how the business model works when there are no offices or event spaces available to rent. Our CEO, Mikeal Ahlstrom, has many connections in the innovation and tech start-up industry in Sweden. With his experience, he has incorporated presentations for different global universities into his business model, creating an event where businesses can network with young professionals. One of these talks, this time with graduate students from the University of Pennsylvania, was something we attended on our second day of work this week. Part of Mikael’s presentation covered Swedish work culture and how it has contributed to their successful history of innovation and creativity. This was a great introduction for us interns, giving us a comprehensive view of the new work culture we’ll be involved in over the next two months. 

To succeed in this brand-new industry, I have been working on getting a grasp on the branding of The Park. Since I am diving into a pre-existing marketing plan, I don’t want to create anything that will look super out of place to returning members and customers. However, bringing your own perspective and experience to the company seems to be something that is very valued in Swedish work culture. The other intern from this program, TJ Sepe, and I are working directly with Mikael every day. It is just the three of us completing tasks and bouncing ideas off of each other. Mikael has been very encouraging as a supervisor, encouraging us to give him our opinions on parts of the marketing plan and create/choose new ideas for tasks and projects. From what I’ve seen, taking initiative is key to success in a role like this.

I have already been able to tap into my experiences from university so far. Since my supervisor is aware of my background in architecture, I have begun creating floor plan diagrams for his website. This has been a great way to combine my work in diagramming spaces with my understanding of graphic design and marketing. I am trying to create understandable diagrams to make sure potential buyers can get a grasp of what space they are renting before even touring in person. I have also read through the existing brand book for the park, making sure to align my drawings with their existing color scheme and chosen fonts. It is really interesting to refer back to my schooling in a new way. It felt great being able to use these skills since I was worried about how I would make myself useful in such a foreign industry. One of the most grounding activities we did was create a marketing plan as a group. Mikael had us lay out everything on Post-it notes from the overarching goals for the summer, to the target groups and stakeholders, then the channels as to how we will reach them, then finally the specific marketing activities we will do and the measurable results. This made everything click in my mind and really fall into place. Doing this in the middle of the week really set me on a better path, since for the first few days I felt I was just stumbling and trying to figure it all out. 

I am very excited to use my creative skills for the future marketing activities. My supervisor plans on having me create signage for the event spaces and flyers for neighboring businesses in the harbor area. I will also gain a lot of technical skills in the coming weeks, as I need to put all of my floor plans and images into the website. Website design is something I haven’t really tapped into, and The Park uses WordPress to edit their website, so I will get to learn how to navigate that software even better.