2. Introduction
My overall experience was good. It was unlike any other work experience that I
have ever had. In the beginning it took some time to get used to working with the
same four people every day.
My Desk
3. Personal Goals
Prior to starting my internship, I had made it a personal goal of mine to
learn as much as possible about Specialty Coffee trade shows, as this is the
very niche market that I would like to work in someday.
I also wanted to see how this organization compared to other Specialty
Coffee events that I have done in the past.
Finally, I wanted to see how my education and experience combined would
help me in order to have a gauge of how I would do in the real job market.
4. Organizational Overview
Coffee Fest started in 1992 in Seattle and grew to produce specialty
coffee and tea tradeshows in 1998.
Coffee Fest now puts on three shows a year, focusing each show in a
different region. Each tradeshow has classes presented by industry
professionals, and competitions in addition to the trade show itself.
The competitions that are featured at each of the shows are: Latte
Art Championship World Open, America’s Best Espresso and
America’s Best Coffeehouse.
9. Project Review Process
Mailing Card
One of the earliest projects that I was assigned and became an ongoing
project is to clean up the attendee database. For every show there are
mailing cards that are sent out, and I would go through the cards that
came back, check the names and addresses on the card and update the
attendee database accordingly.
This project started out as a focus and grew for me as a downtime task.
10. Project Review Process
The largest project that I worked on during my internship was creating the educational
programs, confirming the presenters and then propagating the information to the
website.
One of nine programming
sheets that I having been
working on.
11. Project Review Process
Registration:
After attendees would register I was
in charge of sending them a
confirmation email. This email
provided the attendee with
additional information and reiterated
important information.
Attendee
Confirmation
Email
Attendees:
I was also in charge of working with the attendees, answering any
questions that they might have about registration and assisting them
with registration.
In addition to assisting the attendees with registration, I also assisted the
exhibitors and made any changes to their files that they needed.
12. Project Review Process
RCS:
The second largest project that I worked on throughout my internship was
working with the registration subcontractor. I was in charge of making sure
that the information was correct on our website and the registration portion
of our site.
13. Professional Skills
1) Work ethic/Professionalism: Events are difficult and take a lot of time to
prepare. If someone does not have a solid work ethic a show will go
very well. Professionalism is key because we as a company are the face
of the show and a representation to both the exhibitors and the
attendees.
2) Problem solving: The office runs very lean which can create a back up
trying to get things answered in a timely manner. Due to the amount of
attention for the show manager, I learned how to “think like a show
manager” and problem solve what I was working on while I was
waiting to have my questions answered. If I was working on formatting
of something for the website or had questions about a company’s
contact I would look for it first talk to anyone else in the office to see if
they knew and if I didn’t find it then I would talk to my supervisor.
3) Communication: In preparing for a show, it is imperative to
communicate.
14. Professional Skills
Having a small team it is important to communicate. All staff members take
part in one project from sales to finance it takes us all to create a finished
product. One of our largest all staff pre show projects is the Exhibitor Show
Manual (ESM) where everyone is involved from the selling of the booth to
the filing of the applications.
15. Personal Reflection
The knowledge that I gained from my coursework allowed me to have a
better understanding as to WHY things were being done. I was more
aware of what was being done and an idea as to how it should be done,
allowing me an opportunity to make educated suggestions.
The knowledge that we gain at school never fully prepares us for the
real world experience. I learned things that could never be taught in the
classroom. If it were not for my coursework I feel that I would have
been too far behind and it would have been very difficult for me to keep
up once we started planning for the next show.
