Day 2 and 3 of Internship

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Joshua Stahl
3/14/2011
Internship Journal #2
Dear Journal,
Over the last two weeks, I have been pleasantly surprised at the amount of responsibility that China Supplier has given us. Not to mention their genuine want to get to know us on a personal and professional level. They value our opinions, and most of all they value us as people.

Our responsibilities over the past two weeks have included uncovering the likelihood of utilizing a new platform that not only connects buyers with suppliers, but allows China Supplier to facilitate the whole process on the buyers behalf. This process opens up a whole new market for America, because the tariff and logistics portion is being taken care of by a credible firm. That’s where we (Alyssa, Obi, and I) come in. They wanted us to carefully scan a tariff page on shoes. I am not talking about just any random page of footnotes on what tax applies to any general shoe. I am talking about an in depth, ambiguously written document that spells out every type of shoe you can possibly think of. They passed off the assignment to us because it was written in English, and thought that we would have an easier time. Ultimately, we didn’t understand it either, but we did manage to correspond a lot of the text with example images of shoes. We also worked on translating a lot of the English text to Chinese to help with the process. After about 5 excruciating hours of painstakingly corresponding images with ambiguous descriptions, we have a meeting about the business. They were genuinely interested in what we have learned in school, what we believe the shopping habits are of standard consumers in America, and what we think their next move should be. We helped them as much as possible, offering explanations on the importance of the brand image, and the importance of a strong marketing strategy. The following week was very revealing on how they implemented our suggestions.

When we got into work the following week, it was very informal. Definitely something I like, as people are more willing to talk, listen, collaborate and learn. The whole day we focused on creating a prospective list of firms, both small and large, to cold call and ask a series of questions, such as: would you be interested in Chinese shoes if we handled the logistics, do you already buy Chinese shoes, what is the demographic of your consumers, and so and so forth. It was invigorating, as we could select locations around America that we believed to be excellent demographics for these products. I was also able to write the beginnings of a marketing strategy – something that I have experience in the past through prior work.

During the day, Athena asked questions about my personal company. How I started things, formed a marketing strategy, and why I have a passion for such a purpose. I loved the genuine interest, mostly because you would not get that from anywhere else. After lunch, our supervisor, Athena, and head boss, Julie, gathered many employees around to watch Obi’s film that he created with his classmates for Chinese class. We were told that a lot of employees were intrigued as to why we were working at China.cn, and in response took an interest in our activities. As a result, we were told to present ourselves before the film. With choppy Chinese, I said my name and where I am from. I ended there. Usually in English it occurs to me to say my favorite color, hobby, or something that I strategically enjoy that is straight out from left field. In Chinese, my creative gene is gone. I hope by the end of the work experience I am able to be creative with introductions. Anyways, back to the film. They absolutely loved it! Everyone laughed, asked questions, and wanted more. Best of all, they liked us.

At the end of the day, we were told how happy they are with our work. Nothing makes someone feel better than feeling like you are making a difference, and that definitely made us feel as if we were doing so. Julie asked a few interesting questions about the film. She was curious whether it portrayed American living standards accurately. Of course because the film was created as more of a comedy/drama, the realities are completely farfetched. The genuine curiosity comes from the want to understand us, both as people, consumers, and friends. I believe there is some misconception of America as a utopia. Chinese textbooks must preach ideal circumstances in regards to America. As a result, many people think right away that all Americans are rich; all Americans have the perfect life. Over the course of this experience, I will be talking about this more and how the interest/questions develop from our colleagues and bosses. As for now, time to sleep.

Josh

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