Don’t Make Me Cry

MBA, News Corp. Hey all, this is a sad day for me, Roy Hills, and is most likely an even sadder day for you when you learn the news I am about to break. This blog post will be my last for this summer, although I do still have three weeks left in this internship. I will give you a moment to let it soak in and please don’t get all teary eyed. Okay now that we got that out of the way, I wanted to recap how my internship has evolved from my expectations and goals into what it ultimately has become.

Initially, coming into my internship at News Corp, I was told that I would be doing digital sales strategy and most likely working for Fox News. Now digital sales strategy can mean a whole variety of different things. For me, it has meant everything from being tasked to help the sales team to strategize on how to sell advertising space to increasing the efficiency among the sales teams and how they interact with different players and databases within the organization. I have looked at demographic data to determine advantages that Fox News offers over its competitors and highlight potential advertisers to the sales teams. Additionally, I have also looked at different ways to help maximize monetization from advertising of new emerging digital platforms such as mobile. The variety of projects and the constant change of landscape in the digital field is what I have enjoyed the most about working for News Corp.

News Corporation’s philosophy has always been about making money, which is good thing since that is the reason why most companies are in business. This philosophy really carries through to all divisions within the company. With this in mind, I will be looking back at the many trends I have researched within the emerging digital media advertising space and report on my findings. This report will be my “vision” of what the website can do to further increase its future revenue. Oh yeah, I also got “promoted” or more accurately I am just going to be doing the job of three people. I am taking over next week for an employee taking off to Mexico and a retiring intern, in addition to doing my own job. Should be fun! :-) (Yep, that is a smiley face)

Mid Summer Check In

MBA, News Corp. Now that I, Roy, am about halfway through the summer and a month and half into my internship, I feel that this would be a good time to let you in on my personal, deep thoughts about New York City and News Corp. My inner thoughts could befuddle even the most learned, so be careful reading on. To start, I love living in New York City, but I know that is a shocker. I have always wanted to live in this city and I am finally getting to accomplish that. There is just never a dull moment, which is not very good for my sleep habits. There is a reason they call it the city that never sleeps because honestly people are always out and about, which I love. Now that’s all I have to say about that.

As for my internship at News Corp and Fox News Digital more specifically, I am enjoying the heck out of it. I have been able to learn many things that both I knew that I wanted to and stuff that I had no clue existed. I have been able to research and recommend advertising capabilities for the IPad to thinking of creative uses for QR Codes. Additionally, I have been able to see from the start to finish the process of how digital advertising gets sold, published and delivered. Although I personally do not necessarily want to be in sales directly, having this understanding is crucial to any role I might want in digital advertising strategy or business development.

Going forward I have been tasked with creating a business plan type thing (not exactly sure if it will be a full business plan) which will show the implications of the changing internet landscape as it applies to the Fox News website. This research and plan will allow Fox News to strategize on how to better monetize their current digital advertising against these trends. As you may have heard, News Corporation has made headlines recently with respect to the Wall Street Journal online. They are going to start micro billing for its content. Many in the online news industry are watching closely to see whether this business model or the current one of paying through digital advertisements is best. I initially believe it will be somewhat of a hybrid of the two, but I guess I will have to see what I discover in my research.

Last Post!

(BBA, Fox Broadcasting)

Hey guys! It's Alyssa Fried. This past Wednesday was my last day at Fox. It was sad because obviously I don't want my internship to end and because two of my bosses were out of work, sick. However, we've been e-mailing and I know that we're going to keep in touch. This is one of the great things I am taking away from my internship at Fox. I have made so many connections in so many different departments in Fox Broadcasting.

I have learned so much at my internship with Fox, more than I ever could have hoped to have learned from a summer internship after my sophomore year. I learned about analysis of numbers, revenue analysis, planning sales, and what goes on before and after deals are made. Having my own projects to do, plus watching the other employees doing their projects helped me gain so much knowledge.

Another great thing that I am taking away from this internship is I am now extremely proficient in Excel. They taught me so many shortcuts, and after working on spreadsheets all day for six weeks, I feel like I know the ins and outs of Excel. I know this is going to be extremely useful for me in the future.

Something else that is going to be useful for me in the future is what they taught me about working with clients. They taught me that every client has their needs and requirements, and it is the company's job to fulfill them. One day I am going to use what they taught me to communicate with my clients and build client relations.

I think I showed my bosses my incredible work ethic and my desire to succeed. I think that I could have been a little less anxious about messing up and making mistakes, but looking back I think it was normal to be nervous in my first 'real' office job.

Now that my internship with Fox is over, I am going to be working for an accounting firm in New York City for three days a week. This accounting firm does the taxes for Broadway shows, so once again I will be working with the entertainment side of finance. I am very excited to see how this compares to my internship at Fox!

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their internships and their summers!

I Do What I Do

MBA, News Corp. Based on all the amazing feedback (some real, but mostly imagined) I have received from my fans (which I am not so sure exist), bloggers and celebrities alike, I feel there is some ambiguity of what the day in life of Roy the intern is like. Let me tell you… I am living the Digital Ad Sales dream. Every week I am assigned to a full time employee to help with sales support, usually filling in for an employee that is out on vacation, given the fact that this is the vacation taking time of year. When filling in I typically create Powerpoint sales presentations, recommend new sales opportunities, research digital sales campaigns and work to help optimize advertising campaigns to ensure the client is receiving the largest bang for its buck. Additionally, I am there to help in whatever capacity the account executive needs me to. These duties of course are in addition to my role of researching emerging digital mediums.

The past two weeks have seen me research a couple interesting new digital opportunities that will become big in the not so distant future. These two advertising opportunities are Google TV and Facebook’s targeted ad serving. Both of the two have the potential to really change the current digital advertising landscape and be cash cows for these respective companies. Facebook’s ad serving to third party websites really is interesting given the amount of information they have on individuals, which is truly a marketers dream.

Finally, since the World Cup has started and I am supposed to watch TV at work, I have spent way too much time following the games. However, I am definitely not alone in this endeavor. The whole office pretty much shuts down during these games. Based on my calculations of the small sample size of what is Floor 22 of the News Corp building, I would have to say that worker productivity is down at least 80% during the World Cup.

Last Weeks at Fox

(BBA, Fox Broadcasting)

Hey, it's Alyssa Fried, and this is a sad post for me. I only have one week left as an intern at Fox. Although my internship was short, about only six or seven weeks in length, I learned more working for Fox Broadcasting than I have at any other job that I have held in the past.

This week I traveled to a local ad agency with interns who work for Fox Cable. Tuesday we learned about media buying and today (Wednesday) we learned about media planning. Both were extremely interesting, but I was most intrigued by the presentation on media buying. The buyer who was presenting discussed his company's strategies and what they expect from the cable networks that they are buying spots from. This was so interesting to me because this was the other side of all the deals I had been watching my supervisors make in the past weeks. It was great to see both sides of the deal and really understand what each side wants. I think it is beneficial to know what each side is looking for because both the advertiser and the cable network want very specific thing for their company. To have a greater understanding of both sides would be very beneficial for everyone.

I am now very interested in these aspects of business. As I discussed with my supervisor today, this can be an 'exciting' side to finance because it deals with television and entertainment. Not only do you have to be able to create extremely detailed excel spreadsheets with various calculations, but you also have to be very familiar with the television shows that you are selling commercial spots for. You have to know who is watching them, and what types of products should be advertised in the commercial breaks during these shows.

This week I also learned a lot about what sort of information Nielsen sends out, and how this information is important for Fox Broadcasting. What many people don't realize is that there is a lot that goes on behind deciding what commercials should be broadcast in each television show, and where they should be placed.

What I have observed about Fox Broadcasting is that although there are many divisions on my floor, and even parts of our division that are located in Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles, everyone is connected. Everyone works together between divisions to make successful deals for the company and the clients. People from the sales department go to the research department and the sales planning department, and the revenue analysis department and then go to the finance department in Los Angeles, and then it all comes back around. It seems seamless. Everyone has their individual job and part in putting on television what the consumer wants to see and potentially, buy.

This is an industry and a company that I can see myself working for in the future, and I am sad to see my internship end.

Fox Broadcasting and Networking

(BBA, Fox Broadcasting)

Hey! It's Alyssa Fried again! After working at Fox, my social life has changed. Usually during the summer I would spend my nights with my friends, until I went to camp at the end of June for two months. Now I am home the entire summer for the first time since I was 9 years old, and when I arrive home at 6:30/7 at night, all I want to do is go to sleep! I know this means I am working hard, and I am enjoying it. I would have to say that if I had to choose my old social life during the summer, or my internship at Fox, I would pick working at Fox. This is because I still have the weekends when I can see my friends and at least twice a week I use my lunch break to meet up with friends who are interns in New York City as well.

While working here, I have met so many people. There are so many different departments on my floor, and I have met most of the people in the various departments. After all this time, I can finally say that I feel like a true part of this office. Everyone is eager to show me their work, and the 'tricks of the trade.' They have started coming to me to request that I work on projects instead of me having to search for work all of the time. It feels great to be contributing to my department. Just the other day, I met someone new and shadowed him for the afternoon. When it was time for me to leave for the day, he handed me his card and told me it was for when I graduate, in case I have any questions, and also to have another contact at Fox. It felt great to be networking in the office.

Although I have only been here for about a month, it feels like I have worked here forever. I now have a routine that I follow every day. I get into the office in the morning, put my lunch in the fridge, and get my laptop from my supervisor. I plug it in, start it up, and travel down the hall to greet everyone and see who needs me to do work. At around 12:30/1:00 after I have finished whatever project I have been working on, I take a lunch break. Sometimes I just walk around the streets exploring, and other times I sit outside my office in the sun because it is so cold in my office. The rest of the day goes pretty quickly after that. I'm busy with projects or sitting in meetings observing, and before I know it, it's 5:00 and it's time to catch the 5:27 train home.

The workload varies from day to day. Mondays are generally the busiest day and I spend most of the morning entering demo estimates into the computer. The rest of the day is usually spent doing analysis of reports from previous, present, and future years. I usually make about three spreadsheets in Excel each day. After my last post, I have grown a lot more confident in my work and have cut down my constant checking significantly!

Lately, I have begun to sit in on meetings to learn about how the sales people communicate with the advertisers, and how deals are formed. In this way, I am finally beginning to see the marketing side of this internship. There is an intern program in another department in Fox Broadcasting and next week I will be traveling to an ad agency with them to learn about media planning and buying. That should be interesting because I haven't been able to interact with interns my age at Fox as I am the only one in my department. I am excited and a little nervous. I look forward to telling you about it!

Getting Into The Swing of Things

MBA, News Corp. So I, Roy Elmer Hills IV, am settling into my role here at Fox News Digital and have started to figure out what this summer is going to be like… which is a spectacular development. While most all of the other Fox interns are out and about being investigative journalists, I spend my time sitting at my desk surfing the web and keeping up with the Kardashians and the latest trends in emerging media platforms. I think I am getting paler by the minute, but if you have been in New York in the summer you know that it is no picnic getting a tan either. Basically, I read a lot of white papers, tech blogs and scrutinize every word spoken by Steve Jobs, which given that last week was Apple’s DevCon meant that there was actually a lot to do. I am essentially more or less a consultant, for lack of a better term, to the digital ad sales team on how better to optimize and grow advertising revenue on their emerging media platforms, such as mobile, iPads, Facebook aps, Twitter [well you get the gist].

This rare autonomy as an intern gives me lots of time to ponder important questions, such as the meaning of life and will Lindsay Lohan go to jail. I am also a big high-five giver in the office and am great at distracting others with my thoughts on the latest Taco Bell commercial featuring Charles Barkley. However, in between my moments of distraction glory, I deviate from my ways and make myself useful in helping others in a sales support role, which believe it or not takes up a fair amount of my time.

Well if you are inclined, PLEASE post COMMENTS people so I know that I am not writing this to just pass the time until football season. Additionally, if you are reading this blog from your iPhone, Blackberry or any of the other smartphones, be sure to check out foxnews.mobi.

Sales Planning and Planning Sales

(BBA, Fox Broadcasting)

Hey it's Alyssa Fried! Last time I wrote I was still getting adjusted to being in the work place after a crazy few weeks of travel. Now that I am settled into my daily routine, everything is so much easier and I can focus fully on my internship. As the weeks have passed, I have found that I have finally got a routine down. I get on the train at 7:43 in Pleasantville, get off at Grand Central and walk the couple of blocks to 1211 Avenue of the Americas (or 47th and 6th). I ride the elevator to the twentieth floor and head right for my cubicle.

Although my cubicle is far from my supervisors and other people that I work with, at least one of them stops by my cubicle to check in and see how I am doing or if I have any questions. They are extremely helpful. There is an entire team of people who are so supportive and intent on teaching me the ways of their work. I have sat with every person while they did their work, and instead of getting annoyed by my presence, they have turned to me and explained every step of whatever they are doing. They encourage me to ask questions, and honestly I can say I have learned so much in these past three weeks.

My summer project is to help the Sales Planning and Revenue Analysis departments forecast revenues, analyze reports for optimal ways to make revenue, and enter estimates into report generating computer programs. One of the shows that I have been looking at is Glee. Last night, the finale aired, and according to Hollywood Insider, finished the year as the highest-rated season-ender for all freshman series! This is very exciting news. See here! http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2010/06/09/glee-finale-watched-by-nearly-11-million-viewers/

I love that this internship involves finance as well as entertainment, and I thoroughly enjoy doing my work and learning what my supervisors do. I'd say one of the hardest parts of the internship to date is getting my work done on time. It's not that I can't do the work, or it's too much to handle. It is that I am so nervous to make a mistake, and want all of work to be neat, perfect, and correct that I spend hours checking and rechecking. Everyone keeps telling me to take my time, but I can't help but feeling that I am not doing the projects fast enough. Hopefully I will become more confident in my work, and feel that I am attentive enough to not have to check my work 5-10 times. If all goes according to plan, I will be more confident in my work by the next post!

Soy Jism

MBA, News Corp. So… its Roy again. I know the five people that actually read this missed me and are kept up at night anxiously awaiting how my first week at News Corp treated me. Well you are in luck, I am about to tell you all about my little adventure in the world of Fox News, which one liberal politician called “a fire breathing monster with frightening powers”!

My first day at News Corp was an experience for the ages. I arrived, got my badge, met with HR and was whisked away by my manager, Jeff Cohen (on the off chance you know him), who promptly confirmed that I was going to be working on http://www.foxnews.com/ and http://www.foxbusiness.com/, which I already knew, as they are two of News Corps most prominent digital properties. We then went to find my desk. On the way, I was shocked he kept passing all the corner and window offices. I was sure that one of these spacious quarters was where I was going to change the sales world. However, I was escorted to a cubicle and was greeted with four mystery flavored Starburst (no doubt left by the last intern who sat at my desk), a computer and TV. This cubicle, although not an office with a window to outside world, has a window view into an office with a window to the outside world. Score!

The next thing I was told to do was surf the web and watch TV. My boss actually mandated that I watch TV and surf the web at work. Of course, I also had a couple of meetings, some training and lots of office debauchery. In the end it was a slow week leading into the long Memorial Day weekend, but I accomplished my goals of getting to know the people I am going to work with and getting familiar with the lay of the land. Following my boss’ direction, I researched Fox News clips like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zB4ItYcX4I about soy jism.

First Weeks at Fox!

(BBA, Fox Broadcasting)

Hey, it's Alyssa Fried again. The last time I wrote I was just days away from starting my internship at Fox Broadcasting, and here I am now almost two weeks into it! Things kind of got off to a crazy, hectic start. I traveled from Michigan to New York on Friday April 30th, and started orientation as a Sales Planning intern on Monday May 3rd. I was very nervous as I got off the train in Grand Central because even though I had been born and raised in a suburb of New York, close to the city, I was not very familiar with how to navigate the city alone. Despite my nerves, I arrived at the office on time and with no outside help. I already felt accomplished.

Orientation was very informative. I met individually with all of the people I would be working with and they showed me everything that they do for Fox, and gave me some background information about the company. I received tutorials, and I even got an assignment of my own, under supervision of course. The orientation lasted for two days, and on Thursday May 6th, I got on another plane to travel to Israel (personal travel). I arrived back in New York on Monday May 17th and had a day of rest before I returned to Fox that Wednesday. I was still a little jet-lagged but I was very excited for my first real day as an intern!

I arrived at the office at 9 AM and went straight to my supervisor's office. She set me up with a cubicle and a laptop and showed me all of the programs I would be using. This time is one of the busiest times of the year for Fox and other cable networks as it is the time of the Upfront. My job in helping with the Upfront is to utilize Excel and other programs to enter estimates and create spreadsheets for my supervisor to use. I felt very comfortable using Excel, and was excited to have my first project at hand. This internship will be giving me real experience in Finance as I will soon be working with media math.

Working at Fox has been a great experience so far. I love being in the city and feeling like a real business woman as I commute to work on the train. The environment in the office is so friendly and welcoming. All of the people that I work with make me feel very comfortable and are always available for questions. They all take their work very seriously, and are proud of what they do. Because of the working environment, and the people that have helped to create it, I am very proud to be working as an intern for Fox.

Another Rosser at Fox!

MBA, News Corp. Hi my name is Roy Hills, I am an American, and I am now at the midpoint of my MBA career. If I am being modest, I see myself as a rock star at the Ross School of Business. This summer I am working at News Corp in business development for their digital ad sales group. Basically, from what I understand, I am going to keep it real in midtown Manhattan and do a little sales strategy.

My background is such that I hail from the SF Bay Area and worked for a start-up company in Silicon Valley which designs tennis equipment. I made it out to Michigan on a whim and a prayer which landed me in the Big Apple for the summer. Additionally, I have worked for such sports industry giants as the Sacramento River Cats and Washington Wizards. When I am not working, I can be found taking long walks on the beach and following the San Francisco Giants – they are my squizzle.

Coming from the start-up world, my goals for the summer are to embrace corporate America and experience all New York has to offer. Most of my work will be with the Fox News Channel and I look forward to bringing you some insight into world of Fox News as I see it. Keep tuned for many exciting moments as I take you all on a little adventure!

First Post Before Fox!

(BBA, Fox Broadcasting)

Hi everyone,

My name is Alyssa Fried and I am an American who is a rising BBA junior. This summer I am working for Fox Broadcasting in New York City. I will be working in both the Pricing and Revenue Analysis departments during one of the busiest times of the year for the company. I will be working on the pricing and strategic placing of commercials broadcasted on the Fox network. This internship will give me a background in both marketing and finance, which is something I am very excited about because it is going to give me the opportunity to work with numbers as well as a little bit of advertising. I am nervous about my commute to the city from Westchester which will be a very large expense for an unpaid internship. I am also a little apprehensive about working with media math, which I have not yet had the chance to do. Although I have not taken any Finance or Marketing classes thus far at Ross, I will be able to use my knowledge in other aspects of business to help me succeed. Overall, I know that this will be a great learning experience and I can not wait to challenge myself outside of Ross and the University of Michigan, and in a real work environment. I look forward to updating everyone on my experiences at Fox!