Not Shying Away From Sharing

Hi, my name is Paul Becker and I’m a senior Advertising Major with a concentration in Art Direction. I’ve been an intern now at SolPods since September. SolPods is a non-profit that is “dedicated to educating the next generation of change-makers” through workshops, podcasts, a community platform, and trainings. At SolPods, I’m the Content Creator for Digital Marketing so I produce various forms of content such as short-form and infographics for Instagram and Linkedin.

I’ve learned a lot working here as it’s such a collaborative environment and I get to work directly with the leaders of the non-profit. I’ve gotten lots of good advice due to their years of experience in the finance and marketing fields, but I’ve also been able to learn just from experience as I’ve navigated here. 

I really recommend to anyone starting their first internship that they not shy away from sharing their ideas especially when they feel confident that it could help the company. I think as young people we may feel like we aren’t in the place yet to really contribute to conversations but often why they bring us into teams is to bring a new perspective to the team. All great changes come from collaboration so make sure your voice is heard. 

I also recommend you be very thoughtful about the language you use when going to make content especially if it involves another company collaboration. A lot of brands want to be very particular not to share anything that could be misinterpreted, so it always helps to look over your copy. Approach the content you make as if you’re seeing it as a viewer. 

I don’t know if others could relate, but personally, when I first joined I would overthink communication and emails which would end up paralyzing me and delaying messaging. I highly recommend you just start quickly writing messages, looking them over, and then sending them as quickly but carefully as possible without overthinking. I think this goes for a lot of things. Overthinking can lead to inaction, which will delay you from success.