The Short Term. The Long Term. The Intern

The impact of young minds

The impact of having young minds in the building was infectious. Personally, it was a joy to see our interns seamlessly infiltrate our office and workweek, interfacing with our team across various elements in our business. Their approach to the structured programme was met with a remarkable level of dedication and professionalism.

Coupled with this was their fresh perspective and thinking in the workplace whilst tackling client briefs and campaigns. Vanessa Khumalo, campaign manager, enjoyed their "funky souls" and their ability to show their personalities in a professional setting. She further appreciated the way they soaked up the knowledge and opportunities that were presented every day.

There was also a definite curiosity around the office and a willingness to try. With a variety of academic backgrounds, from PR, advertising, TV, radio and marketing, each intern brought a unique set of skills and perspectives to the table.

Their ability to grasp complex concepts and apply them to real world situations was truly commendable.

Mavhuthu Dzege, creative, enjoyed working on a brief for a long-standing client with deep brand history and advertising exposure with the group.

Mavuthu says the "open brief" gave him the sense that the Interns understand brands and how to interpret a brief. It is often more complicated to work on an open brief than one with a specific outcome and their creative inputs really showed their diverse backgrounds and broad thinking.

Mavuthu further says that the interns, "were a good addition to the team and added value in the briefing session, paying attention to the needs of the client."

Enthusiasm and energy

Nadia Levinson, a MediaHeads360 creative, appreciated the sponge like approach and true enthusiasm to tasks. "With years of experience we often take elements of our work for granted. I was reminded how special our space is by seeing the magic through their eyes."

Levinson also noted that the Interns took the opportunity seriously even though it was a short opportunity during the academic year. She was also impressed that that the interns were engaged, asked questions, did research, and figured things out. Asked to describe the group she says they are, "inspired go getters who maximised the opportunity."

For media liaison, Leah Mangoanatala, a recurring theme in describing the general vibe of our first intern group was "energy and light". It was this energy that came through in their individual pitches and project voice recordings. Leah believes that if the group continues to work with the keen sense of enthusiasm, they have bright future ahead of them.

Building careers

The two weeks also created an opportunity to forge relationships beyond individual tasks and projects. Meeting professionals active in several industry roles provided an opportunity to start building a career network and identifying possible mentor/mentee relationships.

The need for on-going dialogue, sharing and guidance is something that the MediaHeads 360 staff identified as a key point for future programmes and for on-going success.

Levinson says as much as she was teaching, she was also learning. This sentiment was echoed by several members in our team and I'm firmly of the opinion that teams thrive with depth of experience coupled with fresh perspective. It is in this space that the "energy" described above gains momentum and builds on itself.

Our two-week grad programme is an extension of our formal workplace internship which has graduated several interns into fully fledged MediaHeads 360 staff members and has created an opportunity for others to thrive and grow in the industry.

As a business, we always want to continue learning and our first two-week programme has created so much positive feedback that we hope to build-on "internship version one" and develop future learnings into our internal structures.

I have no doubt that MediaHeads 360 will embrace future internship programmes and welcome more industry graduates into our hands-on workplace forum. I'm so grateful that the interns we chose have benefitted beyond their own expectations and that our MediaHeads 360 Team have also relished the last two weeks as part of our own growth and learning.

Value your short-term inputs as a key investment into long term success. Value the Intern, they are the short term that will become your long term.