Skate Blog Intern Blog

I spent the past weekend at an event I never thought I would be at… a sorority informal. I was slightly nervous about this whole situation when my girlfriend invited me but as it turns out the ladies of Kappa Pi Zeta aren’t too shabby, in fact they may be bordering on great! This weekends adventure started off with one night in a hotel in Long Beach preparing ourselves to weather the storm, literally, on Catalina Island.

On Saturday morning we boarded the ferry to travel 2 hours to Catalina at the god awful time of 7 am. I assume everyone had a good boat ride because when I woke up from my Dramamine induced slumber everyone was in good spirits, and slightly tipsy from their morning mimosas. We arrived on the island with only sunny skies and the festivities began, whether it be beer pong or  the hookah people were all enjoying themselves very much. The day progressed and nap time began, but Katie and I decided it would be a much better use of time to play on the swings then go swimming in the icy ocean and retreat to a warm shower. After nearly dying of  frostbite in the freezing ocean we took off towards the showers hopeful we would soon be warmed up. Little did we know warm showers were not an option in our little camp! After many attempts to dry off and warm up we went to dinner with the rest of the gang. As the night progressed everyone became better and better friends and the pictures tell the stories of the night. We woke up the next morning to a threatening storm and we all wondered whether or not the ferry would vernture back out to  pick us up. In the end we were able to get home safe and sound.  All in all, I would say this was an extremely successful weekend : ]

In other news everything with the internship has been going really well. We were having some issues in regards to getting repsonses to emails regarding media contacts so we have done a little revamping in hopes of upping these responses. I think that that one of the tasks I have enjoyed a lot within this last week was creating a list of artists to contact in the hopes of using them to design decks. This has been really cool to see all of the artists that are out there, along with seeing all of the different types of art.

I just had a great weekend down in Florida with my family.  I caught a bunch of fish and golfed for the first time since I had my ACL surgery.  But now I’m back to work.  Its really time to get some results as we only have about a month left here at BambooSk8.  The big thing that I am working on and trying to get done before I leave is to get our decks onto Backcountry.com’s group of websites which includes whiskeymilitia and steepandcheep.com.  So hopefully within the next month you will be able to see BambooSK8 on those websites.  Also, two other interns and I are contacting local highschools in order to sell some decks to their art programs.  Its a pretty cool project because the schools will be able to buy our boards at a discount and the kids can use them for their art projects.  Other than that I am just getting excited for all the tasty treats that come with Thanksgiving.  Can’t wait for the stuffing…. whats your favorite???

Have a Happy turkey day,

Tyler

I have learned many things from my experiences here at BambooSK8 that will help me in the future. Creating a weekly time sheet has really helped me plan out my time that I spend working for BambooSK8. It has made me a much more efficient individual, as I know exactly what I need to do and what time I should spend getting it done. Before I knew what had to get done, but would struggle to get my work done in an efficient manner because of a lack of planning.  Another practice that has helped me is creating a philosophy. This allows me to realistically judge my different skills and attributes so that I can improve on them. It has kept me focused on constantly improving and not settling for being stagnant. The charter has helped me understand what my role is at my position. It gives me a sense of meaning at BambooSK8 and helps me realize how I fit into the big picture. By having a MPS commitments sheet, I have been able to plan out what needs to get done by certain dates. This helps me keep on top of my work and plan for the future, not just on a weekly basis. Without the commitments, I would not get nearly the amount of work done that I do now.

My commitments have taught me a lot about each individual area I am working on. First and foremost I have learned about what it takes to manage a company’s social media outlets. I have been the leader on the HookIt and Twitter platforms. I have learned all about HookIt as I have not used it prior to this internship. I also have learned different strategies to try and get the users to interact and complete all the terms of their contracts. I have also learned a lot about all the different aspects of creating quality video content. Different shots, angles, effects, etc. I’ve learned so much here, it’s hard to put it into one blog entry!

So the past weeks has been very stressful with the midterm and MPS.The midterm was a great way of learning how to build a company from scratch. I learned how to manage cash flow,and how to make net profit. It was crazy because I have never taken a accounting class in my life! I made a few errors, but I learned from my mistakes. We also had to completly redo our MPS. This took a lot of time to figure out. Thanks to Tyler he sent out a template that we could go off of. That helped so much.I am really focused in my sales. I need to get a huge order to get the points. I have been talking with Escape skate shop that our team rider Nick Sauls rides for. They are very intrested in our decks. Hopefully a big order will happen! Thats whats been going on in the last couple weeks. It has been crazy, but learning a lot! PEACE

Helllloooo,

Big Chicago Bears victory over the Eagles on Monday. Pretty excited about it.  Over the weekend I worked a sustainable home and garden event for the Bamboo Buddy side of the company.  It was a good time, there was a lot of cool companies at the event that are focused on helping people live more sustainably.  I built a mini city out of the coasters that we give out at events, which actually attracted a lot of potential customers to our booth.

Its been a little more than 2 months here at Bamboo Sk8.  We have been using a system called MPS to track goals and results.  It has really helped me keep track of where I started and where I am trying to go in terms of helping this company improve.  Also, I just got my midterm back and I did pretty well getting 45 out of 50 points.   The midterm helped me really think about and understand the importance of an income statement and statement of cash flow, for a business.  It also made me think about how this internship has helped me grow as a young businessman.  It has helped me focus more on getting results and also on leading a team of fellow interns towards results as well.  After having to focus on my time management and efficiency (through a weekly time-sheet) I am more aware of how my time is spent and sometimes wasted.  This helps me get the most out of my time spent inside and outside the office.

Currently I am working on getting press on blogs and other media outlets.  It has been a challenge reaching out to reporters and bloggers.  However, the PR team and I are working on writing press releases for our upcoming skate events in hopes that someone will want to blog about it or post it on their websites.  Overall I am learning a lot from my mentors (Geoff- the president and Mark- the operations manager).  They helped me prepare for an interview that I had last week and they also teach us a lot about the industry and the company in general.

As for whats coming up, its almost 11/11/11.  I have to start thinking about a major wish that I am going to use at 11:11 am and pm on 11/11/11.  World Peace? Ending world hunger?…. no more like the ability to fly or maybe invisibility….

That’s it for me this week have a good weekend,

Tyler

This has been a crazy whirl wind experience here at BambooSk8. I am learning so much about business, accounting and improving my person skills. The MPS system has been very good at showing me where I need to make improvements and grade myself on how I am doing while I am working on these areas. One area that I needed to focus a lot on was becoming more courageous and charismatic. I think that I have always been a relatively shy person and this has definitely hindered many of my experiences. I think that through working at events I have been able to break down some of the walls that I previously had around me. Another thing that I needed to work on was my time management, I have always been able to get my work done but many times it took me a lot longer because I didn’t have a system set up to get things done efficiently. I think that laying out a weekly time sheet has helped me to focus my attention and time in a better way.

To me, the midterm was as scary and nerve wrecking as if you told me to go surf Pipeline. I had no clue how to go about it or even where to start. During the weeks prior to the mid term Geoff k and Geoff C were able to assist me and walk me through the different sections of the income and cash flow statements, and why they are important. I ended up getting a good grade on the mid term, definitely refrigerator worthy, and I think that the understanding of this topic is something I will be able to carry with me throughout my life.

Well Eric Geiselman Got busted for skating on BambooSK8s. He only skated on it a couple of times. He like the boards a lot, but sector 9 doesnt like him on them. Sector 9 called Eric and said “whats up why arn’t you riding our boards?” Eric responded with “I’m just trying to save trees man.” Next day Eric has a brand new short deck. hahahaha Thanks for trying them out Eric!