Posts Tagged ‘Australia’

Week 12 here we come!

Monday, March 26th, 2012

We reached the end of month 3 in this hard but amazing internship. What can I say…every day I’m learning something new! If it has to do with going to skate shops and get them on-board with our awesome decks, like I did this week or if it has to do with making sure our riders on Hook it are doing their part and respecting their contract’s duties, it’s all happening here at Bamboosk8.

Personally, this last two weeks I’ve visited a shop on the Gold Coast and they’re so happy, maybe we’re starting a distribution in Australia. They love our decks and my sales rep abilities made it all possible (aahahahh, I’m a genius!!!). At the Hook it team, we’ve been working on competitions and bringing more people active to interact with us with emails, comments ect. The latest competition we’ve created is bringing a lot of action to the website and our brand, it’s called the Bamboosk8 Treasure Hunt and kids have to find clues hidden in other sites of ours and the first to find the clues win a prize.

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The crew residing in Cali was fortunate enough to participate at the Clash at Clairemont, but were unlucky with the weather since it rained all day and no demos went on, but Bamboosk8 stayed there to the end supporting all the kids and fanatics around.

Time is flying by now and if everything goes according to plan in 4 weeks’ time we all graduate from the internship with enough points to move forward with our careers. This week also we have our final exam, daunting but very important to teach us about lead times and shipping costs together with understanding how a business stays profitable over the course of a year. Last time I did well, but this week I really want to go the extra mile and get maximum points.

We have been also interviewed on all the questions we are given during the internship, to see our changes to responses and to see if we are learning to use the STAR format. A very useful way to be prepared and kick it at future interviews. We’ll have another one in the coming weeks as a final one before the end of the internship, but this one was good because I gathered a lot of feedback on what to improve.

Well, I guess that’s enough of me for this time, let’s go out there to shred in Bamboosk8 fashion!

Thanks for reading

Gabe

 

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Halfway point in sight sir! arrrghhh

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Wow, I’m already in week 6. Time is going by so fast and with all the things we’re doing, I didn’t even realize that the halfway point in this internship is coming.

In the last few weeks, I’ve learned about using the feedback from my mentors and bosses here at Bamboosk8 to improve how to get my commitments done, reach goals and be a team player. I also learned about being a leader with my groups to get things done properly and efficiently regarding Hook it and Facebook, while helping other leaders of other teams with their goals. Receiving positive and negative feedback I can grow as a person and as an employee. It’s funny because when we started, I thought I was good at this and that, while now I know that I’ve got so much still to learn and at the same time I’m making gigantic steps. The feedback is always relevant and when I follow through with it, I see the difference in my speech at meetings, while writing with my fellow interns and when making sure projects are handed in at the right time.

There are so many tasks to do each week that motivation is not hard to come by generally! If you stop you fall behind and possibly out of the internship, however the staff is always there to guide us and make sure we work to achieve the weekly goals. We are all leaders in different groups and meetings, which is an invaluable experience in the real world. Tasks keep pouring in each week, so we keep motivated and we understand how to work under pressure and in a timely manner by using a spreadsheet with all our weekly duties.
To stay on the internship we constantly have to reach KPI’s each week, which are rewarded under the form of points, the backbone of what keeps us going forward in the stage and it’s like a recognition of our efforts since our final grade will determine our recommendation.

If you look for an internship in the action sport industry and you want to make a difference in real life to other people and the planet, this is it. Bamboosk8 will take you beyond what you think it’s your limit and you will discover how much potential you have.

By the way, I’ve just received my 10 decks from Bamboosk8 and now I can’t wait to show you all my fantastic skills on a bamboo made skateboard, while all the other people in Australia wonders with their jaw wide open at what I’m riding and where to get one!

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On a roll!

Thursday, February 2nd, 2012

Woz up??

We’re now at the end of our first month with Bamboosk8 and lots it’s happening. When I start to think “OK, I’m getting the hang of it” something comes up in my email and a new exciting task is given to us. So far we’ve been put in charge of different sections of the brand with KPI’s that we have to reach weekly forcing us to work hard and come up with new ways to achieve our goals.

Also, this week I’m moving to a new place which makes everything even harder, however I’m very excited to make new friends and spread the word about Bamboosk8. I’ve got some decks coming Down Under soon, so I’ll start skating different spots and get people’s attention with my higher than usual ollies thanks to the greater pop that comes from the bamboo!

Have you ever had to move house? How was it? leave a comment if you want.

On top of that, this week I also lost a friend and it’s been hard to keep positive and keep going through such a hard time. Shaun was a good friend of mine and I’ll miss him, but what I’ll miss more is having a chat everyday about the surf or having a beer on the veranda, while another plane was passing by in order to land. You would have never thought he was ill, apart from rare occasions and he was always laughing. Anyway, that’s a picture of him and I will always remember him as a friend that never asked anything in return for his friendship.

Did you loose anyone in your life? how did you cope? leave a comment if you want.

In the end, it’s been a hectic month, but I’m leraning so much that it cannot be put in text here. I’m in a team working on Facebook (go and LIKE the page if you haven’t yet at http://www.facebook.com/BambooSk8),  we’re working with athletes and followers on Hook it (http://www.hookit.com/brands/bamboosk8/)  and we’ve been learning about how to work in a team, about cash flows, income statements and more.

This internship is a massive learning curve for me and everyone else, I hope you get inspired by our stories and you will apply as well for future internships in your way to get work experience in the action sport industry and to help people learn about the environment buying sustainable brands.

Talk to you soon
Gabe

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Bam-boo! Bam-boo! Bam-boo!

Thursday, January 19th, 2012

I’ve finally started the internship at Bamboosk8 and now I am part of the tribe as well. I gotta admit.. I thought it was going to be an easy start you know??!! Au contraire! We’ve been flooded wit lots of things to do and to set up, which I’m really happy about, because unlike other internships I’m not going around buying coffees for everyone else, but I’m actually working to improve the company results and the tight crew here at Bamboosk8 really welcomed us all with open arms.

I’m working from Australia, which is cool since Bamboosk8 is not known here, so I’m really excited (and the guys in the office are as well) to hopefully expand in the land Down Under.

There’s interns from all over the US and from different walks of life, just stroll around the blog to read their posts as well and see how they’re going and what they think about the internship. It’s awesome to work all along towards achieving our goals in life and on the professional side.

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to go and watch an amateur contest search here on the Gold Coast (Australia), so I took the initiative of taking some footage with my Gopro for you all to see.

http://youtu.be/59RlUmXdChQ

It was great to see so much talent and the vibe was really cool, no barriers or security, so I could actually go and mingle next to the competitors in the contest area and have a prime view of the shredding happening. You know, there might be future flow riders there that haven’t been discovered yet!

Anyway, these two weeks I’ve started learning a lot about myself as a person and how hard it is to actually manage my time between my other job as a lifeguard and the requirements of the internship. From next week things will change again and me and the other interns will start working really hard to get quantifiable results that we can use towards achieving our goals.
My goals for the internship is to learn as much as possible about marketing and the action sport industry, while making leifelong friends and connections along the way.

Keep following my posts every second week to find out what’s happening at Bamboosk8 and how the internship evolves.

Cheers
Gabe

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