What are three ways to describe Eric?

1. Ridiculous multitasker (“Freakin’ seventeen screens going on and a Skype call! What the heck?”).
2. Tappening-fanatic (“He always related everything back to Tappening…For example, with Tappening [fill in the blank]. This reminds me of Tappening because [fill in the blank]. Ha ha!”)
3. Mr. Answer (“He has an answer for everything. Seriously.”)

What are three ways to describe Kelly?

1. Goofy (“But in a good way, cause you need some “goofy” in this industry to get through all the work!”)
2. Ridiculous multitasker (“Skyping, Googling, writing a press release, Tweeting, making coffee, sharpening a pencil…all at the same time!”)
3. Creative

What was the most valuable aspect / result of your internship?

When I came to Ericho, I didn’t know much about PR. I knew the journalism world, but I knew journalism wasn’t the right fit for me. I worked with PR people during my journalism internship; I was intrigued by what they did, so I thought I’d try it out. My internship at Ericho showed me exactly what I wanted to do the rest of my life.

When I started, I didn’t know what SEO was, what the proper format for a press release was, how campaigns were created, what a media alert was and I definitely didn’t know how much work was put into every pitch, e-mail, meeting, etc. Now I do.

I saw Best in Beauty start from scratch and got to participate in the entire process. Now I see this successful company, and I got to see it all from the beginning and learned how all the pieces fit together.

My last day of the internship, when Eric called and told me, “you will definitely succeed in this industry and you have a very bright future ahead of you,” it made me feel like I had really come full circle and achieved something during the internship. I had found my niche.

What did you enjoy most? What was fun?

What I really enjoyed most, oddly enough, was building a “Competitive Matrix” for Best in Beauty. At first, I thought, “I’ve got to do what? This is gonna suck,” but it turned out to be one of the most interesting things I did while I was there. I got to help figure out the entire industry. It was such an interesting tool to build, because it showed the “nitty-gritty” and helped Ericho differentiate its client from the rest of its competitors. With it you can see where an industry is going, and you can see the missing pieces.

But….It’s hard to pick one thing I enjoyed the most! There was so much going on all the time, and I was so mad every day when I had to leave to go work at the restaurant. I thought it was funny that I wanted to be at my no-pay internship more than I wanted to be at the job that paid my bills!

What did you like the least about the internship?

The FREEZING office!

After the internship, do you plan to work in the PR industry?

Yes. This PR internship let me know what I wanted to do the rest of my life…even though my degree is in journalism.