What is an Internship In A Box?

After 23 years functioning as a Marketing Agency, AdJourney went thru a metamorphosis. The transformation was actually several years in the making. Much like a caterpillar cocooned away in its chrysalis, the transformation was not seen or recognised. AdJourney transitioned from traditional Agency work to become an educational resource.

So what is an Internship in a box?

We started with an idea - Grow people beyond their skill set with power and value thru knowledge. Impacting them for a lifetime of achievement.

1 ??We started with an idea...

In discussing the direction and end result we were moving towards, my wife actually coined the idea that became the catalyst for defining where we were heading. On one of our daily walks, I was expressing my passion for wanting to educate people but not with the basic, singular focus subject matter. I wanted to enable my students to have a complete skill set when they finished a class. Not just "learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator" or "turn a drawing into a vector-based illustration". Rather, I wanted to give them the design thinking that precedes a project. I wanted to help them grasp that solving problems was more than a collection of creative skills, but rather a procedure of thinking thru to a solution.

I was not even sure that the idea I was putting out there, even made any sense. I walked through the way I had been managing the Interns I oversaw for the past several years. Many who had completed most of their college degree in graphic design or marketing, but did not know where to start when it came to a real-world process for basic marketing and design projects. So, my interns do not get paid. They were not performing anything of value for the company, and I was spending an exorbitant amount of time to empower them with projects and skills development. When they left the internship with me - they were more enabled and competent than when they started.

As I went over this process, Trish confidently exclaimed:

Then maybe what you create, is an Internship in a box.

2 ? Grow people beyond their skill set...

While new in implementation, this idea has been in development for a long time. When creating lectures and class concepts to provides for the US Small Business Association - NC District (which I have been doing for over a decade), the content has always been around offering complete solution education. In other words, I do not just want to give them another tool - but I want to provide a new skill set. That includes both HOW to use new tools, and use of the new tools in relation to a more complete problem being solved.

I started this approach to teaching back when I was an Adobe Certified Instructor. It's one thing to know the nuances of using Adobe Photoshop (head knowledge of where things are and what they do), but more valuable is having insight into practical application of the tool for daily use. I taught students to approach a project with a process that is useful to problem solving. Do the thinking around concepts in thumbnails before opening up the application. Otherwise, you work to the tool's limits and tend to recreate rather than uniquely create for the problem at hand.

This same concept was exhibited when I launched the Design Pods initiative in collaboration with Meridian Kiosk and Sandhills Community College. A 2-semester project where students from various majors and skill sets, collaborated to solve a problem using technology. The students defined a problem, and presented various ways to solve it using the tools at their disposal. The end result was beyond their collective abilities, but I taught them to think creatively. I taught them to look beyond the easy solutions for the better options. I taught them the power of skilling up to accomplish what was impossible. Sometimes it is not what you know, but learning how to solve problems that is the most valuable skill set. My goal is to grow people beyond their skill set.

3 ? with power and value thru knowledge.

When I was a child, my dad impressed on me that knowledge was power and value. When you know HOW to do something, even if the tools change - you can still make it happen. You can still resolve the problem. This is highly important in today's world. We are so quick to lock down on the "now" - that we forget that the things we take for granted can very easily change.

Did you ever have a MySpace account? Did you have a Yahoo email address? Did you sport a pager? Is there still a fax machine in your office? Technology changes. Platforms are in constant flux. We have about 5 iPads around the house, of which most are only good for Subway Surfer, giving Keynote or PDF presentations, or reading from the Kindle app. Why? The operating system and processing capacity have been surpassed by newer, better tech.

Are you stuck in your existing skill set? Would you like to power up? My kids have played a lot of mobile, PlayStation, XBox and PC games. As the character progresses thru the game, the abilities of the character improves. The avatar gains new skills to combat new and more difficult enemies. Real life is not static. Are you relying on your college experience and skills earned on the job to prepare you for the future needs?

4 ? Impacting them for a lifetime of achievement.

This is where I hope AdJourney's newest iteration (its own leveling up experience) can help business leaders and their employee base to grow in power and value through the Internship in box mindset, by adding to their knowledge and skills. The impact is not just on the employee's productivity, but also to their place of employment. Education is a life-long endeavor.

The workplace is changing. The number of hats expected for leaders and business owners has always been - a lot. To increase the impact of your messaging in the marketplace, you need to empower those in place to tackle the message sharing with marketing tools and creative skills. Knowing Photoshop and how to make your way around Facebook simply is not enough. Invest in your company with knowledge. Impact your employee base for a lifetime of achievement that they themselves can enjoy the fruits of, and that you as a business can be benefitted.

Wrap up...

We started with an idea - Grow people beyond their skill set with power and value thru knowledge. Impacting them for a lifetime of achievement... and it has become the new direction for AdJourney.

Internship in a box. I truly believe there is something great in the works and am excited to watch the business model grow and impact thousands of lives for their betterment. I owe a great deal of gratitude to the inspiration of Chris Do of TheFutur, Jonathan Stark of Ditching Hourly, Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson of 37Signals, Donald Miller of StoryBrand & Business Made Simple, and a whole host of many, many others. But most importantly I am thankful for the patient love, kindness, and secret-creative genius inspiration that is my wife - Patricia "Trish" Sykes.

If this idea intrigues you and you would like to learn more about Internship in a box, sign up thru this link: https://us10.list-manage.com/contact-form?u=b1534271421e23a7945cb30bb&form_id=a75550d76de545a671e2487bd80b3cdc Your information will remain private and will NEVER be sold or shared.