Week 10: The End

Last week was supposed to be my final one at Slalom, however thanks to the stomach bug that was circulating through school, I had to take half of last week off. To make up for lost time, I'm going to be working today and tomorrow in the office, making any last edits and finalizing my presentation and deliverable. Tomorrow I'm planning on going through my presentation with April for practice, but because Jim is out of town I will have to set aside time for another day to run through everything with him.

Week 9: Completion

I have finalized my power point and am looking forward to the final presentations on May 6th. I still have to go through some practice presentations with my mentor and counselors at school, but I'm feeling pretty confident about it as of now. I'm still also waiting on feedback on my final deliverable from my school advisers and counselors, but the feedback I received from Jim was very encouraging. He told me that my research paper was well written and the information in it was very helpful, so he wants to share it with the marketing team! Hearing that my research was fruitful and pragmatic is very likely the most fulfilling part of this entire research project.
Looking at my calendar now, I'm realizing that I only have roughly a week left at my internship. While I'm very excited about giving my final presentations and wrapping up the project, I'm still saddened that I'll have to leave Slalom Phoenix so soon.

Week 8.5: Light at the End of the Tunnel

In the past week, since my last post, I've made significant progress in my final deliverable and power point presentation. My final paper has been completed, or at least the first draft. I've written out 9 pages for my final report and it includes full sets of raw data as well as graphs and a detailed analysis of each. The results from my analysis have been very satisfactory, and I'd like to say that the overall research I've completed has been very successful. I'm very excited to turn in my final products and present my findings to my peers and advisers. The power point I've made is still being touched up, but it is basically complete. May 6th is coming quickly but I feel prepared.
I still can't believe how quickly the past, roughly, 9 weeks have flown past. I feel as if I had just started my internship a week ago. I'd like to come back and intern at Slalom again in the summer, if they'd have me. I really enjoy working here with everyone, and I'm going to miss it when it's over. The light at the end of the tunnel is approaching quickly, and I'm excited and yet also saddened by its pending arrival.

Week 7.5: Kickball

This past weekend, my office held a kickball tournament at El Dorado Park. Going into the tournament everyone was really excited, and given that many of my coworkers are competitive, I was expecting to have a really fun day of kickball. The day started out with the Red and Green teams facing off, with the Red team winning by a long shot. Next my team, the Blue team, played against the Black team, in a close match up ending with a score of 1-0 after multiple extra innings. The championship game between the Blue and Red teams was a close one, we were neck and neck right until the end. During one of the final plays of the championship game, one of my coworkers on the Red team, Wil, was running to the base when he tore his ACL, or so we thought at the time. After the game Wil went to see a doctor, and since then I've heard that he may have fractured a leg bone, rather than tear his ACL, but either way, sadly, he won't be playing kickball again for a while. Despite having a player down, the Red team still beat us, and given the circumstances, I'd say it was a well deserved victory for Wil and the rest of them.

On a more project sided note, I am finishing up the first draft of my final paper, and I've decided to try and include a chi-square test analysis of my data to check for significance. I'm having a hard time running the numbers in my Minitab software at the moment, but I plan on going into see my BASIS adviser to see if she can help me overcome this obstacle.

Week 7: Wrapping Up

Made great progress in my research this week. I completed the graphs I needed to analyze the data effectively, and I've started writing my final paper. Hopefully, I'll have the first draft completed by the end of next week.

Week 6: Pot o' Gold

Happy St. Patrick's day! Everyone in the office seems to be excited about today, and I can't tell if that's because of the holiday or simply because its Friday. Still, everybody is decked out in green, and if not April set out a bunch of fun St. Patty's day accessories in the kitchen to get people in the holiday spirit. Another fun aspect about this week is that we started the office's annual March Madness bracken challenge. So far my bracket isn't doing the best. A few of my upset picks didn't go as I expected. As of now it's not looking like I'll win the bracket challenge this year, but I'll still keep my fingers crossed, just in case.

In addition to the fun week in the office, I've made great progress in my research. I've initiated my analysis on the sales outcomes from a specific event, and it's seem like I've found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I'm seeing a general trend where the overall sales timeline is faster for the companies who attended this Slalom hosted event compared to those who did not attend. There also appears to be a trend in the sales probabilities where the event attendees companies have a higher overall closing probability. I'm still going to have to carry out some tests to ensure the data is significant, rather than by random chance.

Week 5: Breakthrough

I've finally had a breakthrough on my data search. Jim and April have both been a huge help with my project's data collection struggle, I doubt I would be at this point without them.
After sending out mass emails to the different Slalom branches and cross market teams, the Houston branch reached out and said they may have something I can work with. Hopefully, I'll have a set meeting time with them soon, and then we can hash out the plan for moving forward with my research.
On a side note, today should be a fun one in the office, because the monthly "Lunch & Learn" is taking place. One of my co-workers, Sarah, is giving a presentation on critical conversation skills and how to get through tough situations in business. I'm really excited to hear her presentation. I think it'll be very interesting and helpful to my development as an up and coming business major.

Week 4: A New Light

Once again, I've found that my efforts to obtain data have fallen short. I'm beginning to worry that the outcome of this project will not be all that I hoped. I've received no response from my contacts in terms of my project data inquiries, despite repeated efforts, and while I've been performing intern tasks around the office and have been given small scale projects to work on, I have not made much progress in my research.

I decided it was time to force my hand, so I reached out to Jim, my supervisor and the branch manager. I asked if there was anyway he could assist with my research, or if he might be able to shed some new light on how I could go about obtaining data. In the past, Jim has been a big help, and I'm hoping that this will give the push that my research needs to really get rolling.

Week 3: The Search for Data Continues...

The beginning of my third week at Slalom was a little rocky... I went away with a group of my friends to Flagstaff and the Arizona Snowbowl for the long weekend as a last hooray before parting ways for roughly two or three months until graduation. While our trip up north was filled with fun from skiing, snowboarding, and other shenanigans, once I arrived back home, I completely crashed, and I ended up spending a day to recover from dehydration. Thankfully, I was able to get right back to work after my sick day. However, not everything went as planned going into this week. 

If you read my last blog, you are well aware of my struggle to attain data for my statistical research, and upon my return to Slalom I found that I had not yet received a reply from Ali. I sent her a follow-up email on Wednesday, but I have yet to hear back from her. Upon relaying this information to April, we sat down to discuss where to move from this point. Ultimately, we decided to reach out to Erin and Damaris, our local sales team, about possible event data, as they are often the ones who invite clients to networking events. April also said she would try to reach out to the Chicago branch about my project and hope that she could make some connections. 

While I haven't found the data I am looking for yet, I've still been busy around the office performing tasks similar to those from my previous internship at Slalom. Hopefully soon my search for data will conclude, and then I can begin digging into the analysis of possible correlations between events and sales.

Week 2: The Search for Data

This past week has been a very busy one. Everyone in the office was preparing for the quarterly event that took place on Thursday. While I was invited, I couldn't attend because I had fencing training that evening, but I heard from many of my coworkers that it was a very successful and fun event.

In addition to the craziness surrounding the quarterly, I had to begin my quest to obtain more data for my research. Since the Phoenix branch of Slalom is still relatively small compared to some of the other branches, I had to reach out to some of the larger offices in hopes that they would have the data I needed. On my first attempt, I contacted Lindsay in San Francisco to see if their office had anything they could let me use in my project. Sadly, they were unable to give me the data I needed, and it was explained to me that this is largely due to the fact that Slalom is currently switching over to a completely new sales and marketing system, which will allow for a more efficient way of tracking said sales and marketing data. Thankfully though, Lindsay was able to put me in touch with Ali of the Seattle branch. On my second attempt, I called Ali and asked about data for my project and she said that the Seattle branch was in a similar situation compared to San Francisco. However, she said that she knew someone in the Seattle branch who may have some semblance of the data that I needed in addition to a contact in Chicago who would likely be able to help me out as well. Ali was very helpful and encouraging saying she had a large interest in learning the outcome of my research project. I look forward to hearing from her and hopefully soon I'll have a complete set of data that I can use to analyze for my project.

Now that I have made a break through in my search for data, I have to wait and see how it all pans out.

Week 1: Return to Slalom

Wow, this is my first post... so exciting!

Anyway...

This is my first week interning back at Slalom Phoenix since July last summer. It's been really great to see everyone again. There are quite a few new people who joined the Slalom team since my last internship. It seems like so much has changed but also hasn't at the same time. 

My first day interning was a little hectic. My on-site supervisor, Jim, called in sick, so I couldn't start researching right out of the gate. Instead, April, my supervisor from the previous internship, invited me to join in a meeting with a marketing team about creating a networking event at a spring training game. I quickly began researching spring training schedules, the locations and times of each game, as well as VIP seating and pricing for groups. We should be having our follow up meeting on this within the next day or so. 

I'm looking forward to getting the raw data for my research. I know that the number crunching in the beginning will take a while, but I'm hoping the outcome of my research will be pragmatic. As the first week of my internship comes to an end, I have a feeling this will be a fun and enriching experience. It's great to be back.