Orientation into Raycom

        This morning I woke up with a friend request from Michael Kelly, Associate Commissioner for the ACC-head of communications and football operations, and this job became all the more real.  The day started off with a staff picture and company luau...which was odd on a second  day of work, but also an interesting orientation with the staff.  I had no idea how many people worked at Raycom until I was standing in front of the Raycom bus, preparing to take a picture with about 40 people (don't you just love the awkward jokes people make when they are waiting around for the photographer to snap the photo?). 
        The group that I work with is a small one.  Charlotte Collegiate Football consists of Will Webb-executive director, Courtney Knowling-Events and Operations, Will Pitts-Director of Sales, and Sarah Stankavage & me-the interns.  We also work closely with a couple members of Raycom Sports: Chad Swofford- Director of New Business Development and Abby Christmas in sales.  I'm excited to work with a close group of people because it will give us an opportunity as interns to participate in almost all aspects of the bowl game and the championship game.  We spoke with Courtney at length today about how to make this internship our own and get involved in things that we are most interested in.  This means I'll be able to focus on projects that are in my direct interest area and even try out things that I am not really familiar with.  For instance, Sarah is really interested in the production/broadcast journalism side, which is something that I'm not particularly attracted to career wise (i am more interested in promotion and event management), but think it's pretty cool none the less.   Courtney does some work on the side with the Bobcats and the Panthers doing some crew work, so Sarah asked if we could shadow her and I think I will probably tag along, just to see what it's all about...and I think it would be a great opportunity to meet some other people in the sports industry. 
           As far as today's tasks went, we spent a good amount of time coming up with our plan for the social media tools we will be using.  We have facebook (Meineke Care Care Bowl & ACC Championship) and Twitter (Meineke Car Care Bowl & ACC Championship) accounts and came up with goals for the different accounts.  Goals included raising numbers of followers (100 for each twitter account...yikes!) and raising awareness of each game around the Charlotte community and some strategies to meet the goals for both twitter and facebook.  After speaking with Courtney and Megan Parete (who is a Clemson graduate, did this internship last year and introduced me to the position), we are still trying to decide whether a joint intern blog will be beneficial...especially if we are each keeping personal blogs on our own for this experience. We'll see how that turns out.  Courtney also asked us to head up the Gifts Committee for the Leatherheads...more on the committee and the Leatherheads in posts to come, but I'm really excited about the committee and working with this group of people so I just wanted to mention it!  Finally, we had a meeting with Luquire George Andrews, a marketing communications firm in Charlotte, to discuss one of the marketing strategies we will be using to promote the games this football season.  The project has not been launched yet, but from what I've heard it's something that I am interested in getting more heavily involved in so we'll see how that plays out.  At the end of the day, Chad and Will Pitts sat down with Sarah and me and explained a lot to us about the business side of Raycom Sports, sponsorships, etc...and it was a bit overwhelming but all good information to take in!  I promise that as I continue to write, I will find a way to consolidate my posts but for right now I am just too excited to leave anything out...whether frivolous or not!