A few weeks ago, at the halfway point in my internship at Technicolor, I reflected on 5 points I had learned in the first five weeks. Now, my internship has come to a close. I learned a lot about the entertainment industry and about business management in these past few months, and for that I am extremely grateful. To finish where I last left off, here are some final thoughts on what I’ve learned in my Technicolor internship:
6) Business Development is a balancing act: Higher-ups who want immediate revenue vs. managers who want to grow businesses. Engineers who want more time to perfect a technology, business managers who wanted that project done yesterday. The realm of Biz Dev is one in which people look to for continued success in the future, resulting in skewed expectations across the board. I spent a good deal of my internship right in the middle of trying to balance everyone’s expectations, from building demos with engineers to creating account plans with key account managers.
7) Manage your Bandwidth: There are only so many hours in a day, so many people who can take on a task in a company. For yourself, managing your bandwidth means knowing how to prioritize the projects you are working on, even if that priority isn’t explicit. During my internship, I have dealt with multiple instances of competing priorities on projects; knowing how to objectively assess which project is most important for the overall team is important so you don’t burn yourself out trying to simultaneously tackle every person’s desired task.
8) Explore new Territory: When I found out that Technicolor was involved with Virtual Reality, I started doing research into the VR/AR world in my downtime. The time soon came when a Technicolor product manager wanted to visit VR companies to get a better look at the industry; I offered to help organize his correspondence with companies he wanted to visit, and, based on my research, suggested and connected him to other companies I thought were very important in the VR space. By planning ahead and researching a subject that really interested me, I was able to position myself into a space where I could pursue it as part of my internship.
9) Feel the Wonder: Every day, I would enter into work, say hello to the front desk and security, go up the stairs or the elevator, smile, and genuinely enjoy this experience. Even with the daily 3-4 hour round-trip commute, the project that started going south, I persevered because this internship was something that I had a great time doing. I appreciated and valued everyone I worked with, and I spent each day working to expand my business acumen. Whenever I had spent a while working on my computer, I would take a few moments to rest my eyes by looking out the window, looking at Sunset Boulevard below and the Hollywood sign beyond.
Andrew Jabara 