POST#5- My main contribution at SAS

Post #5

Date(s): 6/22/15 - 6/26/15

Activities: Met with my manager, finished my rough draft on my report of the best practice for creating an email template with HTML, converted my report to SASpedia, wrote up my AOIT objectives, started making my HTML samples for my guidelines in my report.

Technical Information: HTML, Microsoft Word

Reflection: At SAS the new project for my team specializing in HTML emails, is creating interactive email templates for their clients to use and create marketing emails for their customers. My department in Customer Intelligence has always focused in the email tracking and writing programs and software for their customers to send emails based on an event that happened or personalizing emails based on what the email client’s customer s like or look at on their websites. Now they would like to build a software interactive email template for their customers to use to create marketing emails.

My job for the past week has been researching the best practices to use for creating a marketing email template with HTML, and coming up with a report on what I find. Considering I took my Multimedia class in my sophomore year it was hard at first researching and remembering how to use HTML. But after a days’ worth of going through online tutorials and experimenting on my own creating new html documents it got a lot easier. I have finished my report and am expecting my rough draft to be sent back to me with feedback and edits.

After I finalize my report I will convert it to the SASpedia webpage. I will also be creating HTML code samples and output examples to go along with each guideline I researched. My report researched what happened if they did follow the guideline and what the resulting output would be, what the resulting output would be if the guideline was not followed, different ways of following the guideline, and why they should follow the guideline. Each HTML guideline will have three samples to go along with it.  Each sample will be an example marketing email from a made up company. The companies are from retail, travel, and a useless company that will sell pointless products. The first two samples will show what happens if the guideline is followed coming from the retail company and the travel company, and the third sample will show what happens if it is not followed, coming from the useless company. My main contribution for my work is to provide my team with valuable and applicable information that they can use to create their software for an interactive marketing email template. 

Topic: My Main Contribution and what I have worked on that I am Proud of.

POST#4- How my internship is meeting my expectations

Post #4

Date(s): 6/19/15

Activities: Met with my manager, researched html best practices for creating email templates

Technical Information: HTML, Microsoft word

Reflection: On my fourth day of my internship I had my daily checkup with my manager and continued to research the best practices for creating marketing email templates in HTML. By now the internship had surprised me and has gone way above my expectations in terms of stress load and rules. I was expecting SAS to be a very rule based company and have huge amounts of work to be done every day. On my first day I was blown away by the friendliness of the employees and all the beautiful landscapes.

My manager was extremely nice and loved to give me interesting information about the history of programs and SAS. I was given my own office which I did not expect to have at all; I was expecting that I would sit in a cubicle all day. I was given a tour of my floor by the other college interns on my team and was extremely surprised at how friendly they were and ready to answer all my questions.

One other thing I was not expecting was all the services I was able to enjoy every day.  At SAS there are breakrooms which provide the employees with free snacks and drinks. I was amazed that first time employees were allowed to use the breakrooms and take breaks if they need to. I was not expecting for SAS to have an onsite gym, pool, and recreational activities for employees to use, and certainly did not expect that I was allowed to use them as well. For a technology based company I was not expecting to see all kinds of art work scattered around the campus. I was thrilled to see beautiful sculptures and works of art as I love art, and was so thankful for this extraordinary opportunity I had.

Topic: Is my Internship Meeting my Expectations?

POST#3- How my classrom experience prepared me for an internship at SAS

Post #3

Date(s): 6/18/15

Activities: Met with my manager, went through HTML tutorials, researched html best practices for creating email templates

Technical Information: HTML, Microsoft word

Reflection: On my third day I finished the HTML tutorials and continued to research the best practices to use for creating marketing emails with HTML. My multimedia class I had in sophomore year really prepared me for this internship at SAS because I am using HTML which I was taught though the class to do research about how to create an efficient email layout for marketing purposes. I wish in my multimedia class we learned how to make a layout for a webpage or email that could be edited to move around elements such as text and images.

I have also learned many programing languages that have helped me in my internship. In my freshman year I learned Visual Basic which my manager and I discussed the history of at my first meeting. In my sophomore year I learned the C# programming language which allowed me to introduced and build a relationship with the other college interns on my team. This is also a soft skill I have learned through my AOIT presentations and classes. In my junior year I learned the SAS programming language which gave me one of the sought after skills to get the internship.

I wish I had learned the JAVA programming language before I had Internship at SAS. JAVA is one of most popular language to use to write programs and software. Most of the other interns know how to use the language and use it to write their projects they are working on. My manager also uses this language on his team to write software for his storage programs for the emails his clients send to their customers.

Topic: How my Classroom Experiences has prepared me for an Internship at SAS

POST#2- The work atmosphere of SAS

Post #2

Date(s): 6/17/15

Activities: Met with my manager, went through HTML tutorials

Technical Information: HTML, Microsoft word

Reflection: On my second day I was relearning HTML to better prepare me to do my research and was getting a feel for the atmosphere at SAS. Decisions are made by communicating with your team or your customers through a meeting and figuring out what the best option for your company and your customers. The environment at SAS is extremely friendly everyone is willing to help you and answer your questions. Everyone works together and shares their ideas with each other and is not competitive with each other.

The dress code at SAS depends on what building you are in and what your team wears. For example at building C which is their executive briefing center for meeting their possible new customers, the dress code is very professional and it is required for you to be dressed up every day.  At my building, building U, the dress code for my team is smart casual, for example a nice blouse or shirt and jeans for girls and a polo and shorts for guys.

The work ethic for SAS is in favor for their employees. Their main policy is that if their employees are treated well and have a good experience at work they will do better work for SAS. They are encouraged not to stress by working a beautiful environment, with many gorgeous art pieces and sculptures scattered around the campus. They have wonderful restaurants at almost of each of the buildings and they are allowed to take lunch as long as need to.   My manager is constantly telling me “Don’t feel like you’re chained to your desk.” You do your work at the best you can do and if you need help you can ask other members of your team or your manager and they will gladly help you.

Topic: SAS Work Atmosphere

POST #1- The purpose of SAS what they do, their structure, customers, and where I fit in

Post #1

Date(s): 6/15/15-6/16/15

Activities: Orientation, met my manager, had first meeting, researched html best practices for creating email templates

Technical Information: HTML, Microsoft word

Reflection: For the summer of 2015 I will be doing an internship at SAS in Cary, North Carolina. On the fifteenth of June I and the other AOIT interns were scheduled for an orientation. During the orientation we heard from each of the major departments throughout SAS. These include: Human Resources, which provide services for the SAS employees like scheduling events and giving the new interns orientation. The Security department, which handle the guard stations to get into SAS and other services for the company like landscaping. The Payroll department, which handle the finances of the company, The IT Services department, which provide the employees with technical equipment and fix repairs. The RFC Department, which provides the SAS employees with an onsite gym and pool with other recreational fitness programs.  The External Communications department, which handles programs such as social media and provide analytics to their customers about what internet channels to use for their customers, and the Work and Life, which provides employees on how to balance their work and home life.

We also learned about the history and purpose of SAS. Dr. Goodnight was asked by NC State to build a software program to analyze the agriculture going on at NC State, mainly the cows, long story short him and the other founders over engineered it and now it has become what we know today as SAS. SAS provides statics and analytics to their customers to get more information from their customer’s gathered data. Analytics is learning new information about your data while statistics is the data and information gathered but you cannot learn new information to help your company. SAS’s customers range from every field imaginable but are usually big corporations like Wells Fargo. 

On my first day I met with my manager who will also be my mentor, Craig and had my first meeting. We discussed what his department, CI or Customer Intelligence did. Customer Intelligence gives their customers information about their customers to better equip their products to give to them. My sections within CI deals with marketing emails, this means we analyze information about our customer’s customers to allow them to send personalized marketing emails to their customers to increase the chance that they purchase their product. My job at the moment is to research the best practices when creating a marketing email using HTML, which will better serve my department to provide useful information to their customers. 

Topic: All about SAS and CI