my own ad school

photo credit: ryan loucks photography

Earlier this month, Seth Godin announced that he was looking for a few interns this summer and I definitely sent an application in. Over the course of the month, I stumbled on some websites, blogs and YouTube videos created by some of the applicants, which showed just how creative and talented the competition will be.

I wasn’t chosen as an intern, but congratulations to the few who were!

But not getting this internship isn’t as bad as it seemed. I am, however, extremely glad I decided to apply! The process of creating my application (a pdf file, 4-pages max.) was also a process of self-introspection. I delved in and asked myself questions about where I stand with advertising and marketing. The answer: marketing excites me and it will continue to do so, and I want to continue to pursue a career in this field.

When I started this blog, I originally intended to become a copywriter. But after being further exposed to other aspects of marketing, business, innovation, and culture in general, I found myself moving towards other things as well. After getting to know myself a bit more and paying attention to how I work and what makes me move, I discovered that I would also love to get involved in online marketing, branding, and design. Lately I found that I was often immersing myself with topics like social media, conversation marketing, customer experience and anything else that involves the creation and sharing of ideas, creativity and innovation.

I’ve also started to read The Ten Faces of Innovation, which gives me further inspiration, as well as a starting point, to which direction I want to continue in. (Reading the descriptions of each persona that matched some of my attributes also helped.)

If I hadn’t taken the time in applying for Seth Godin’s summer camp, who knows when I would have discovered this about myself, or when else would I have taken the time to to really sit and think about this.