New Team Member

Hey guys! I hope your summers are all going well. We've recently added a new team member to expand the Blog's offerings. In addition to BK's Consulting, Jay's Finance, and Kim's IT experiences, we're proud to introduce to you Jackie, who will clue you in to some of her marketing experiences. Enjoy!

Hello all!

My name is Jackie Zhang, a Business Administration major (class of 2011) in Tepper tracking in General Management with a focus on Marketing and Manufacturing, Management and Consulting. This summer, I'm working in none other than Pittsburgh, PA, with USG Insurance as part of their marketing department, innovations.

As one of five interns in the program, I work on projects both marketing internally for USG, as well as for other companies in the service industry. While our work is mainly separate and on a variety of different projects that are given to us (ranging from creating advertising campaigns for our clients to redesigning internal materials), we often come together to work on larger projects, or to collaborate on parts requiring brainstorming. In the upcoming weeks, it is also an intern project to research, create and present a complete proposal to higher execs.

While working in insurance may not have been anyone's first choice in career as a kid (it certainly wasn't mine), it's actually quite interesting what you can learn from it. Since basically all industries and individuals need insurance, we learn a lot about various industries because we have to cover their basic activities. Additionally, as part of the marketing team, I have a say in every part of the new service creation process--in contrast to marketing for physical products, it's definitely more interesting and challenging to think of innovative methods of marketing the intangible.

Recently, my main projects have focused on doing thorough market research on areas of business that we plan on moving into, editing and creating proposals for the insurance and financial services software developed by our IT department, and designing marketing materials and advertising for external clients, as well as our own insurance agents. Our work environment is pretty casual (in stark contrast to the underwriting agent work area outside our office)--we play music, go out to lunches, and sit on green chairs.

The only real downfall of the internship so far is the long commute: living in the same house from the school year that neighbors the CMU campus, it's an awfully long drive to get to the Southpointe business park (especially hellish during rush hour back through the Fort Pitt tunnel!). Otherwise, living in Pittsburgh over the summer is surprisingly pleasant with more sunshine than you'd ever see during the school year (and a lot less stress in the air).

-Jackie Z