Your internship sounds really unique. I was not aware of this type of business and also was surprised to learn that they hired interns to work for them given the technical nature of the work. I was reading your field notes about when you had to take a 3 page description and distill it down to a one page document for the company's investors to read. This sounds like a really helpful task for you to contribute to the company though manageable for an intern's level of background. I personally really like distilling information into a highly coherent and meaningful though relatively short document; perhaps this is reflective/ connected to my affinity for organization and attention to detail (I admit, I'm a nerd in that and many other respects). On another note, I can relate to the fact that your supervisor is very aware of your academic obligations and is flexible enough to accommodate your other responsibilities. For me, this concern on the part of my boss makes me want to try harder because she seems personally invested in my life and I want to reflect that in my work that I help her out with. Is this just a one-semester internship, or are you continuing into the summer? Either way, I hope it continues going well! 

I understand not being able to disclose sensitive information. I work in a political internship and I too have to be very aware of what I am saying as it does not jeopardize the integrity of the campaign. As a junior, I can definitely relate to your feelings of being overwhelmed during that post-spring break week where everything seems to hit you. I promise, it will get better as you simply gain experience in dealing with it, which it seems you are doing very well, although it never really goes away... One of the joys of being ambitious college students ;) On another note, I am really fascinated with the pictures you have posted to your wiki page. Are those related to your internship, or do you just like them as they reflect certain emotions in different weeks? If you are planning in majoring in finance and business, this certainly seems like a great internship opportunity, as I'm sure you're realizing with all your activities including writing business proposals, collaborating on marketing projects, and much more. You know how they say you will change your mind five or so times before you settle on a major (and even then you will likely change your career path at least once)? Well, it was true for me along with so many other people I know; I once desired to be a part of the business world, specifically in the advertising industry. Now, as a history and political science major planning on going to grad school for education, I guess I will just have to relegate that interest to one of commenting on the television and magazine ads as I see their effectiveness given the historical, political, and social processes I have come to learn so much about. 

I was assigned the book World 3.0: Global Prosperity and How to Achieve It by Pankaj Ghemawat. This first half focused on the classification of the history of the world and how it has developed in terms of globalization. Ghemawat categorizes the world history into four periods, world 0.0, world 1.0, world 2.0, and world 3.0, starting from prehistoric ending in the current times. Each differ in the amount of governmental policies, market integration, the geographic structure, business strategies, and the mindset of the people. After Ghemawat lays out the structure of the world in comparison to previous structures, he goes into describing how contrary to the ideas of the "flat world" of Thomas Freedman, the world is yet to be at full globalization.

Ghemawat explains his reasoning in terms of barriers of globalization and border integrations make world 3.0 only a semiglobalized world.  As you get to the middle of the book, Ghemawat begins to explain how this 3.0 world has plenty of opportunities to open up as a fully globalized world in time, similar to world 2.0. This first half gives a lot of statistical information regarding the percentages of global aspects determining globalization, such as people living in foreign countries, amount of foreign calls made, and amount of foreign government debt, which is the largest portion of globalization. In his opinion he claims that with opening markets further will in turn increase development and globalization. In the last part of the first half, he begins to lay out any complications of further increased globalization such as the spread of disease. 

I was assigned to read the book Socialnomics-How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business by Erik Qualman. I have been really getting into this book. Although it really doesn't pertain much to my internship, I have found it very useful as a supplemental resource for my consumer science classes and my work on some relevant case competitions. So far in the book, we had to read about six chapters. Qualman starts by introducing social media and showing through examples how it benefits our life: spreading information (news) faster, keeping us updated on our friends lives, and finding new solutions to problems. He stresses that businesses must engage to stay relevant and grow especially with their e-commerce by keeping positive and negative information available and rushing to solve the problem in good timing. Consumers want to identify with their brands via social networks and listen specifically to other consumers in helping them to make choices. Only companies with great products will survive. He says it is easier for one to analyze their life through going through their social media. He showed the use of social media through the Obama campaign and suggested that all his small donations and his support were fueled by these networks. Interestingly, a main threat to search engines is social media.