And We're Back!

Thanksgiving break was a great time to clear my head and get rest before heading back to school and work. It was great feeling ready and refreshed before the start of the week.

This was a different week for me, since I got to go to a photo shoot with one of my colleagues. It was a great first time experience, since I've never been part of a photo shoot. I got to learn the entire process of taking a set of photos, for a client that was looking to introduce a new product into the market, and needed an updated set of photos with his new creation.

The main focus is still Ron's new slogan "More Funds Less Fun". Structural changes have been made in order to improve the efficiency of the company, this was done by introducing Laura's second team, of whom she's going to be in charge with in order to keep increasing lead conversion reates, which is still of utmost importance above all for the company.


Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Endicott College
DJ

Less Fun, More Funds...

…is the new company-wide slogan Ron introduced to the team today.

After an extensive meeting with the Onpoint team today, it was concluded that we had to focus on more specific things in order to increase lead conversion and revenue for the company.

The main focus was leads and sending more emails each week.  This is going to be achieved by having “Team 2” (as Ron referred to it), work on a series of projects that are going to benefit the firm in the long run, though the tasks at hand are going to be less fun and more repetitive with less creative aspects to them.

Fun and creativity has to be sacrificed for a short time before we can start targeting projects that entail a more creative aspect to them. In the long run, this is something that will benefit the company in numerous positive ways, financial growth being the main area of focus for this project.

I’m excited as always for new projects, since they all add new and valuable skill-sets to my daily thirst for working knowledge on business and marketing. In addition to acquiring business knowledge, I'm also going to implement skills I’ve learnt during my time at Onpoint and build on them.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Endicott College

DJ

Making progress

          I started the day by collecting leads for Onpoint's upcoming phoenix division. My lead numbers were a little low today because the business categories that I was focusing on had a lot of dead links and expired listings. I still managed to sort through them and find the companies that are still active.

           After that, I shifted my focus over to posting articles related to drunk driving and bullying. The drunk driving article was about a man who is now facing 7 years in prison for accidentally killing someone when he drove through a red light. Police found that he had a blood alcohol level that was three times the legal limit. The bullying article was about a high school student who had been shot and killed in what was probably a drug related incident. What made this especially tragic was that the student started using drugs and being involved in criminal activity after he had been bullied for putting on weight. The article greatly demonstrated how bullying can negatively transform a person. 

-Bijan Hennessey

Leads For Everybody

It was a very different week for me this time, since I was out of the office for a couple of days due to an illness. Regardless of that though, It's always nice to be back and feel welcome to my workplace.

Today the objective was lead generation and updating the blogs. For the first portion of the day, I spent my time collecting leads for the company, which I can definitely say I've gathered a great amount of working knowledge on. 

It's great to know that I know have a skill set, that allows me to create a list of leads, and organize them in such a way that the list can be shared and updated efficiently by people working in the organization.

The second half of the day involved generating leads for the "Don't Test Me" project, the list involves collecting the information of various blogs, Facebook and websites that area against animal testing, or are animal lovers in general.

As always, I'm very excited to see how much the project grows each week, and can't wait to see it finalized.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Endicott College

DJ

Another week gone, another week closer to success!

As every week goes by, it's satisfying to see the progress being made on the 'Don't Test Me campaign we've been working on for the last month.

We had a meeting today in order to go over aspects of the project that are ready to be taken to the next level. We also followed to discuss some key characteristics that have to be solved before the end of the week in order to keep pushing through at a steady pace without falling back on details that can be solved quickly.

The excitement to see this project reach the final steps keeps increasing as we move forward and work out all the elements that are going to make it a successful one.

I'm very proud to say I'm working on a project that's looking to make a difference, raise awareness, and most importantly, inform people on what happens inside animal testing facilities, and they choices they can make in order to not support the companies that encourage it.


Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Endicott College
DJ

A Good Day for Introspection

Today was a very different day to others. Or least the beginning of the day...

As I made my way into the office today, I walked into an office wide meeting Ron was holding.
It was very interesting having Ron update everybody on how things are going. I've never been involved in such a meeting, though I'm glad to say it was also a positive one.

After having detailed the next steps we as a company are going to take, Ron proceeded to emphasize how the new road the company has to go down through is crowdfunding, and being able to make it a successful businesses, starting with the "Don't Test Me" campaign we've been working on for the last month.

It was great hearing how, even though we have some problems to push through in order to take the company to the next level, there are many positive things that were highlighted , in order to motivate everybody and reach that magical "boiling point" to create steam and be successful.

As every day goes by, my working knowledge about Onpoint and Esente increases, which leads me to become more efficient at daily tasks and aids my understanding of new ones thrown my way. I'm excited to say how comfortable I have felt here, and how welcoming everybody has been.

Today made me reflect on the time I've spent here, how fast it's going by and most importantly, how much I've learned from everybody who works at Onpoint. I've applied knowledge I've acquired to my every day life.  Elements of success that will help me become a better leader and a great marketer. Two of the key areas I'm focused on while studying at Endicott.


Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Endicott College
DJ

Gotta love Monday. Gotta love November

New day, new week. After a very exciting, and very weird halloween weekend, with snow and all. It's nice to be back at Esente, ready to go full throttle with the "Don't Stop Me" campaign we've been working on for the last few weeks.

Today was focused on lead collection and updating the blogs we have. It was a specially interesting time searching for articles to post on some of the blogs. Owing to the fact that Halloween weekend news and stories always have a "weird" side to them. As one story detailed how a woman was pulled over for driving under the influence while wearing a Hello Kitty suit with mask included.

I am very excited to share some ideas tomorrow that I've had in mind for the weekend, and see if they can add value to the project so we can launch in a months time.


Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Endicott College
DJ

Making progress on Don't Test Me

     I started the morning by collecting leads for OnPoint's Phoenix Division. I'm slowly getting faster at all of this data entry! After that, I posted an anti-bullying and an anti-drunk driving article to the Esente blog.

        Once that was taken care of, I switched my focus over to Don't Test Me. We continued to collect a list of websites and blogs that we can use to promote our crowdfunding campaign. Doing this all day wasn't exactly the most exciting work I've done at Esente, but it's going to be worth it once the website is up and running.

-Bijan Hennessey

Keep testing me

Today we spent a good portion of the day with lead collection. We moved away from analyzing websites for the "Focus 100" for a while. Instead we focused on the Phoenix & veteran owned businesses lists.

Things are going good with the “Don’t Test Me” project, we spent more time expanding the media list we created a few days ago. It’s been entertaining though also cumbersome due to the repetitive nature of the task. In the end, it’s a key element in the project that has to be dealt with in order to create and increase exposure of the project once it goes live.

It has been very interesting and educational working on this campaign. I’ve already learnt so much about crowd funding, the steps (as Ron calls it “playing chess backwards”) that lead to the final product, all the small pieces and details that make-up the entire project and media list creation.


I’m definitely excited to see this project be finalized and launched in a month's time. It's been a great learning process, brimmed with trail and error.

I'm proud to say I'm developing great working knowledge on the outline and schematics of creating a crowdfunding business/project.


Until next week,

Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Endicott College
DJ

Another Busy Day at Esente!

         I began my day by collecting leads for Onpoint's upcoming Phoenix branch. Though this has been a somewhat tedious task, doing it every morning has definitely improved my overall speed in data entry.

         After doing this for about two hours, I switched my focus over to Don't Test Me.

Our main goal for today was to collect a list of anti-animal testing groups and celebrities who may be willing to help promote our crowdfunding campaign. I don't think that many big names would be willing to post anything special about Don't Test Me, but we might be able to convince them to re-tweet us. Even if that does not work, there are still plenty of facebook groups that we could post links to our website and crowdfunding video. We're going to make our social media pages soon, so we'll see how these techniques go. 

-Bijan Hennessey

We Love our Dogs Here

Our most recent project is a very exciting one, and I'm glad to say we're making great progress on it.

It's called "Don't Test Me". For this project we are looking to create a dog book where we include the photos of 50 dogs, which owners are going to submit in order for us to put together and launch as part of a campaign looking to put and end to animal testing for non-essential products. 

Products in these category can range from the cosmetic industry to the perfume one. We are trying to raise awareness, in order for people to stop buying products from the companies that test on animals, and opt for the brand that doesn't  even if the price is higher than the company hurting our pets.

We have made great progress with the project. And as long as week keep pushing through, and tackle every task as efficiently as we have in the last two weeks, we are going to have a final product within the next month. 

I'm very excited to be involved at such depth in such an important project for the company, and can't wait to see the final product in a few weeks time.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Endicott College

DJ

Woof.

What a long week has just passed. Out with mysterious (non-Ebola-like) symptoms that are still being tested on (don't worry I'm not contagious...), I'm back to help shovel coal into our newest train car on the Sentient Express, Project Beagle. The project has huge potential to not only do extremely well for itself and if it does work out, taking what we know works and what doesn't we will be able to streamline our methods into producing future projects with the same rubric. Just in my first day back it seems as though there has already been a multitude of progress made in the creation of the idea. It'll be sad to put 1Loud Street on the back burner for a while, but I am ecstatic to see what kind of progress we can make on this new path.


Until next time...

Brenden Groom
Marketing & PR
Coal shoveler for the Sentient Express

On your marks, get set... GO!

It's Monday once again, and as always, excited to be back at Esente ready to tackle this weeks problems. Today was a very interesting day, the office was hectic (in a good way), it's great seeing everyone work together and collaborate when there's a task at hand that has to be tackled as a team.

I feel more and more comfortable as the days go by, and I start to have a more in depth understanding of how everything works at Esente, Onpoint and Target Marketing.

Today was a good day for leads, since I'm starting to collect leads faster, and more efficiently than when I started working here. In addition to leads, I am also gaining more experience when it comes to analyzing websites for the "Focus 100".

I have learnt a lot on website building, the do's & don'ts and the basic layout of one. After seeing numerous websites all day, it's exciting trying to find things that are missing, or that should be edited in order to make the page a more efficient one to generate business for the business owner.


Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Endicott College
DJ

"I Don't Want To Be Here..."

... Is what some people might say, but I am a believer in what is going on within the walls of Esente. Today was filled with the normal horse play in the conference room talking about music, politics, and ISIS of course. The highlights of the day though, were spent hammering out our version of the 1Loud Street Kickstarter video. Hopefully when we have our proposal ready for Ron it will be something fruitful to work with and not another step backwards. Other than that, I'm just hoping that all this sickness plaguing all of us flutters away soon and we can all breath easily again.

Until next time,

Brenden Groom
Sick and tired of being sick and tired...
Marketing & PR

One of our biggest accomplishments was expanding the reward tier for our crowdfunding video. This is what we have so far:

$1: Personalized email/thank you and/or listed on our donor page on 1Loud Street

$5: Bracelet (similar to livestrong, with one of our phrases/ 1Loud Street)

$25: T-Shirt and Bracelet

$50: Be on the Limited Digital Playlist with all other backers

$100: Backer gets listed on our Featured Artist Page

$200: Musician or band gets to be in a tutorial video

$500: Backer gets guest spot on “Band Rescue”

$750: Backer gets 3 personal one on one Skype sessions with industry expert, Ron

$1000: Backer gets studio sessions with Jayna Liniger and Ron

I think that these rewards will attract a lot of investors because of how different they are in comparison to the rewards offered by other Web projects on Kickstarter.

We also discussed possible ways to promote 1Loud Street offline. The reason for this is that Kickstarter deletes projects with links that have been posted too frequently. I believe that the best way to go about this is to team up with local music schools and give them and their spots on the 1Loud Street website in exchange for promotion.

-Bijan Hennessey

An Autonomous Day

Today was left a lot up to us. The 1Loud Street team had to come up with goals and objectives to move forward. We came up with a few critical goals. We discussed and brainstormed the concept for which our brand will be on the 1Loud Street merchandise given to backers. We also developed a tier system for those backers. In addition we further discussed how to use social media to drive traffic to the video after finding out that Kickstarter can shut down your project if you try to spam people. We must be very careful with that. Also we discussed some companies that we can use to get the merchandise from. We still have a few questions that we need answers to in order to further develop our goals but we made some good progress today.

Nick Sarno
Endicott College
Marketing Intern

Rewarding Experience

Another day down at Esesnte. Today we spent a majority of the time planning the Kickstarter in the form of how we are going to reward our backers and how we are going to spread awareness about it. Hopefully, we can put all of these ideas to use soon and get everything up and running within the next month. It will be amazing to start seeing all of our notes, brainstorming, and ideas come to fruition. I think we have some very capable people who are willing to put in the work to make this project come alive.

Until next time...


Brenden Groom
Marketing & PR

Reunited

It's the middle of the week, and everything has been going according to schedule. I had a small issue with my lead search today. I was doing some research on leads to do with medicine, lots of business profiles are just names of doctors, so it was hard to find businesses/websites to add to the list. After having some experience with leads though, I've learnt a few trick on how to find information on those to get back on track.

The main focus of the day was One Loud Street. As soon as we were done collecting leads and analyzing websites for the "Focus 100" we discussed with one of the team members that wasn't yesterday, all of the notes that were taken yesterday, so he could be up to speed with what happened. And he added some of his. At the end of the brain storm session, we had a great set of ideas to hand over to Ron, in order to further discuss the direction the project is taking.

Finally, during the last hour of the day. We were asked to sum-up the progress made throughout the session with the One Loud Street team. Tomorrow, we're going to share a document we made, outlining everything we want to do with the Kickstarter project, and all the promotional ideas we have for the movie.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Endicott College

DJ

We start filming soon!

Today the other interns and I went over the different features for the cockpit page on 1Loud Street. We came up with a few other possible social media websites to include. Some of them will be more oriented to specific genres. For instance, adding a mixcloud button would be very useful to EDM musicians, but rock bands will find little use for it.

We also continued to do some research for the crowdfunding campaign. We decided that two possible rewards we could offer to investors could be livestrong style bracelets, and t-shirts. I think that these would be very popular if they were designed in a similar manner to merch that Rage Against The Machine makes. 

-Bijan Hennessey

Getting the Ball Rolling

Today the 1Loud Street team spend most of the day discussing what we are going to do for some of the features of the site and also for the Kickstarter video. We discussed the sites we think would be best be used for Cockpit. We also talked about some rewards Kickstarter backers would receive for their donations, and discussed a possible way to brand 1Loud Street. In addition, I worked on leads for a few hours. Really hoping we can write the video for the Kickstarter project this week. I think it needs to get done as soon as possible. We shall see.

Nick Sarno
Endicott College
Marketing Intern

Pushing Through the Week

Today, three out of the four interns (including myself) that are working on the One Loud Street project were here, so we had the opportunity to keep talking about how we're going to carry this out. We went over goals that we wanted to complete today, tomorrow and next week.

One of the main focus points of the day, was to create a short to-do list on certain aspects of One Loud Street, and see how we can specifically market each key feature that the service is going to provide to the user.

We came up with a solid list, where we elaborate on how instead of having One Loud Street be a stand alone app with different functionalities. We decided that it could be more beneficial if Cockpit was a standalone app, as opposed being a part of the One Loud Street bundle.

Additionally, one of the key things discussed today was possible gift ideas that could be given to people who back up the One Loud Street project on Kickstarter. This aids as an incentive in order for people to donate money to 1LS.

Finally, we're hoping that when the last member of our team is here tomorrow, we'll be able to have a talk with Ron, and anyone else working on the video. In order to write the video, and have a script ready to to be filmed whenever we are ready to film.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Endicott College

DJ

Always new. Always Exciting.

Glad to be back after a weekend of rest and activities. Today has been a different day than usual, since three out of the four interns that are usually on the same team as I am working on the 1 Loud Street project didn't come to the office today.

Leads was a big part of my day, since I had to focus on different things in order to be productive even without my colleagues being here to further work on the project. I had a good day with my leads, and was able to get a considerable number of them in order to further aid Onpoint with lead creation.

Analyzing websites for the "Focus 100" another significant part of my day. My working knowledge on how to analyze websites for the "Focus 100" has been more fruitful every time I go to analyze a website. I'm starting to have a deeper understanding on what makes a website look good, intuitive, user friendly, and easy to use, without having too much clutter and keeping it minimalist. I'm excited to keep working on this, since I'm understanding much more about the key elements that make up a good business page.

Finally, the Bully Buzz, and the Drunk Driving blogs need to have fresh content as frequently as possible. So I was assigned that task for the rest of the afternoon, where I found relevant articles to post on the respective blogs.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Endicott College

DJ

End of the Week

We went over a few more things for preparation next week. We have determined we will be writing the video on Tuesday with all the interns and Ron. I am very excited about that. We are also supposed to ramp up the Focus 100 process next week, which I am highly anticipating. I and the other interns have developed some solid plans for what we will do for when the video is on Kickstarter. We have mapped out the ways we plan to use social media sites to drive traffic to the site. I look forward to seeing what else we can to try to monetize 1Loud Street.

Nick Sarno
Endicott College
Marketing Intern

Promoting the Campaign

I spent a large part of the day researching ways to promote a crowdfunding campaign on a limited budget. I read on article that stressed the importance of promoting the campaign a few weeks before actually beginning it. I have come up with ways to do this using Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube that I'm going to discuss with the other interns at our next meeting.

I also researched the best ways to promote the campaign once it has begun. I think that the most useful websites for this will be Reddit and hypebot.

-Bijan Hennessey

Uh, And Another One

Another week in the books here at Esesnte. Today was filled with mostly doing some researching and planning for our attack next week. Next week seems to be the next big step since we will be deciding on the video, begin writing and filming it, and finalizing our marketing strategy.

Hopefully, next week we start to break ground and get deeper into the center of 1Loud Street. I believe in the product and think that what we take from other sites and offer originally is something that would succeed if presented and shown off the right way.

Ontop of all of that, I like being a part of the On Point side of things with helping Joe in the Focus 100 group analyzing websites, creating videos, and helping solve real world problems for the company.

Until next time...

Brenden Groom
Marketing & PR

Tomorrow... Next week... Next Month

We had a short talk today with Ron, where we discussed about the plan of action that we're going to take in order to make sure that we're always on track with the One Loud Street Project. As I mentioned yesterday, Ron is going to take the weekend to think of good ideas to write the movie. Tuesday morning come, we're going to get together all of the inters in the conference room so we can finalize the movie and go to the next part of the project.

A part of today's tasks also included to update the blogs the company runs. The Bully Buzz was my assigned blog to work on today. Having to research the news and find interesting news articles about bullying that go well with the blog. Some of the stories I've stumbled upon while looking for blog material are really sad. Though I'm glad I'm working for a place that helps prevent these strategies with increased efforts.

Overall, it was a great week to be at Esente, I learned numerous things from Ron, and accomplished a great deal of objectives I set myself for the week. It's going great, and as I've said before, things can only get better.

Have a great weekend readers, stay safe.


Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Endicott College
DJ

We're making progress

The other interns and I made a lot of progress on 1Loud Street today. We started off the day by discussing different possible concepts for the crowdfunding video. We also looked at an older storyboard for the video that was made by previous interns. We probably won't end up using many of their ideas, but it was very beneficial to see someone else's video ideas.

We just finished another meeting about different ways to promote 1Loud Street. We decided that Reddit should be one of the main websites for online promotion.

-Bijan Hennessey

Narrowing Our Gameplan

Today was our first day of the week where the whole 1Loud Street team was in. It is always great when everyone is here because we can make some good progress on our goals for the project. We had a great meeting with Ron today where he explained what our two main goals are going to be for 1Loud Street this semester. Firstly, we need to determine the best ways to promote the Kickstarter video once it is finished. Of course, it needs to be finished first which is a process that looks to be kicked in an extra gear in the next few weeks. The 1Loud Street team was able to map out of some of the tools and ways we plan to promote the Kickstarter video. It is great when we are able to generate ideas and work as a team. In addition, we determined our other goal will be to figure out the best way to implement the Thousand Song Strong aspect into the 1Loud Street project. We did not map out too much of a game plan for this but we have a general idea of what we are going to do, which is very important.

Nick Sarno
Endicott College
Marketing Intern

Empowerment

Today was a long one, and one of our most productive, filled with meetings, brainstorming, and Kickstarting. Having a round (rectangle) table discussion with Ron, Jenny, and the other interns about 10,000 Song Strong, 1Loud Street, and Live to Rock Again proved to be fruitful in generating ideas and getting everyone's wheels turning. We spent some time breaking down a timeline and outline of what our points of attack should be and what we should be focusing on. Afterwards, we created an outline of how we should plan on marketing the Kickstarter campaign, who we should target, and how we are going to get the project to be funded. I think with the collective talents of the four of us with Ron at the helm, we should be able to run a successful campaign, make some money, help some musicians, and save some lives.

Until next time...

Brenden Groom
Marketing & PR Intern

Back to 1LS

Having the entire intern team today has been great, since we've been able to discuss ideas we've had for a while now, but weren't all available at the same time to discuss them. One loud street was the main focus of today. We discussed various ways in which we can create awareness of the project once we have the crowdfunding video for it.

One of the ideas that we had in order to increase awareness of the product one it's finished. Was to use Reddit as a way to increase popularity of the website. Many articles/videos that are posted on Reddit, and make the front page, go viral and sometimes even make local/national news stations.

Social media is going to be a great part of 1LS, specially on marketing it initially. We went over different options on how to leverage, Twitter, Facebook, and some blogs that will help us promote 1LS.

We're going to start the filming for the movie next week, after Ron has a chance to compare ideas that were on the table before our arrival, and the ideas that we come up with before next week. After a decision has been made by him on which direction to take, we're going to keep moving forward with the project. For the mean time, we're working on other aspects of the project, such as the social media aspect.


Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Endicott College
DJ

Tuesday 9/16

We made some progress on Focus 100 today. We figured out how we will use Quick look to create the videos and use Vimeo to send them to companies. We continued our website analysis and lead generation. Unfortunately we were unable to make progress on 1 Loud Street today. I am really hoping we can get some good work in on Wednesday and Thursday when the whole team is here.

Nick Sarno
Marketing Intern
Endicott College

All the Videos!

Today, we spent a great deal amount of time with Ron polishing off some of the "Focus 100" ideas that we're started implementing today. A decision was made today, we're going to have Ron analyze some websites, while having the Quicktime application running in the background recording all of his movements on the computer. This is going to ease the website analysis process, since it speeds up the amount of personalized emails we're going to be able to send each week.

Leads was also a big part of the day, as it is everyday, but even more important today, since it was the first day where we counted the amount of leads we had in the day, and are keeping track of how many we get each day during the hour we spend doing leads every day.

Finally, the "Focus 100" team did a tes-drive of how the website breakdown would work if Ron was being recorded on the spot using the Quicktime application. The test went down smoothly, and we just have to polish some things off before we give Ron the green light.


Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Endicott College
DJ

We're almost ready to start filming

We started off the day by expanding our list of business contacts in Phoenix, AZ. After that, we analyzed the websites of several different local businesses. We each found several websites that appeared to be outdated and unprofessional. During a meeting, we discussed what changes could be made to improve the websites.

We then shifted our focus over to the 1Loud Street crowdfunding video. Our goal for today was to closely examine the filming techniques that were used in some of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns, and find ways to incorporate them into our video. We are all very excited to start filming.

-Bijan Hennessey

Good Start to the Week

Today was a productive start to the week. We took our first stab at really trying to analyze websites for "Focus 100." We each took a look at sites for companies in the Merrimack Valley area. Using our list we created last week on how to analyze websites we each took time to determine needs of certain websites we came across. We then compared our analysis and found many of the same observations. We are getting closer to mapping out how we are going to go about this project and had a productive meeting with Ron. In addition, we did some more work for 1 Loud Street. We talked about how this will be an important week for the video and we will be working to have a plan of execution in the following few days. I look forward to the work we can put into that this week.

Nick Sarno
Endicott College
Marketing Intern

Kickstarting the Week

Today the main target was to work on the "Focus 100". We had a very productive day learning how to analyze the websites.

There are various key elements we have to analyze in order to see what aspects websites are lacking in order to have a successful portal that helps them expand their business.

After having analyzed a number of websites, I have come to realize that many businesses just don't update their websites, or even try to add any information to them. Most of them are in a current state of backwards disrepair, having little working knowledge on coding and computer programing, even I know that it would just be easier to create a new website for some companies, instead of trying to update, or make the current one better.

People don't know how make their business presentable online, and have a hard time creating a good website. In this day & age, it is essential for any company to have a good, polished, modern looking website, since it creates a lot of credibility for the business, and attracts potential customers.

Not having a mobile website, is one of the big mistakes made by a lot of the small companies. Most people do most of their browsing on their mobile devices, so not having the option to access your business website through a mobile device is a big mistake.

I've learnt a lot these past few days about the to do's and dont's of building a website. It's all helping me have an idea of the complications many business owners have when starting a company, the website being one of them. Now more than ever, have I come to realize how important it is to have a professional looking website.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Endicott College

DJ 

Focus 100 & Loud Street For Days

Nearing the end of my first week as an intern at Esente. I can definitely say I have learned countless things this last week about making lists for leads, thinking out of the box when it comes to finding the solution on how to make the 1 Loud Street project, a credible and unique one to the bands who are going to benefit form our service.

We have decided after numerous meetings that the best way to go forward with the 1 Loud Street project is to use Kickstarter as our initial method of throwing the name of the company out into the public for the first time to see what the reactions are.

We are currently working on a script and layout for the video we're going to make to feature in the 1 Loud Street page on the Kickstarter website. It has been decided that the video featured on the front page is going to serve the sole purpose of attracting customers in a bizarre/comical way, that leads people to view in depth all of the features and opportunities that bands are going to have when they subscribe for the service.

Finally, the Focus 100 project suggested by Ron earlier in the week is going great. We came up with a list that outlined all key aspects that have to be considered when analyzing a website that's in a state of disrepair, that owners are looking to update/build new ones.

I continue to enjoy myself even more than the previous day, and I hope to keep learning and enjoying myself during my time at Esente.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Endicott College

DJ

First Full Week Comes to a Close

As my first week comes to a close I can say that it has been a productive week in learning more in what we are looking to accomplish as interns. We learned what our schedule is going to look like going forward which is something that is very important to me because I need organization in order to succeed. I was very happy to see how we are going to dip our toes into a few things this semester, including lead generation, which though can be mundane is very important part of the sales process. In addition we will begin a process called "Focus 100" where we will analyze company's websites and determine their needs from a website design standpoint. And of course we will continue to work with 1Loud Street, which I am very anxious to get down to the meat and potatoes of the project. Hopefully by next week us interns will have made some progress in some shape towards it. I look forward to where we are going and hopefully I can pick up as much real world knowledge from my experiences and from Ron along the way.

Nick Sarno
Endicott College
Marketing Intern

Leads Leads Leads

Today we've focused a great part of the day on Ron's idea, the "Focus 100" which was introduced to the interns yesterday. This project is going to take great group effort, and will show how much we can accomplish if we work together on these key 100 clients we're focusing on each week.

I can already say that I'm learning a great amount on how to build lead lists. Making sure they all have the elements required in order for them to be organized in such a way that allows us to find what we're looking for in an easy and very efficient way.

As Ron has specified during various points during my internship, dealing with lists is never fun, and not the most entertaining task either. But it has to be done in order to attract potential clients to Onepoint. As boring as it may sound. I've come to realize that I like looking up new businesses and enjoy analyzing their broken websites, and do learn many things on what, and what not to do when it comes to building a website, or having someone build a website.

I'm certain I'll continue to learn new things everyday while being with the Esente/Onepoit team. Additionally, I can definitely say I enjoy coming to work every day.


Juan Carlos Gonzalez
Endicott College
DJ

Week 3

I have had an excellent first few weeks at Esente!  

The other interns and I have made a lot of progress on the storyboard for the 1Loud Street crowdfunding video. We began this project by analyzing the most successful crowdfunding vidoes and discussing how to make our video similar to them. We then made sure to have the video mention that 1Loud Street has value, credibility, uniqueness, and urgency.

We have also been collecting the names of different unsigned bands  that we believe may be interested in 1Loud Street.  Since each of us is interested in a different style of music, we have each focused on finding musicians in our areas of expertise.

As this has been taking place, we have all been learning more and more about the different tools that 1Loud Street places into the hands of musicians. 

-Bijan Hennessey

Keeping the Engine Running

Today has been a busy/hectic day at Esente. It hasn't been a week since I joined the team, and I can already foresee that the rest of the semester is going to be as productive, and will definitely get more challenging as the weeks go by.

Ron made a big decision today that is going to have a great impact on the company. He came up with something called the "Focus 100" which basically allows Esente/Onpoint to have a solid steady stream of cash, that we're going to be able to use to fuel other projects that are being carried out throughout the company.

The "Focus 100" is going to allow us to have a broader reach, and have more depth when it comes to doing research about our clients. We are going to do more in depth research of our clients websites, analyze them, determine the key problems that isn't allowing their business to grow any further, and offer our service with a free evaluation.

If executed correctly, this should be a great revenue stream for the company, and and strenuous as it sounds, it's something that has to be done. I will definitely pay close attention to how this is going to be carried out, since it's a quintessential part of the business that I'm looking forward to learn about.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Endicott College

DJ

Some More Progress

Today we continued to add to the list of the top 20 bands in 200 markets. We have over 50 bands on the list now. We also added more leads to the email list. Ron had a meeting with many of us to explain the importance of lead generation. He explained it as spreading seeds to grow a tomato plant, which is a great way to put it. I have done a good amount of lead generation in the past as well as cold calling, and I know how critical of a step it is. He also explained a new project which will begin that will focus in on company's websites more specifically and finding really good leads by having those sites go through a checklist to see if they have good potential. We shall see where the progress is for 1 Loud Street. I hope to work on that more this week.

Nick Sarno
Endicott College

Beginning of the Week

Today I searched for new bands to add to our growing list of possible artists to reach out to for the launch of 1 Loud Street. I had some success and look forward to really honing in on the target groups. I also added a few recent stories to the Drunk Driving Prevention blog. In addition, I researched some leads.

Nick Sarno

The Search Continues

Today, the search continues while the other interns and I browse the web in order to find underground, not so well known and possibly struggling musicians, to have a solid list of bands to contact for the 1 Loud Street project, which was assigned to the other Esente interns and I.

Being out on the look for new bands to add to this list has definitely expanded my musical knowledge. Being a DJ, I focus only on a few genres, which I enjoy to the very death of me. Though being able to listen to bands/genres I have never listened to before has sparked my curiosity for new music.

After having been here for three days already. I can say it's definitely been a lot of fun, and I'm already learning countless things I didn't think I could learn in such a short period of time. 

Ron has been of great help during the meetings he has had with the interns to share his ideas on the 1 Loud Street project. His experience and way of thinking has definitely made change my perspective on a few things, and has also aided me to think outside the box even if it's hard to do so right now.

With time and patience I am sure I will continue to learn lots of new things here at Esente. I'm already learning how a non-profit company works, and the goals that they have. There are endless things I am yet to learn throughout the duration of the semester.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Endicott College

DJ

DJ Abroad

A new beginning,

My name is Juan Carlos Gonzalez, I was born in Mexico and lived there for 19 years of my life, I went to a British international school for a great part of it. This greatly aided my learning of the English language, which dramatically increased my chances of fulfilling my dream of being able to go to a college in the United States, same way my father did when he was given the opportunity to attend Texas A&M.

I'm currently a student at Endicott College, studying to obtain my bachelors degree in business administration, with a concentration in marketing. I decided marketing would be the ideal concentration for me owing to the fact that I've always been a creative thinker and enjoy being around other people who have a prolific and visionary mind.

I live for the sport of soccer, and have always been a big fan of the Spanish team Real Madrid.

Soccer (as the US likes to call it) and some key players of the sport have been very important in my upbringing. I've always followed the hardest working, most successful athletes to play the sport.

I use the passion & determination they have for the sport, to fuel my own fervor & dedication to achieve short term, and long term goals in my life.

I have a burning passion for music and I'm currently a bedroom DJ who enjoys playing house parties with the occasional gig at a bar with one of my DJ partners.

I picked up the hobby year and a half ago when I realized I was getting bored of the music I was listening to, and wanted to find a new way to able to enjoy my music even more than currently did at the time.

After some research, and friends who let me play around with their equipment. I decided I wanted to become a DJ. I've spent a significant amount of time with his hobby, and I intend to do it for as long as I enjoy it. Which will probably be always, since I love music too much.

Last but not least, I'm very excited to be be a part of the team and hope to do great things with my colleagues during my time at Esente.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez

Endicott College
DJ

Nick Sarno Introduction

Hello,

My name is Nick Sarno. I am a Senior at Endicott College studying Business with a concentration in Marketing and minor in Communications. My time at Endicott has taught me so much about myself as a professional and as person. Through my internships and my experiences in class I have developed my communication, creativity, and organization. I do not have any experience in the music industry; I have never been in a band nor do I have any musical talent whatsoever. However, I am a fast learner. I will do everything to understand the music industry as well as I can in order to make valuable contributions to 1 Loud Street. I worked for a recruiting company over the summer, and even though I had no experience in the recruiting industry, I was able to pick up the basics and the essentials quickly. I became an intricate part of the operations of the company during my time there, and I plan to have the same impact at Esente as well. I try to listen and learn as much as I can.  I am not someone who speaks just to speak, instead I make sure everything I say has value. I am very excited to get started with 1 Loud Street and work with the other interns to create something that looks to be very promising.

Nick Sarno
Endicott College
Marketing Intern

Rewind

Started my day off with some anti-bullying researching and blogging. Some of the things that happen across our country are mind boggling, kids being duct taped to chairs in school, all the harassment that takes place online, and all of the organizations out there that are against bullying yet it's still so prevalent. One in every three kids is bullied and the youth rate of suicide is continuing to increase, that should be enough in itself to raise awareness in parents, teachers, police officers, and anyone else in power that can play a vital roll in decreasing these numbers. 

I digress... 

On the 1Loud Street front today, I researched more Kickstarters and tried to breakdown a list of what our goals should be and what we should start working on and assigning to each other. I think, aside from the video, we need to analyze our priorities as far as what needs to get done. How else we are going to promote the Kickstarter aside fro the actual donation page, how we are going to reach out to musicians, and planning our first batch of tutorial videos.

Hopefully next week when the whole core team is together we can delve deeper into 1Loud Street.

Until next time...

Brenden Groom

Marketing & PR

1Loud Street

Conceptualize

Another day down. Researching Kickstarters and reading articles and interviews by successful Kickstarter campaigners, trying to take away any tips and details that may help us in our journey. Some insightful things to read, especially from the unsuccessful ones who talk about things that didn't work.

Everyone seems to have similar ideas for the video attached to the campaign, which has got me thinking that maybe ours needs to contain an element (or two) that aren't in most or any other campaigns. I hope this week allows for some of our ideas and the blueprint for the project to come to fruition.

I kept mulling over what our philosophy and mission statement for 1Loud Street should be, I think my favorite version is:

“To create a community for musicians to succeed in the music industry. Allowing the route from point A to point Z to be tangible and navigable.”

Until next time...

Brenden Groom

Marketing & PR Intern

Rapper

Day 1

Hello!
My name is Bijan Hennessey.  I am an actively performing musician and a recent Umass Lowell graduate.

This has been an excellent first day! The other interns and I researched the different ways that blogs and other online resources can be used to promote music. I really enjoyed this assignment because I was able to apply the knowledge that I have gained from being the primary booking agent for the band My Missing Half to it. 

I am very excited to continue working with all of you!
-Bijan

Final days of summer

It's the last week of August. The days are getting shorter, the air is getting cooler, and the summer's winding down, but we're just getting started building these projects for Sentient. I spent the majority of this morning researching sites that are comparable to 1Loud Street's concept, just to see what we're competing with. I couldn't find anything that quite matched 1Loud Street's vision - a site built for musicians to act as sort of a vessel to get them from Point A to Point B. Most music websites are primarily dedicated to uploading, streaming, downloading, and sharing music. There is hardly anything that directs musicians to the path of success and in today's market, it is crucial that musicians not only know how to get their ships from Point A to Point B, but that they also know how to navigate the waters intelligently and cautiously. 1Loud Street has the potential to fill that void.

Angela Nicholas
PR Intern

Tech... Tac... (Toe) Tician

Rolling solo today, I tried to dig as much in as I could thinking about the Kickstarter campaign. Researched more into successful and some not so successful Kickstarters and found some common threads. One being, the way the people running them stack their donation tiers. It led me to brainstorm some ideas that could help us build our tier of donations. You need the lower tier $1-$5 donation because some people just like to support things, though it will only generate a low level of money, it will increase our "backer" count and put money into the process to get it "kickstarted." (hey see what I did there?) Then you have the mid ground tiers that are enough to entice people to try it even if they aren't sure if they buy into our product yet. Lastly, it's the heavier tiers, people who believe in what we will do will be great and help musicians and will get us money fast. I drew up a list of some ideas that'll hopefully serve as an outline to get the process rolling next week.

On top of that, I did some more writing and storyboarding for ideas to use in the introductory video for the Kickstarter. I fully believe the power of the video we first release will set the course for how well our crowd funding goes. If it's informative, not too long, and well written it should do everything it needs to to showcase why 1Loud Street is better than anything else out there for musicians and promoters alike.

Hopefully next week yields some more progress.

Until then...

Brenden Groom

Marketing & PR

Middle Child

Get Your Shovel Ready...

We are about to dig in. Embarking on a long journey to an uncharted land where prosperity is not promised, but in a world were success is never certain, sometimes the hardworking, headstrong must take risks and believe in themselves in order to succeed. That being said, we spent time today laying our the foundation of what we will be doing for 1Loud Street the next couple of months.

I spent time today doing research on successful Kickstarters, reading articles, watching their videos, investigating the products. Afterwards, I spent some time snooping around seeing if there was anything like what we are building out there now. Yes there are the Reverbnations and Bandcamps, but what we have here is a community not just focused on the musician, but focused on helping the musician get to their destination.

We created a Google Doc for the core team to use to communicate our progress, tasks, ideas, etc. especially since some of our time here doesn't overlap. In there today I input all of my brainstorming and ideas that I have gathered over the past two days as well as created some dialogue and talking points for our crowd-funding video. It feels good to let the creativity ooze onto the paper (and keyboard) for this project.

Until next time...

Brenden Groom
Marketing & PR
1Loud Street - Core Team

"PR Exists To Manipulate"

Finally, I've been waiting for this day. We finally had the elusive 1Loud Street meeting with Ron, Laura, and the core team. We gathered in the conference room for most of the day exploring the philosophy behind the website and what we plan to accomplish with it, as well as how to monetize it. The basis really, is telling the artists what they need to hear not necessarily what they want to hear. Being an artist (in my eyes not Ron's), I am uberly excited to start digging into this project and using both my creative passion for music and a project that I believe in. 

As a group we spent some time compiling lists of ideas for what we should be focusing on and for the crowd-funding campaign. With all of the tasks ahead of us in order to get this project off the ground, we need to continue to utilize our time carefully and discipline ourselves to accomplish our goals and continue moving this website forward. 

Until next time...

Brenden Groom

PR & Marketing

1 Loud Street beginnings...

Today, the other interns and I met with Ron and Laura to further discuss our goals for 1 Loud Street and to began the process of mapping our tasks and priorities for the project. We spoke about the roles we'll play in the development of the site and how we can all contribute our skills and knowledge to launch 1 Loud Street into a successful business platform, as well as an efficient tool for musicians. It's a hefty task, but I think the other interns and I are prepared to tackle it. Plus, I think it's something we all genuinely believe in and are interested in contributing what we can.


Angela Nicholas
PR Intern

Last Day

This is my last day here at Esente. It's been a good journey, and I've learned a lot along the way. Today involved a lot of blogging about various different things, and also a little bit of work on photoshop. This is definitely a good place to work and intern, because each day is totally unique and the novel experiences make your time at work a lot easier. Also thanks to Ron and Laura for helping me along the way, and hopefully my work has benefited the company.

-Akshay Daftardar
PR and Design Intern

Nothing

Nothing? That's what came out of our meeting today, for sure. Well, not really. You had to be there, it's an inside joke... Anyways, today started off in a long-winded, informative meeting about all of our futures here. Planning for how we all need to start managing our time and the projects we are all working on, as well as using our individual strengths to achieve our goals.

It was certainly a different day being the only intern here. Looking forward to when myself, Mike, and Angela all meet up next week to discuss how we are going to tackle 1Loud Street. I believe in all the things that Ron wants to do with Sentient, I think all of the projects have potential to become very successful and useful applications.

Until next time...

Brenden Groom
Marketing & PR

Na na na na. Na na na na. Hey hey hey. Goodbye

So today is the last day for me at Esente.  Ron definitely made my last day special with the videos of botflies and spiders and everything else.  This was a great summer and I am glad that I was able to be a graphic design Intern at Esente (even though graphic design interns don't exist here according to Ron).  

-Matt Bell

Mammals Have Eyebrows

Today I (regrettably) learned about botflies (and the most effective removal solution, should one be contracted), the differences between dolphins and porpoises, mammals with eyebrows, spider mothers (and their creepy little spider babies), and the sole characteristic that differs blackheads and whiteheads. Gross, but informative...? There was also discussion about racial profiling, funeral homes, and how the media chooses to tell one side of any given story and, subsequently, how the audiences chooses the story they wish to hear, regardless of the truth.

So, you know, normal Wednesday.

On the other end of things, the other interns and I blogged about recent articles for the anti-bullying and drunk driving prevention campaigns, and continued to promote Jayna Lininger's music through social media postings and country music blogs.

- Angela

Botflies Are Not Flies

Today Ron helped remind me that I hate spiders. Arachnophobia status. If I see a spider in my apartment I pray that my girlfriend is home to take care of it. Okay, I'm not that bad... anymore. But still, watching videos today while we were debriefing was enough to get me.

Apart from that, we did some legwork today for the blogs, finding articles to post about for drunk driving and bullying. It's pretty ridiculous how many accidents really do occur when you start researching into it and finding all these articles that are being posted every few hours.

Another interesting tidbit of knowledge Ron helped me realize today was how to analyze the news and see how the media manipulates the same stories in order to make their point, or in most cases create their point. There's definitely people who use these tactics for personal gain or for dubious reasons, I'm not saying I am going to change the way that media portrays things, but I do have a degree on my moral compass that I won't compromise for the sake of getting ahead. I digress.

Excited to start working more on One Loud Street next week.

Until next time...

Brenden Groom
Marketing & PR
Arachnophobe

Click here for a comprehensive bot fly removal guide

Today, I started off working on a drunk driving poster, and then worked on some Jayna fan art. I also advertised a little bit for her through a pseudonym and a fake gmail account. All was going smoothly, and things took a turn for the hilarious when we had a meeting with Ron and Laura. We started out talking about some serious topics such as the recent shooting in Saint Louis, but ended it off by watching videos on Youtube about bot fly removals and pimple popping. It was a solid work day, but as usual had an unexpected addition that made the day unique.

Until next time,
Akshay Daftardar
PR and Design Intern

Photoshop all day long

We started the day by checking the emails, and I basically worked on photoshop all day after that. I think I made some nice progress on one of the drunk driving posters. Besides that, we helped Ron wrap up the frames.

-Akshay Daftardar
PR + Design Intern

It's The Final Countdown

So I now have a total of 1 more day at Esente.  Today I finished what I started last wednesday which was editing the band cover photos to take out the black profile picture boxes and format them correctly.  I also worked on fan art for Jayna.

-Matt Bell

And then there were three

The summer is coming to a finish, and soon so is my time here. It seems short, yet very well spent. I feel like I've been able to further my knowledge of the music industry as well as Photoshop here. Today was a quiet day, and there were only 3 interns at the table. However, I got to blog, search the internet for more newspapers who may have published about 12 pack of life, and work on Photoshop to create some drunk driving posters and also some fan art for Jayna. All in all, it was a relatively successful and productive day. 

-Akshay Daftardar

PR and Design Intern

Time To Make Some Noise

The stage has been set, the microphones are live, it's time to shine. The most important thing we focused on today was planning for 1 Loud Street, a music platform with the musicians in mind first. As a musician myself, I'm extremely interested. Being able to work on something that uses both my creative talents and my passion for music has me salivating at the idea. Prior to our day ending meeting with Ron, we continued working on the 12 Pack Of Life project; answering emails, looking up news stories, and blog posts. An exciting little nugget of information came from one of the New Jersey bands emailing us about the possibility about maybe getting a television spot on News 12 with Della Crews. Kim Yarson, the musician who emailed, has been on her show before and suggested we reach out to her. I wrote up a draft email to send out to her, hopefully it turns into some more publicity for Jayna Lininger.

As another week ends, I'm looking forward to working on 1 Loud Street.

Until next time...

Brenden Groom
Marketing & PR
Lover of Cats

The intern table is getting smaller and smaller by the day as the summer winds down, but with the next season quickly approaching there are so many exciting opportunities on the horizon. I'm looking forward to working on getting Jayna Lininger's name known and music heard, and contributing to all the new web and app projects. I'm two weeks into my internship experience here and there has yet to be a dull day.

Angela
PR Intern

"For last year's words belong to last year's language, and next year's words await another voice"

My final post here is done for the benefit of future interns. In my final hours at esente as a design and marketing intern, I reflect. I reflect on good times and tough times; on challenges and accomplishments. If you try to sum up the whole experience in one word, you may find it difficult, and here's why: variety. Unlike most internships, and even a good deal of careers, there is very little monotony in a day as an esente intern. Think of each day almost as more of a new project, rather than a day at work. Coming in every day you are tasked with something different. Now, to be realistic, there are still certainly repetitive tasks, as there are with any job, but the main project each day, the meat of the internship, is a new and fresh task you are offered. Whether it be drafting press releases, coordinating email blasts, collaborating on marketing strategy, or simply designing posters and CD covers, each project is new and different!

Here's the boil down of it all. If you're like me, you're looking up this company all over the internet, You saw an ad for the internship on LinkedIn, or Monster, or Craiglist, etc.. and said "well this *sounds* interesting, but is it legit?" You're not wrong in asking that either, take my word on it. I have the unique perspective of having spent a couple years working out of college before doing this internship, and I've been caught in a few scam/dud jobs over that time. There is always the risk of something sketchy with an internship, simply because it is Free. Work. That's what it simplifies to. An internship is an opportunity for a company to hire part time workers for free! Now that's half of the story, the other half being that YOU as the worker are gaining experience, work hours, job knowledge, training, advice and insight from peers and seniors, etc...

BUT

You won't get any of that if you don't seek it out. If you apply for this internship, or any internship and say "awesome, I get to go in for 8 hrs, 3 times a week, and just hang out" then that's what you're going to do, and 8 weeks later you'll leave and have gained nothing. Or you can go in every day, take that new task they give you, and run with it. You do that, and you're golden. From the 8 weeks I was here, I can now say that I've done everything that a professional designer or marketing associate would do! I can put that on my resume, tell future employers, build on those skills, create a career out of it.

That's the secret to being an esente intern, and to being any intern. Take what you're given and run with it. Make it your own and it will benefit you forever.

With my final paragraph as an intern, I want to thank the Esente group, Ron, Laura, Kayleigh, and all the amazing interns I got to work with this summer. You are all inspiring, and I am going to cherish this experience forever. Best of luck in all your future endeavors and hopefully we'll all be working together again, as career marketers, designers, and PR professionals. To all of you new interns coming in or considering this, best of luck to you as well, and give this place a shot. You won't regret it.


Signing off,

Mike D
Design Intern