Many things cannot fly. Rocks, trees, sticks, Spike...

The interns take a trip far back... All the way back to

Today at Esente, we've been working on obtaining contact information for media outlets across the northeast. I've been working specifically on Connecticut newspapers, TV and Radio stations. We had a very informative meeting with Ron earlier that taught me a lot about the process in which websites and applications are created. We discussed the Dog Park idea and learned about the many steps that everyone in the office needs to take in order to complete the project. I learned that it's overwhelming to look at the big picture, but important to break the project into manageable portions. 

-Stephen, PR Intern

Yup! Yup! Yup!

Our blog theme is The Land Before Time! Today we continued to look for media contacts and went over more marketing strategies for our upcoming projects such as the CD and dog park. We are really starting to narrow down on the getting the last few bands for our CD, as well as searching for local newspapers in various states so we can send them our press releases and get more exposure in local news papers and media. We also briefly began to come up with crowd funding ideas such as having Instagram, Twitter, Facebook competitions based on the number of likes they get and offering different prizes. Until next time esenters!


Melissa
PR Intern

Going to the Land of (Fermented) Tree Stars

The Special Birthday Picture

Hello music lovers,

Along with today finally being warm, it is also my 21st birthday! This means I also get the privilege of looking at Ron's Special Birthday Picture for the remainder of my day here at Esente. Today we worked on more of our process overall, as well as contacting the various media outlets in Vermont that we will be sending our press releases to. Its been a good day, and it'll only get better folks. Drink some water, go to bed, but above all else keep on keepin' on folks!

Zack, PR

Batten Down the Hatches

Brrrr it's a cold and windy day here at Esente but we are still working hard and hoping for some better weather. We are still in the planning process of making our CD against Drunk Driving. Today we had a meeting with Ron which helped specify exactly what we should say in our email to the bands asking them to be a part of our project as well as the terminology and proper punctuation we should use in the press release.  Every day we continue  to learn more valuable marketing and public relation skills here at Esente and I am excited to keep sailing down the river of learning for the rest of the summer. Until next time!


Melissa
PR intern

Shiver Me Timbers

Today started with a flood in the office which inspired today's theme, boats.

Besides building an Ark, the interns worked on preparing emails to be sent out to the bands. Ron taught us a lot about what and what not to include in the emails in order to make the project appealing to the musicians. Along with this, I started working on my very first press release. I found it difficult to convey so much information in a clear and concise way. I'm looking forward to getting feedback from Ron and Laura once it is finished.
-Stephen, PR Intern

All Men on Deck

At this point on the digital compilation cd project we have completed our list of bands. The next step is writing to the bands to ask them to join. We are working on the draft for an email. Our letter will have a sales foundation that Ron calls "four legs of the sales table"; value, credibility, uniqueness, and urgency. This will form the basis of the email. We want them to know how valuable to the bands this project will be, how we are credible, how this project is not like others, and how there is little time so they must act fast. Along with this project, I began to look at the pictures from yesterdays photoshoot and began to edit them for the Future Shapes website.

Ryan O'Donnell
GD Intern

The Cut of Our Jib

Not that Captain Ron

Hello music lovers,

Today our initial efforts in creating an email inviting bands to join our compilation albums was previewed by Captain Ron. We learned more about what the emails should look like before they are sent out, as well as the format that Ron will be looking for in the future when we preview our work with him. Another day of style and planning work down, we look forward to sailing into some serious networking and initial contact with our bands in the next few days. Keep on keepin' on, and keep your backs to the (freezing cold) winds folks.

Zack, PR intern

We Think We Can We Think We Can

Today marks my third day here at Esente if you haven't seen to catch on we have taken a train theme to summarize our plan for the summer. Today Ron introduced  us to the process of horizontal planning. We spent the majority of the day making an overall plan for the summer and outlining the process of how were going to develop our 12 compilation CD's against Drunk Driving. We first came up with our goal and broke it down into the major categories of planning it will take to accomplish this goal and then from there we got into more of the minor details. I feel like by participating in the process it will give me better practice of how to make a plan of action to accomplish obstacles in the future.  It will also be exciting to see the final project come together at the end of the summer but until then will just have to keep chugging along.

Melissa Bogel
-PR Intern

Get Off the Tracks!

Today marks the beginning of the Esente intern THEMED blog posts. If you haven't guessed, today is train themed.

For my third day at Esente, I've been working with the other interns on creating a flow chart that states all of our goals for the summer. In some ways it is overwhelming to think about, however, when we broke down all the aspects of the project it seemed more manageable. Hopefully, this chart will help current and future interns work more efficiently.

-Stephen, PR Intern

What Does the Train Say?

Choo-choo-ch00-cha-cho0-ch0o-chooooooo.

For those who are severely confused by this post so far—all the interns decided to title our blogs with a train theme today in honor of our first Horizontal Plan, which we call the Horizontal Express, made for the 12 Pack of Life compilation CD campaign. This plan consisted of us establishing each step of this process and then elaborating so we know everything that needs to be completed for this campaign to be successful. The amount of work that needs to be done is a little intimidating, but I feel confident that we can all get it done as a team and end up with a great result. I'm excited to see how it turns out.

Chug along Esente-ers.

Alexa Duffy

GD Intern

All Aboard for Horizontal Planning

Stephen and Kris in front of our Master Plan

Hello music lovers,

Today at Esente the Summer 2014 interns, also known as some of the coolest folks in the online digital media business have created our master plan for the rest of our summer. We've divided our work into some primary categories, and begun to determine the individual steps for completing our goal of releasing a set of twelve CDs that will promote our artists as well as Jayna Lininger. Setting out a clear plan of attack on both a Google doc and on a decent-sized piece of wall has helped us all visualize our end product as well as the steps it will take to achieve it, both important lessons to learn for all of our future careers. Stay tuned for updates music lovers and as always keep on keepin' on.

Zack, PR intern

Chuggin Along

Today in the office, we continued our work compiling information concerning potential bands, as well as researching media outlets like local newspapers, radio stations and news channels who we could approach to support our CD campaign. The interns were given free range to create a master plan for the remainder of the summer, organizing our thoughts and resources into a physical brainstorming device. In short, we made further progress in laying the foundation for the CD campaign, and began to take our first steps forward.

Kris Parr
GD Intern

Choo Choooooo!

It's full steam ahead on this project!

Today we just about finished up searching for all the bands, so during the last portion of the day we've been working on a "plan of attack" to get everything done. Ron proposed the end goal, which is to have the 12 CDs all finished up and available for the public to purchase. It's our job to now reach that goal, so we have gone "old school" and taped up each big step to a wall, and then tape up more smaller steps to reach the big ones. At first, it seemed daunting, but after laying everything out, it's honestly not that bad. Chipping away at this project each day will be an interesting learning experience.

Meghan Pierce
PR Intern

Photoshoot

Today I went to Newtown MA, with Jenny for a photoshoot of Future Shapes. Future Shapes is a gym in Newtown and Wellesley MA. We took photos of the gym, clients, employees, and clients with the trainers working together. This was an exciting thing to do because I have had training in photography and worked on personal projects as well as doing real estate photography. However, this was the first real shoot I have ever done and it was a fun experience. I learned more about camera techniques and how to work with people during photo shoots. Everyone has a different attitude so coping with different types of people is interesting as they may be shy or timid to be photographed. This was a good experience and hope I can go on other shoots because I can definitely see myself gaining knowledge every time.

Ryan O'Donnell
GD Intern

Making Headway with SEO

It's my second day here at Esente and today we focused on SEO which stands for Search Engine Optimization. I was excited to be doing this activity because I had recently just finished a class called Management Information Systems  at UNH this past semester where I briefly learned about this topic. I thought it was cool that I got to apply a skill I learned about in the classroom to a real life example.  I learned that most company's thrive to be on the first page of a Google search or the top 10 websites. Some company's even pay a lot of money to appear as an Ad at the top of the webpage every time certain words are searched.  However the most popular websites are determined by the amount of users visiting that page. Onpoint is at the top of a web design search in about 20 different local towns so to fit with the rules of Google we had to re write the company's description on all the different landing sites. This project was fun because we got to do our own thing and show our creativity! Its only day 2 and I feel like Esente is already teaching me valuable skills that I can use and apply to real life scenario's.

Until next time!
Melissa Bogel
PR intern

SEO and Landing Sites

This morning a group of us met with Ron and we discussed how search engine optimization works to help websites get better search results on search engines. From there we worked on landing site text to promote Onpoint, which is the web design company here. It was interesting to learn about SEO and to engage in some creative writing as well. 

Chris Smith

PR Intern 

SEO?

Today we started by learning about search engine optimization. Ron, through his wonderful analogies, helped us understand what it is and how to implement it. For anyone who doesn't know, SEO is the placement of certain keywords in a webpage to make it show up in a google search. What that meant for us is that we had to reword paragraphs around these phrases without them sounding awkward. It seemed to come to some people very easily. The first one I did took a long time and did not come out too well. Eventually, however, I got the hang of it. I could see this being an important skill moving onward. As the day winds down, I've started to wonder how we plan to fit 20 more interns in this office. I guess we'll find out soon enough.
-Stephen

A Change of Pace

Intern Fuel

On a foggy, cloudy, caffeine-driven day at Esente the title says it all music lovers.
After completing a list of possible contacts for the Vermont Country 2014 album, today my fellow interns and I set our sights on creating new and updated versions of the various Onpoint Media landing sites. This is work that I'm familiar with, particularly with my journalism background, essentially writing copy for Esente and Onpoint. I enjoyed this more technical work, mainly because it gave me a chance to exercise some of my creative writing experience in a real world setting. Esente is proving yet again to be a really cool internship while providing some real world work experience. Stay tuned for more updates on the great work being done by the Summer 2014 interns and keep on keepin' on.
Zack, PR Intern

Unexplored Territory

Today we were told to write SEO copy for the Onpoint landing site. I had never done this activity before, nor did I even know what SEO was prior to today; it stands for Search Engine Optimization for all of you who are as confused as I was at first. This activity entailed coming up with a variety of ways to explain the same content so Google could keep Onpoint on the first page when searched. Since we did it almost all day and I had never done it before, it's safe to say it is now something new that I can add to my repertoire of skills—and should I say talents? I am an artist after all...

Have a great weekend Esente-ers.

Alexa Duffy

GD Intern

Connecticut Country

Continuing to scavenge for bands with a country sound based in Connecticut. There’s a good gathering of artists so far from “The Nutmeg State” and I think we’ll be able to put together a strong compilation CD to raise awareness of drunk driving. We also had an intern meeting where we generated marketing strategies and resources related to the compilation CD project. I think we created a good starting-off point and I look forward to continuing to work on this project with the team. 

Chris Smith
PR Intern

First Day at Esente!

My name is Melissa Bogel. I am currently a rising senior at the University of New Hampshire also known as UNH. I am currently majoring in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing. I am so excited to back home for the summer and starting at Esente as a public relations intern.  I am eager to jump into work and begin learning more about marketing strategies and the promotion process. When I am not busying working I love being outdoors. My favorite hobbies include running, boating, and traveling. I also love dogs and frozen yogurt.

My first day was so exciting. When I first got here I got a whole hour to research and find out more information about Esente's companies and clients which include Stop Drunk Driving Now, Right Now Against Bullying, and On Point. After browsing through these websites I found myself spending the majority of the time watching videos of Jayna Lininger singing. She is currently the National Spokesperson for the Country Music's Stop Drunk Driving Campaign.. I am already a huge fan and am thrilled to be working on her marketing campaign as well as the compilation CD to raise awareness of drunk driving. Today I got assigned the area of Washington D.C and the search for country bands continues. I look forward to working at Esente and seeing what else this summer has in store!

Melissa Bogel
-PR intern, UNH

First Day!

My name is Stephen and this is my first day at Esente Music. I will be starting my Junior year at the University of Vermont this fall and am pursuing an economics major and music minor. I am incredibly excited to begin my internship this summer.

Music has been an enormous part of my life for the last twelve or so years. I began playing saxophone in fourth grade and have been playing and listening to music ever since. Recently, I've been listening to a lot of early bebop and jazz. Some of my favorite musicians are John Coltrane, Bill Evans and Miles Davis. I have also been listening to bands like Grizzly Bear and Real Estate a lot this year.

Today, the interns worked together to brainstorm ideas for promoting Jayna Lininger. Together, we were productive in coming up with plans to further grow Jayna's fan base.

I really look forward to seeing what else this internship entails.
-Stephen Richards

Calling All Musicians...Bueller?

Today we continued our search for country bands and musicians we can feature on our drunk riving awareness CDs. Also we, the interns, were given the opportunity to brainstorm different marketing strategies to further our campaign as we eagerly await the next step. We were able to come up with a solid list of ideas to promote the CDs, Jayna and Stop Drunk Driving Now. Being my third day, I can tentatively say I've found a rhythm between research, brainstorming and collaboration with the team. It has really been an amazing experience so far, and I can honestly say I have been exposed to more practical and creative marketing and advertisement strategies that I have never seen, heard or thought of before. Learn all the things! Til next week!

Kris Parr

GD Intern

A Hotbed for Country Music

Today, I finished up searching for bands in NYC. I found more than 60, and I made sure to highlight the ones I thought had a great sound. Even though country isn't my favorite, I thought a couple of these artists really had something special. I hope they make it onto the CD!

I've moved on to searching for bands in the Washington DC area, so that also means Virginia and Maryland. MD is a hotbed of country music, so it's making the task much easier! Other than that, Ron has assigned Kris and I a new project that I'm excited about. We'll be working with a few employees, as well. As more and more details roll out, I'll be sure to write more!

This marks my first week here at Esente, and it's been a great one so far. I'm excited to see what the rest of the summer here will be like!

Meghan Pierce
PR Intern

The Quest for Country: Day Two

Jayna Lininger, rising country star

Hello music lovers,
Today marks my second day at Esente Music Group in Beverly, and the second day working on compiling artists for a country music album featuring Vermont country and bluegrass artists. This album will also feature the incredibly talented Jayna Lininger of Pittsburgh, PA. While I'm not an avid country music fan, Lininger's voice and unique style blew me away the first time I listened to her. Keep an ear to the ground, this is a young woman who is definitely going places. My fellow interns and I also began working on a media plan to get our respective albums out into the main stream, which involved getting into contact with everyone from local newspapers to our own college media outlets. This summer continues to rock, and its only day two! Keep on keepin' on folks, and stay tuned for more updates from 3 Broadway.
Zack, PR Intern

Upstate New York

Today at Esente I am still working on finding country bands in Upstate New York. My options are dwindling down so I have to broaden the genre to wood rock, acoustic, and anything folky. I have been looking at local venues to find artists and bands. Today as a group we brainstormed ways to promote the CDs and bands. It was a good bonding because we were thrown right into it to see how we would do on our own. I think as a group we found many good ideas like contacting our own schools, contacting local music shops, and even going around to local businesses that may allow us to post flyers. Everyday we move a little further on the project and its getting more exciting everyday.

Ryan O'Donnell
GD Intern

On to Connecticut

Today I am working on finding country music artists in Connecticut. There are a lot of artists and many would be good fits for the planned compilation CD to raise awareness of drunk driving. 

Chris Smith

PR Intern

My First Day: The Quest for Country

Zack Barry, PR Intern/Fresh Meat

My name is Zack, and I am will be returning to UMass Amherst in the fall for my Senior year of college! Needless to say I'm pretty excited, but for the moment I'm excited to be joining the talented team at Esente Music Group! I have a love of music that started in my home, and evolved through my involvement in my high school radio station and as an intern for the now (sadly) extinct 101.7 WFNX FM. You'd be hard pressed to find a genre I don't enjoy, but at the moment I'm into reggae and alternative music, particularly bands like UB-40 and the Strokes. A journalism major by name only, Writing articles and walking a beat really doesn't interest me. I plan to enter the public relations field upon graduation and Esente is looking like an excellent place to get some real world experience in my field, all while working with artists from across the country for a good cause. Today I began searching for Vermont-based country artists for a country compilation album that I will be helping to produce. This information gathering and research is a critical skill to have in any job in the public relations field, and it exposes me to great new artists! I'm really looking forward to getting to know all my fellow interns as well as the rest of the staff here at Esente this summer, not to mention exploring downtown Beverly's food scene. I'm a major foodie as well as a music lover so the gathering of restaurants on Cabot Street are just another perk of this new adventure! Stay tuned for more updates, more stories, and some great tunes from Esente this summer. Keep on keepin' on folks!

Country Band Search

Today I am continuing to look for country bands for the compilation CD. My location today is upstate New York. I am having the most luck on local bars event pages. There I can search the bands they are showing to find out if they are local bands or not. When I find a local band I find their home location and make sure it is more upstate than the city. This is an interesting task because I get to listen to different music, learn about the states geography, and be apart of a big project. Its only the start so the search continues until I reach at least 50.

Ryan O'Donnell
GD intern

Calling All Musicians

One of the projects we are currently investing in is a creative and powerful campaign against drunk driving, fueled by the Stop Drunk Driving Now spokesperson ( also talented country artist), Jayna Lininger. The premise involves gathering local musicians from all around the Northeast and compiling 12 CDs to spread the word against drunk driving. The bands, in return, gain free publicity for their music as well as the association with Stop Drunk Driving Now. Today, we gathered information concerning possible bands, my focus being the state of New Hampshire.

Kris Parr
GD Intern

Second Day

On my second day at Esente, I am researching local country bands in the Rhode Island and Maine areas. This search—which all the other interns partake in as well—is for an interesting new campaign promoting the bands as well as drunk driving prevention. Today is, as Ron says, "planting the tomato seeds". From doing this tedious work I find myself appreciating the people who do this type of work everyday, and I look forward to further "growing the tomatoes" and doing more of the interactive and artistic work in the following weeks.

Alexa Duffy
GD Intern

Day 2

It's my second day at Esente, and we've been working away on getting a more complete list of bands from the New England area. Because I have New York City, there's a large amount of country artists in the area. I didn't know that it was such a popular genre in that area, but it is! I've even found some artists that I like, which I think surprised me even more! But regardless, I've found nearly 50 decent bands, which is great because that's just about what the goal is for each area.

Sifting through these bands has been a little difficult because of a few different factors. They need to be good, first and foremost, have a decent repertoire of music, a good fan base (more than 200 or so "likes" on Facebook is how I've been gauging this), and they need to have a solid form of contact information. Some bands have been great, but are no longer together, which is definitely a bummer. But, there have been plenty of bands I've come across that sound great.

Meghan Pierce (Simmons College)
PR Intern

First day back after graduation

Today is my first day back after graduating from Salem State University, and it's my 5th month at Esente. Right now I am looking up country bands from the area of Washington D.C. for an upcoming project for the summer the company is working for the kick starter campaign. It's pretty similar to the other project I did earlier for Jayna, which was to look up country music blogs and websites across the country for her promotions. That's all for now!

Taf
P.R. Intern

First Day

I'm Alexa Duffy and I'm a rising junior at Sacred Heart University studying graphic design and marketing. I really enjoy creating posters, brochures, typographic and photographic print documents with the Adobe suite, but I'm open to it all. Today's my first day as a GD intern at Esente, and it was nice being able to just jump into all the exciting projects in store here. I like that we get to create promotional posters for the two campaigns about anti-bullying and the drunk driving prevention and I'm excited to see what everyone comes up with.

FIRST DAY POST

My name is Kris Parr, I am a Texas native and a rising senior at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. I am an Architectural Studies major, focusing on fine art and design. So as you've, I've, we've probably all figured, this is my first day at Esente! Aye! I really appreciated getting right down to work as soon as I walked in. The projects the company are creating are compelling and exciting, and I am equally as excited to be a part of them this summer. That's all for now!

First Day at Esente

My name is Meghan Pierce, I'm going into my senior year at Simmons College. I am studying Communications. I'll also have a minor in Radio Operations and PR&Marketing. Here at Esente, I am a PR intern. I'm so excited to be here because I've never had the opportunity to work on this side of music. I've played in bands and traveled across New England to play shows, but I've never had great experience helping bands in this way. Today, all the new interns started out by learning a little more about Esente and its message. As a PR intern, I worked on finding a few different articles on bullying and drunk driving. Now we're all working on finding various bands for the new CD. I'm looking for bands in Vermont.

Meghan Pierce (Simmons College)
PR Intern

Anti-bullying Posters

Today I have started working on my anti-bullying posters. I think I will do a series of posters with the facebook like button incorporated into my design. So far I have only come up with a concept and put together a first draft. I also came up with the idea to combine the facebook like button with a gun. The copy for this would be something along the lines of "online assault" or "cyber bullying can be deadly". In a previous post I added my anti-drunk driving drafts. I also included my third poster draft for the anti- drunk driving posters. My concept is that driving drunk is like the game Russian roulette.  

Ryan O'Donnell
GD intern

Mass. Country Artists

I am continuing to work on finding country music artists in Massachusetts for the compilation CDs. There are a wide variety of styles and sounds among the artists and I think they will make up a good, diverse compilation. Hoping to get at least 40 artists for Massachusetts.

Chris Smith
PR Intern

band search

Today I am digging for country bands in Pennsylvania for the cd campaign. To find bands I am looking in all different places. Some big sites and some small local PA sites. The information will be used to invite bands to join the campaign and a song will be used for the compilation cd. This is just the beginning to a big project that I look forward to being apart of. 

Ryan O'Donnell

GD intern

First Day

Today is my first day as a PR intern. As well as playing music as a hobby I have also worked a little bit in the music industry for a tour management company. It is good to be involved in the music industry again and participating in the positive campaigns that Esente deals with. Right now I am working on gathering contact info for country music artists in New England to approach about being involved in a compilation CD.

Chris Smith

PR Intern

Poster Draft

On my second day here at Esente Music Group I continue to work on my anti-bullying and anti-drunk driving posters. I have attached two of my posters that I am still working on. My concept for the poster is a manipulation of a common symbol for death and relate it to drunk driving.  The skull symbolizes the death and the cross keys relate it to driving. The body copy ties it down to drunk driving and the word 'drive' also says 'die' to further represent my concept. My second posters is a typographic approach. I made the main head "never drive drunk" big and red and overlapped the same text in different opacities to create a blur effect that someone would have when they are intoxicated. I added a yellow background that resembles a caution sign. To really emphasize my message that driving drunk impairs your motor skills, I added street lane markers that are not straight as if a drunk driver was driving. The body copy is there to add a fact and help represent my concept. I have started approaching the anti-bullying posters I have a few ideas in store. I will try a few different things until I find a solid concept and go further with it.

My name is Ryan O'Donnell, I am a Junior at Colby-Sawyer College. My major is Graphic Design and I minor in Media Studies. This is my first internship and I am nervous but excited at the same time. On my first day at Esente Music Group, I have jumped right into work and already feel the start to my career.  So far everyone at Esente has been welcoming and I feel comfortable to jump right in here. I have started designing posters for anti-bullying and anti-drunk driving. I also started to look at crowdfunding templates for the new CD campaign. This project seems like it is going to be big and I look forward to contributing.  I feel like I am prepared for this and ready to learn all about the actual work environment in this field.

Ryan O'Donnell
GD Intern