Job Shadow with Interactive Communications

Jordan making final edits to her video project

Jordan Nelson is an all-star. In high school she’s spending most of her time in college classes and she’s got a pretty clear idea of what she wants to do. She also loves movies, and watches all the behind-the-scenes featurettes. When she approached me by way of Teresa Hall, she wanted to conduct a job shadow to fulfill her requirements to graduate high school and get an idea of what the “real-world” was kind of like. So starting in September of 2013, we had a Philomath High School senior in our office sporadically over the next several months.

At first we decided to have her shadow the Interactive Communications office, seeing how projects go from start to finish. She sat in on meetings, video shoots and the wonders of the editing room. Basically, we brought her in to anything and everything a normal staff person would go to. Eventually, we felt like it’d be a great idea for her to get hands-on with video production because we knew the best way to experience something is to do it.

So we encouraged her to create her own video project, use our project management software and brainstorm with us of an idea. We gave her the tools and she took an idea all the way to production and to the editing process and without having had prior experience in any of it. She came up with the questions and was there for every video shoot she could. She sat down in our office and edited the entire thing on her own with a little guidance and a whole lot of determination. Needless to say, we’re pretty impressed at the results:

I have a couple of takeaways from this experience.

First, it’s that I am and always will be impressed with what people can do when they actually want to do it. Of course, then there’s the fact that she’s a HIGH SCHOOLER.
If we can learn anything from Jordan its that age means nothing and that being flexible to technology is a huge boon to your skill set. Working in the creative area, technology is what’s going to lift storytelling to the next level and being keen to technology, much like how younger people are accustomed to, is only going to help in the future.
It is possible to be a Beaver fan and still go to the University of Oregon with a conscious heart. Jordan is set to study pre-law at UO but she’s grown up to love the Beavs so much that nothing in this world will break that bond. NOTHING.

Having Jordan in the office was an extremely positive experience for all of us at Interactive Communications. For us to have the opportunity to share what we love to do was a refreshing experience and for that we thank Jordan for her work, we wish her nothing but the best in her future.

-Darryl

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