Advertising internship at Apple (writer)

Copywriter Internship for Apple:

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Apple is looking for a writer intern with a "positive attitude and a curious mind.".

Looking for a copywriting student to spend the summer at Apple. You would be working on projects and campaigns with design interns, which would potentially include work across social media, in-store posters for Apple stores, web, app development, and iAds. Ideally you’re able to write great headlines and body copy so we could also pull you in on other day-to-day projects. And as you can probably guess, you would need to write in a way that makes all the tech stuff easy to understand and keeps with the voice of the Apple Brand. By the end of the summer you’ll have written a lot, everyday, and potentially have your work seen by millions of people worldwide.

Good things to have:

• Advertising writing with headline experience
• Ability to tell a story and be creative
• A positive attitude and curious mind

Please send resumes and sample of work to Amber at akostik@apple.com

Checklists make work better and learning richer

Self-assessment is when students evaluate their own work. Self-assessment helps students learn and do better work (advice from “McKeachie’s Teaching Tips”). The trick is to get students to be critical at the appropriate level. One problem with many self-assessment exercises is that many students say that their work is better than it is.

One of the benefits of checklists is that they create gaps in students' knowledge, and that makes teaching easier.

To facilitate self-assessment, I’m trying to create checklists for all assignments. For example, one assignment in Judgment (a portfolio course for senior-level ad strategy students) is to make a strong resume. The specifics of the assignment include the checklist. Students use the checklist to make sure they thought of everything to make their work as strong as it can be. The checklist must be turned in along with their resume. And I use the same checklist to evaluate their resume and to determine their grade.

The checklist helps students realize what’s important on an assignment. And if a student doesn’t know how to address one of the elements on the checklist, he/she usually contacts me at that point instead of skipping over that element of the assignment. Some students turn in work with items not checked off of the checklist (often with a note or a question mark next to the check box). I like this because we can have a conversation about something that they already realize is a problem with their work. They are eager to learn what they know they don’t know. In “Made To Stick,” Chip and Dan Heath say that when there are “gaps in people’s knowledge” they are eager to know more. The checklist makes students curious (and interested), and that makes teaching easier. The self-assessment is working.

I have not figured out how to make a detailed and objective checklist for all projects, but I’m getting better at it. The key is to be specific and add guidance to the student how to improve their work on the specific criteria. Try to make each check item objective, measurable and quantitative (rather than subjective).

I have always included a rubric with each assignment… a list of 4 – 8 criteria on which the work would be evaluated. By turning the rubric into a checklist with 20 – 30 specific items (along with specific guidance), it becomes a tool that students use to create better work and engage deeper in the learning. Give it a try.

Here’s the checklist for making a good resume: ResumeChecklist

AKQA Drives Beyond Thinking Horizons

At a recent VCU Brandcenter Friday Forum, Adam Creeger (Technical Architect at AKQA) presented the Fiat Eco:Drive campaign. Wow! That’s some really cool stuff. Check it out here. It’s like Nike+ for the car.

AKQA designed something that will change how we drive in the future -- Eco:Drive

Can you think of a car company doing anything like this 5 years ago?  Can you see the possibilities of this thinking in 5 years?  I’m excited to see where it will go. There’s plenty of room for pushing this idea. First of all, it’s silly that a USB drive is needed to make the technology work. It will be only a couple of years before all new cars are able to connect wirelessly with our PCs — skip the USB. Or, skip the PCs altogether… cars will soon be displaying this information right on the dashboard.

I love how “ad agencies” are pushing the thinking of product design.  Eco:drive will make us smarter drivers and change how we drive.  Good advertising is smart design thinking that communicates the brand, creates benefits, and solves problems — regardless if it is “advertising” or not.

I used to work with someone who limited her own thinking horizons. When she was pressed to push her thinking beyond her self-imposed boundaries, she would say, “I didn’t know we could do that.” It would drive me bonkers. Too often we create thought boundaries that limit our thinking horizons. Fortunately these boundaries are NEVER real; they are only perceived. Let’s commit to always pushing ourselves to go beyond. Never say, “I didn’t know I could do that.”

Bravo, AKQA and Fiat!

Adam had some great advice for those just starting out in the ad business:  “Do something… now.” He said, “Make something. Make mistakes. Learn from it. Make it great.”  It doesn’t matter what it is; just make something. Great advice.