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I'd never imagined such experience: flying 13 hours oversea and spending most of my summer time intern in a totally new country for a non-profit organization. But now I'm here, in Chicago, the windy city, working with a group of enthusiastic members in Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection.

It's the first day of my intern; I'm going to stay here for almost two months. To be honest, I don't know what the company does before I came here. After Dan's introduction and Michael's video, an intern who has
worked here several years ago, I think I got the main point of this company.
That’s help youth in disadvantaged environment build up their aim and goal of
their life and help them to reach it with our connections in the world. I'm really happy that I'm going to be apart of this company. It means I'm going
to do something meaningful while some people at my age are wasting time and money
doing something useless.

There are many problems in our world and society. Each of them is an emergency;
however, individuals always think their strength is so weak when facing so many
problems, which is an excuse for doing nothing. But there are some people
making an effort. They know few individuals’ strength is weak, but a group of
people is strong enough to change something, I don’t wanna say they can change
the world, but it can change something, make some differences.

In this organization, we help people with our connections, which are the most important element in our life. We share it and benefit from it. I’m glad that my here and be a part of them. thanks for reading.

See graphics of Jenny's introduction - here and here

It is a joy to see some of our 4-year mentors transition from college to graduate and start their careers. I know that the fact they personally experienced mentoring youth one-on-one will stay with them in the work place. I hope they will advocate for mentoring among more young professionals.

--enjoying a vacation with my calif family, graduating from high schools north and south,

sue sende cole 6-16-10

As a result of this network building we want to increase the number of people who don't live in poverty who are investing their own time, talent and money on a regular basis to help tutor/mentor programs in one or more communities, do more to help youth grow up to fulfill more of their adult potential.

Invite others to join this Ning group, or join the discussions on Social Edge, or post notices of other places where this type of network building is taking place. As Charles says, we can meet in many spaces, not just in our own hosted space.

Hello nice to meet everyone !!

my name is Jiwon and nickname is Chuck.

Please, Call me Chuck.. and i want making friends anyone,

so I always welcome to visit my page

and to recommend@@;;

Part I – Learning Question

In December of 2009 I started my internship at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection, a non-profit organization which helps the well-being of students living in low-income housing. My purpose at this organization was to help promote Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection through different social media venues. At the beginning of this internship I came up with a question that through the duration of this internship I have been seeking an answer for. The question, how to unleash one's personal power to change the world through social media, has been discovered through research and an interview with Dan Bassill, the founder and CEO of CC/TMC.

It is interesting to note that many companies like CNN focus on the effectiveness of a story whereas other companies started to focus their time and energy on something else. We the people hold the key. And Google made a smart bet and they bet on the people, which is what other organizations should have done. “During the attacks in Mumbai, people were tweeting it live, from the lobby of the hotel” (Social Good through Social Media). The news was being delivered, in real time, by the people. This represents the most seismic shift in the history of media and possibly business. There are no more gatekeepers. Social media gives people like you and me the power to let our voices shine, how incredible is that.

Organizations like Cabrini Connections were built by innovative visionaries like those who work at Google who can in vision something being taken to the next step, Dan Bassill states, “I view it as a passion for building a better system for helping kids from poverty have lives out of poverty. Such a goal provides a better world for my own children and grandchildren to grow up in. If we don’t do all we can now to shape the future, the future that comes may be impossible to change.” Through many non-profit organizations I have come to find that they all acknowledge that change needs to start now for a better future. But how are these messages being heard? The social media realm is being used as a powerful agent that is connecting people all over the world together. Social media is quickly becoming the “it” place to advertise and promote companies/organizations as it is cost-effective (it is free!), easy to access, and can target multiple age groups at a time.

Social media is arguably the most perfect and pervasive form of marketing in human history. It is a convergence of the best of both worlds: connecting “one-to-one” via “many-to-many.” It has become apparent however that some organizations blatantly avoid using social media as a promotional tool due to the lack of knowledge of it as a whole. These companies either don’t understand it because the technology is so new or they don’t think it is worthwhile. You could say that is comparable to walking away from a loaded gold mine, because you can’t open the front door, it’s pathetic and lazy. What are these organizations waiting for? It is clear that since these organizations are not engaging with their current customers and reaching new markets through social media, their brand is being left behind at an increasingly accelerative rate (Social Good through Social Media). The organizations who deliberately avoid social media will soon come to find that social media sites are imperative to the success of a company as information can be spread at higher rates through these sites.

Organizations such as Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection do not have the funding to promote through other forms of media like commercials, billboards, etc. To be able to spread their message they focus heavily on promoting through word of mouth, their websites, and social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and various blogs. They also try to enlist others to carry out Cabrini’s message in their media, for example “for many years the Lend A Hand Program at the Chicago Bar Association promoted Tutor/Mentor Connection as part of their own commitment to help tutor/mentor programs grow. If you visit at http://www.tutormentorexchange.net and go to the leadership articles you will see many examples of how Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection hopes how others will communicate their message. By getting others to spread the word about Cabrini Connections time, effort, and money are being saved by the staff to ensure that the majority if not all of the funds being raised are being allocated to benefit the students.

Anyone and everyone have the ability and power to change the world. One just needs to know how to focus their gifts and talents in a way that can grab the attention of others. Eric Harr, Founder and President of LLC said it best, “Social media is social, but it’s not a media. The recipe for success — and most brands miss the mark here — is one part listening, one part engaging, and two parts building relationships. (A dash of spice always helps!)” The Internet has become an extraordinary tool. It enables individuals to share their ideas with the world. It allows other people to find us, who already share the same goals. It enables us to find talent and resources from far beyond our own family, community, city boundaries. If your ideas are good enough, expressed well enough, and communicated often enough to a growing number of people, they can change the way other people understand and respond to the issues you are passionate about.
Part II – Individual Assessment

Preparation

Since my internship was based primarily on my writing skills and promotional skills classes that required intensive writing, advertising and Public Relations helped. Classes in particular like UCWR 110, CMUN 265, CMUN 250, CMUN 224, MARK 361 and CMUN 271 not only gave me the skills to write more effectively but taught me how to send out my message into different avenues to get the maximum viewing potential. These classes gave me the skills to be able to write in a way that helped Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection get in the spotlight, allowing them in the future to be able to receive more donations. Classes such as 271 taught me how to create a blog, which became beneficial to me since I blogged about the organization throughout my entire internship. These classes taught me how to capitalize on relationships and brand myself as efficiently and professionally as possible. By branding myself into the person I want people to see me as I noticed I could better sell the organization, Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. The skills I learned especially in these six classes gave me the essentials I needed for this internship.

Knowledge and Skills

I believe that everything I learned in this internship was beneficial. I do however know that the most important thing I learned through the duration of this internship was how important it is to write an effective blog. In the beginning of my internship I wrote blogs that were average and not interesting to read as a result no one was reading them. I was writing for Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection in hopes that people would latch on to them and want to help out with the cause but it seemed hopeless, I would check the analytics of my blog and I noticed that they were not being viewed. After analyzing my blogs and realizing that they were not as engaging as I’d hope they would be I decided to change my writing style. Instead of just writing about the organization itself I started to incorporate day to day events that were happening and correlated them back to Cabrini Connections. Once I started to write more engaging, thought-provoking articles my traffic for my blogs went up, almost doubled what it was in the beginning. It was exactly what I needed to do to start making a difference at Cabrini Connections. Ultimately, I did what I was set out to do at Cabrini Connections, make the organization more well-known by spreading the word through social media networks.

Another valuable thing that I learned while interning at Cabrini Connections was the struggles it takes to help start a non-profit organization. It is more in-depth and time consuming that I thought it would be. What I found to be spectacular is that the organization did not start with a business plan or any kind of dedicated funding; instead, Dan Bassill saw a need and found people who felt compelled to make a difference in the world to help him start up his vision. From there people just jumped in, doing what needed to be done each day, every day since then. His story and the story of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection is truly an inspirational one that makes me feel compelled and optimistic that if I follow my dreams they will become true. Also, as a result of this organization I want to do more things that I believe will be beneficial towards others.

Integration

Though my ideal future career is not with a non-profit organization I still learned an immense amount of information through the duration of my internship here at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. During the 14 week period I was at Cabrini Connections I learned extensively about social media tactics, how to write an effective blog, and how to spread a message through multiple venues at any given time. I want to eventually become an event planner and that means not only will I have to be extremely organized but that I’ll have to be good at spreading the knowledge of the event and being able to promote it in a way that seems appealing to my target audiences. The success of an event rides a lot on the effectiveness of how the event was promoted. This is why I am grateful to all who work at Cabrini Connections who have given me the knowledge of how to effectively promote an event and to spread the word of a wonderful organization like Cabrini Connections. I now know, as a result of interning at Cabrini Connections that I will be fully prepared to handle whatever lies ahead in the rest of my career here at Loyola and in my future career in event planning.

What I found to be most beneficial to me during my internship was that I was taught how to successfully promote. I have found which social media networks are most effective in getting a higher volume of audience participation while also figuring out how to write in a manner that gets peoples’ attention. Social media is a new field in the market place today so knowing how to use the tactics appropriately is imperative and will be necessary for me in my career later on. As a result of its newness, many who have been in the Public Relations field for several years do not know how to effectively promote on these sites. Thankfully, people such as Dan Bassill and other Cabrini Connections staff knew how use social media successfully so that I was able to learn the trade and be able to fully promote my companies events in the future. I will be successful in my future job as a result of the tactics and procedures I have learned during this internship.

Evaluation

Being a full time student and having what I would consider a part time job is not a simple task, as a result, I would say my overall performance would be excellent. Though in the beginning I did not write blogs that were intriguing to the public’s eye I quickly made a change in my writing style to fix that. I quickly obtained a full knowledge and awareness of what was going on within Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection and used their mission statement (engage workplace adults in structured activities that make a life-changing difference for youth living in economically and educationally disadvantaged neighborhoods) as a basis for all of my blogs. Working at Cabrini Connections was such a pleasant experience and I truly enjoyed coming into work every day because though I didn’t work with anyone when I saw other employees they were always happy.

Throughout the 14 week duration everyone at Cabrini Connections became like family, just like with my own family, if I knew I was going to be late I would contact Dan Bassill, the CEO and founder of the organization to let him know. I also tried to please my Cabrini Connections family by setting goals and expectations for myself that could make a difference within the organization. At the end of my 14 week term I not only helped fundraise for the organization but I also got people to help volunteer their time to help the students of Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection. I fully enjoyed interning at Cabrini Connections and I plan on continuing to write blogs for them in the future.

Bibliography

"Social Good through Social Media." Eric Harr Social Media. Web. 17 Mar. 2010. <http://ehsm.tumblr.com/>;.

After interning at Cabrini Connections for a little over 14 weeks I have learned several things. I would like to share my knowledge with you so that you can start off with knowledge that I wish I had begun with.

So, how do you make the most of your internship? Well with the help of some online sites and my own experience in interning at Cabrini Connections I have come up with 9 points you should follow.

1. Set Personal Goals: Interning at Cabrini Connections is different than other internships. You have more leeway and as a result it is easy to veer off course. Is is imperative that in the beginning of your internship you set some goals you would like to accomplish. For instance, one of my goals was to reach atleast 60 hits on my blog. Doing things like this helped me stay on track and gave me something to look forward to in the internship. At the end of the day whatever your goals, you will feel a greater sense of accomplishment once you achieve them.

2. Have Regular Meetings with your Supervisor: As you will soon come to find Dan Bassill is a wonderful man who has a lifetime of knowledge. Not meeting with him would be a shame as he can greatly increase your knowledge of your field of interest. From Dan I have learned an extensive amount about Public Relations, Social Media, and how to effectively spread a message through social media.

3. Undertake all tasks with Enthusiasm and a Positive Attitude: Everything you do might not be super exciting but make sure you tackle each task with a positive outlook. You are at this internship to learn something and to help out Cabrini Connections. So, make the most of this internship and work as hard as you can. In the end it will all pay off.

4. Avoid Negativity: Everyone at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection are nice. These people end up becoming family, everyone gets along and it is a great work atmosphere. So please, don't ruin your experience by being rude. The quickest way to kill a good internship is being negative. So, avoid complaining, being rude, disrespecting coworkers, arriving late, leaving early, being closed-minded, missing deadlines, appearing arrogant, wearing improper attire (the dress is casual, but that doesn't mean you can dress like a slob), acting unprofessionally, appearing inflexible, and taking part in office politics.

5. Never Shun a Chance to Learn More About the Company/Industry: Take every opportunity presented to you to attend company or industry meetings, conferences, and events; participate in training workshops; and read all company materials. For instance, take the time to read through past blogs written by interns and other CC,T/MC staff, go to the biannual conference CC,T/MC hosts. By partaking in all of these things your knowledge of the trade will increase and benefit you grately in the long haul.

6. Get as Much Exposure as Possible: CC, T/MC may not be big but it would be worth your while to get to know all of your co-workers. Everyone at CC, T/MC has an interesting story and a different take on the organization and what needs to be done in the organization. The more you talk to others in the organization the more you'll be exposed to new ideas. Learning is key in an internship, so by talking to others in the organization the more you'll be enlightened.

7. Don't be Afraid to Ask Questions: Like I said earlier your internship is a learning experience. While Dan will expect to get a certain level of work from you, you are not expected to know everything. Seek advice and raise questions whenever you encounter something that is not familiar to you. Be open-minded about new ideas and procedures -- remember that you don't know everything and that your professors didn't teach you everything. (Note: the first week or so will be where you will learn how to use NING, where you will get your own NING page, and where you will learn exactly what you will be doing at your internship. Don't hesitate to ask questions about anything!)

8. Take Initiative: Learn how to "think outside the box." A key part in this internship is to get CC, T/MC more exposure. Figure out distinctive ways in how to receive more exposure. Be creative, be unique, and further more figure out ways in how to inspire others to get involved in the organization.

9. Enjoy yourself: Interning at CC, T/MC was a great experience, so make sure you have some fun while you're learning and working.

I hope you have a great time interning at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connections. If you have any questions about the internship or about what I did during my internship please feel free to message me on NING.

Fourteen-weeks ago I started my internship at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connections. Cabrini Connections is a non-profit organization designed to enrich and further develop the lives of the students who live in low-income neighborhoods such as Cabrini Green. They do this by providing tutor/mentor programs for these students after hours, which not only provides alternate learning opportunities but keeps these students out of trouble. At my internship my job is to promote the organization further through social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, volunteer forums, etc. Through this I will help expand others' knowledge of Cabrini Connections, get people to either donate or volunteer at Cabrini, as well as increase my own knowledge of certain social media outlets.

These two-weeks in particular I wrote a blog of advice to the incoming interns, encouraging them to follow my path and to explain to them all that i've learned throughout the entirety of this internship. These past weeks I have added the final touches to my final paper, making sure that it flows well and that I have fully answered my learning question, which was: how to unlease one's personal power to change hte world through social media. These past two-weeks I have accomplished a lot and though I am sad the internship is over, I plan on keeping in touch with the organization as I believe in their cause.

Through this internship I have realized that I truly enjoy working with social media networks. I have come to find that the social media realm is my nitch in the Public Relations profession. However, though I enjoy working with social media I want to go into the event planning field as I believe that I will enjoy that field more. I am a creative person and event planning will enable me to show off my creativity. I feel blessed that I was able to intern at Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor connection as it developed my knowledge of social media as a whole. Without this internship I would not have been able to expand my knowledge of Twitter, blogs, and other various social media networks.

As I said earlier Cabrini Connections, Tutor/Mentor Connection has enlightened me on the world of social media. Through this internship I have learned about the vastness of social media and how to effectively use a variety of them. I have been taught how to use tools such as Google analytics to track my blog site visits which has shown to be extremely beneficial. As a result of being able to track my results I have been able to see how effective my writing has become and to see the numbers in my blog site almost double since I first began interning. Working at CC, T/MC has been a huge honor and a blessing as I have learned extensively about certain tactics that will be beneficial to me in my future career.