From the bakery to Bloomberg: one intern’s transformative summer

From the bakery to Bloomberg

My original summer plans included working at a local bakery and making artwork. Unexpectedly, I was offered an internship at Bloomberg via the International Radio and Television Society (IRTS) Foundation. IRTS serves as an incubator for multicultural youth in media, and they contacted me to join Bloomberg as a digital media intern.

My dreams are fairly entrepreneurial and heavily creative — desires that didn’t, on the surface, appear to align with Bloomberg: the technology, financial, and media giant.

And yet to my surprise, my summer was filled with projects for TicToc by Bloomberg, a global news network built natively for social, and BHIVE, Bloomberg Media’s in-house research and prototyping team, both of which were creatively challenging and entrepreneurial. I’d like to share a few takeaways from my few months working with the Media team at Bloomberg, after my unexpected summer.

Uncertainty as a tool

 “Media is an evolving business and in order to be ahead you have to be ahead of the curve and keep looking around corners.” – Julia Beizer, Chief Product Officer

My digital media internship, like many internships, had loose guidelines. My duties were fluid. The same could be said about the media industry as a whole. There is one comforting thing I heard during my time at Bloomberg Media: the media industry is in a constant state of flux. Ah, the story of my life. But, a defining factor for a professional is how to navigate that uncertainty, and use it to find opportunity.

My first project was akin to database management. I conducted a baseline analysis for TicToc by reviewing 7000+ content assets. After spending a week navigating spreadsheets and the five stages of grief, I did it. And I learned that I enjoyed analytics and research more than I thought I would.

After that project, I found that my managers began to trust me with more integral projects, which pushed me to be confident in my own voice.

Internships are like a buffet, people will fill our plates and we end up taste testing through different experiences. In places like Bloomberg, precision and intent is rewarded and risk is an ingredient for growth. My advice: always be looking to find takeaways from an experience. Being flexible and working with intention were keys to making the most out of this internship.

Be strategic with your opportunities

“Show up and be bold with your opinions, talents and experiences.” – Kibi Anderson, Head of Digital Strategy and Business Development

When I first started, my manager told me that the person I reported my work to was my temporary manager for that given project. This experience gave me the opportunity to manage myself in some ways, and it allowed me to seek out the work that related to my interests. Fortunately, my team at Bloomberg Media understood my love for humanities and culture, and they were thoughtful enough to give me relevant and challenging work like TicToc, which covers general interest news, a first for Bloomberg. By making myself available to the parts of the company I was passionate about, I was able to root myself in work I cared about, which made it more fulfilling.

Just be a good person

 “Being a good, honest, jovial person will get you further in life and business.” – M. Scott Havens, Global Head of Digital

The people on the Digital Strategy team where I sat came from all walks of life, and the office maintained the comradery and energy one would find in a startup. They welcomed me as well as my love for art, my quirks and my love for data, and Jeff Goldblum. They trusted my research with integral projects. This became clear from the informational interviews Bloomberg Media set up for the interns with various executives across different teams. I got to know leaders professionally and learn how they built their teams. In one of the interviews with senior leadership, we ate ice cream sandwiches while we talked about ways to develop and grow in the industry. I asked one leader how one could be compassionate and still develop professionally. I carved his response into my notes, “When you’re a jerk to somebody, you take that with you.”

This taught me that being ruthless and callous is not necessary to get ahead. In each informational interview, everyone referenced the culture at Bloomberg and shared the same piece of advice: Be kind.

We should be kind to coworkers just as much as we should be kind to ourselves. On the harder days, I had to question how my behavior towards someone else or myself would impact the project’s progress in the future. Overworking or shrinking does not help anyone develop. Also, maintaining a good team environment is key in developing professionally.

From media interns to professionals, we should all ask ourselves, how can we make the best of unfamiliar situations? I had the chance to work with tremendously talented and compassionate people. The good folks at Bloomberg Media have empowered me and my future.

Armoni Boone is a rising senior at the City College of New York. He is pursuing a career in Digital Strategy and Public Relations.