Summer Wrap Up

What does an intern at JPS Interactive do? Unlike some of my previous jobs, i.e. Aerial Decoration Consultant (balloon arrangements) or Strategic Document Transportation Engineer (courier), it wasn’t always immediately clear.

I wrote for this blog, worked on revamping the JPSInteractive website, prepared grant proposals, and, of late, pre-populated the Tagged Tanakh prototype with comments and tags. Like any intern I’ve filed, photocopied, and transcribed notes, but I’ve also had ample opportunity to write, research, and develop my project management skills.

JPS Interactive and the Tagged Tanakh exist in a world I knew nothing about, so much so that one of my first tasks was developing a glossary of all the tech related terms I needed to know in order to work efficiently here. I thought I was a relatively tech savvy person, what with text-messaging and Facebooking as much as the next teen, but I had no idea how much was out there. The web has it’s own language, business plans, trends and patterns… all of which I’m at least a little more knowledgeable about now.

Developing my visual communication and graphic design skills was probably the most challenging part of my job. I had experience with Photoshop from high school digital photography classes but figuring out how to create images that could clearly communicate ideas and concepts was difficult for me. Over the course of the summer I came to appreciate how important visual communication skills are, for everything from livening up a blog post to designing a website. I also found it to be a little like stage crew in theater: if you’re doing it properly, no one should notice how much work went into it.

Of all the neat things I learned during this internship, user testing was one of the coolest. I conducted heuristic reviews of the JPSI website and the Tagged Tanakh prototype and recently conducted user tests of the Tagged Tanakh with JT in New York City.

I got to meet all sorts of interesting people, from our freelance grant writer Avi Dector and techno-geek Rabbi Shai Gluskin to the terrific people at JESNA and MyJewishLearning.com.

By mid-August I’ll be shipping out to Pittsburgh for my sophomore year at Pitt, but don’t be too surprised if I continue to post here now and then. Thanks so much for your comments and support!