yahoohillsinterns-blog

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“Where Are They” Wednesdays:

Not here! We are missing the rest of our intern gang as people start heading back to college. 

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#ViewsFromTheHills

This past weekend Shianne ventured 2 hours outside of Portland to the beautiful Upper Lewis Falls!

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Tuesday’s Top 5: Best Places to Catch some Zzzzz at Yahoo which segued into.... “Where are They” Wednesday: Still Napping

The interns have scoped out the best spots to do some discreet napping at work.  Maybe you can spot them around the Yahoo campus...   (Shhhh.... Don’t wake them if you do, they’re delicate college students and startle easily)

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Intern Book Review 4

Scene 8 of “Your Brain at Work” by David Rock, Drowning amid Uncertainty is all about determining what’s to come. Rock points out that as humans our brains naturally make predictions. Our brains recognize patterns and make a guess as to what something means. it is when we are put into an unfamiliar situation that we feel uncomfortable, as we are unable to predict what comes next. 

As AOS interns we are given tasks that more often than not we have yet to try. This sense of uncertainty immediately makes us uncomfortable. Not being confident in what we are doing can cause frustration. Often times when faced with uncertainty we set unconscious goals that we do not realize are unattainable. Rock suggests when in a situation like this to notice what our expectations are and to practice setting them lower. As an intern at Yahoo, Rock helped me realize that it is unrealistic to expect to finish a new task in the same amount of time it would take to finish a common task. He also encourages a positivity amongst the unknown. 

-Sarah

AOS intern 

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#ViewsFromTheHills

Shianne captured the sunset over the Country Music Festival in Brownsville, Oregon, just a couple hours south of Hillsboro.  

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#ClassicYahoo 6

When you kindly decorate your coworker’s desk because it’s their second to last day. 

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Survey Thursday

We picked our AOS’s brains for their most influential college experience. Here are a few of our favorites. 

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”Where are They” Wednesdays: College Towns

The Hillsboro Interns repping the Pacific NorthWest in their collegiate adventures.

Sarah - University of Washington - Seattle (Harry the Husky)

Peter - University of Portland - Portland (Wally the Pilot)

Shianne - George Fox - Newberg (Pennington the Bruin)

Madison - University of Oregon - Eugene (Puddles the Duck)

Jen - Southern Oregon University - Ashland (Rocky the Raider)

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Tuesday’s Top Five: 

If we were Olympians, these are the sports we would want to compete in! We think we would win gold! 

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Intern Book Review #3

For this week's review of "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock, I am going to highlight Scene 10: Turning Enemies into Friends. This was a very applicable chapter for us as part of our internship is learning to work with a range of personalities in the professional world.

In this scene, Emily is faced with the challenge of how to best transition from teammate to team manager. We learn that Emily's new role as manager is better perceived when she makes the effort to relate on a human level to her team. Questions such as "did you do anything fun last weekend?" or "how was your day?" are examples of simple conversation starters that go a long way in bridging the gap between manager and other team members. We often forget that our coworkers are real humans outside of the office - small talk, ice breakers and friendly conversation can do wonders for interpersonal relations in the workplace!

Additionally, Emily made a conscious effort to ask for tips and expectations from her peers. Emily's team felt less like subordinates and more like teammates when they realized that their opinions were valued.

All in all, being cognizant of others as you move up in the corporate ladder will aid productivity and general morale amongst your team!

- Madison, AOS Intern

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#ViewsFromtheHills

Here’s a view from Peter’s hike to Punchbowl Falls. it’s not a long drive from Portland to get beautiful views like this!

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#ClassicYahoo 5

When your Yahoo! backpack comes with a built in bottle opener.

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#SurveyThursday

“If you could give your college-self advice what would it be?” 

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Tuesday’s Top Five: Take Aways from Yahoo San Francisco Office  

On Monday I got to take a trip from the Hillsboro office down to the SF office. 

1.  I met up with Andrew Balfour, Global Creative Innovation Lead in the ACT Department.  ACT (Ad Creative Technology) is a multi-faceted team that supports creative design, development, and pre-sale/post-sale advertising execution.          

2. Andrew told me about his work for rebranding Yahoo’s Tiles, a new immersive mobile ad experience.  Tiles helps advertisers go beyond traditional ads, allowing them to build custom interactive ads with 360-video and imaging, and tell a story with their brand.   

3. I also got to shadow one of the ACT designers who was working on putting together some pre-sale ad mockups for a client.  She used Photoshop to create some proposal images so the client could see what their ads would look like on Yahoo’s pages.     

4. Check out some of the work that the ACT team has done:  http://actshowcase.tumblr.com/

5.  Not gonna lie.. While the San Francisco office was pretty swanky, Hillsboro’s got SF beat when it comes to cafeteria choices.  Definitely appreciating our hot grill (BBQ FRIDAAAAYS!) 

-Jen, AOS Intern

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#ViewsFromTheHills

Last weekend, Madison traveled a few hours south of Hillsboro and stumbled upon Tamolitch Blue Pool! Her response? “It blue me away!” (Get it?)

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Intern Book Review #2

Hi! For our second review of “Your Brain at Work” by David Rock, I’d like to focus on Scene 13: When Other People Lose the Plot. Two major takeaways from this chapter are the role that status plays in our workplace, as well as how we handle feedback.

For the first takeaway, we often don’t think about status as something we crave, but it’s true! Especially in an internship we are encouraged to stand out and distinguish ourselves from the pack. While distinguishing yourself is important, we should strive to focus on getting the job done well, instead of focusing on standing out. Distinguishing yourself is pointless if the job is done poorly.

As for the second takeaway, handling feedback is a huge part of having an internship. As an intern we really have to put our status and pride aside (see what I did there?) and ask for help. Learning to ask for help and feedback and truly focusing on improving has helped me gain more and more insight into being a good Yahoo.

-Peter, AOS Intern

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Hi all, Shianne here, I’d like to share briefly how I got to my internship at Yahoo! I’m a part of the Emerging Leaders Internship program in Portland, OR. The program’s mission is to get diverse students into internships to create opportunity and influence in the global marketplace. This program is about bringing diversity to Portland businesses, Portland is one of the whitest cities in America. I went through vigorous interviewing from 220 applicants down to roughly 40 got internships, but now I get to share my knowledge on racial reconciliation and diversity in a global company. Most of all I get to see those around me implementing social change, and be a part of that change. I get to see the brightest diverse minds in Portland share their ideas and prosper. Being a part of this work is a gift. The opportunities from now on are endless, all thanks to ELI.