correspondence

I thought this could maybe be helpful to someone next year. Here's all the emails that it took back and forth to get my internship:

Nov. 11, 2008

Hi Nancy,

I always seem to get tongue-tied when I see you. How about that party for Ray? Ellen Steinberg and I decided that we, of the small state of Delaware, are simply the "us-iest." No one else has the same degree of us-ness that us has. Or we-ness, if you prefer. Anyhoo, I am vouching herein for my absolute favorite student of the year, maybe of the last two years, Ms. Briana Higgins. She just keeps surprising me with her work. I do wish she would talk more - maybe even dare to smile now and then. She is so damn serious about it all, but then, I understand why. Anyway, I don't know how your agency works in terms of interns, but we rarely send anyone to you and I think this young woman really deserves to go somewhere GREAT like, with you, or with one of your young proteges up north there. So let us know if it is feasible at all. And we STILL must make arrangements for you to come down to Delaware. Maybe in beach weather?
Thanks for your time,
Ann Lemon
U of D
(us)

Nov. 11, 2008
Hi Ann---yeah that was some shindig. So glad I went. I know it was the highlight of Ray's career...at least I sure never saw him cry before. It was great to see you and to meet Ellen in person. That was a treat. I'd love to see your student's work. We do have internships although with the recent financial meltdown that may be interrupted, will have to see. In any case I always like seeing terrific talent. So encourage her to contact me.
I will hope to get down to DE one of these days. Yes the "us-ness" has
great appeal.
xoNancy

Nov. 12, 2008
Dear Ms. Vonk,
I’ve wanted to work in advertising since I was ten years old when I realized that people actually make ads. I was watching an episode of Rugrats and the family dog, Spike, starred in a dog food commercial. Currently, I am a senior studying Visual Communications at your alma mater, the University of Delaware. Like you, I was lucky enough to stumble upon the great design program available here and as part of my education I am seeking out an internship. I would love to have the opportunity to discuss with you the possibility of fulfilling my internship at Ogilvy & Mather’s Toronto location. Our internships are conducted during the University’s Winter Session in the month of January. I would like to send you my portfolio but wanted to know if you would prefer a pdf or a physical version. Also, do you prefer to be contacted by phone or email?
Thank You,
Briana Higgins

Nov. 14, 2008

Hi Briana---I'd love to see your work. You can send pdfs no problem. As for a January internship, we'd have to see how you might be able to cross the border. Would you have a place to stay for that month? Let's start with seeing your work and take it from there. If you prefer to send hard copy we're at 33 Yonge St., toronto ON, M5E 1X6. ---Nancy

Nov. 19, 2008

Nancy-
I attached a zip file of my portfolio and resume. I hope what you see is up to your standards for an internship. I would love to intern at Ogilvy Toronto because I want to be mentored by people who create work that I greatly admire. I understand the business objectives of clients seeking advertising and the role that it plays in the economy but I also believe that advertising can serve other purposes, and on occasion have a positive affect on society. Your work for Dove, Campaign for Real Beauty, is truly inspirational and an shining example of the good that advertising can do. It is rare to see advertisements that are uplifting and I would be so grateful for the chance to learn from people that combine two things that I love about advertising, a constructive message and wonderful use of interactivity. Thank you for considering me.
-Briana Higgins  

Dec. 2, 2008

Nancy-
I just wanted to send you a follow up email. Thank you for taking time to speak with me last week. I am thrilled about the possibility of coming to Toronto and having an amazing learning experience at Ogilvy as well as meeting you. I can’t believe that I might have the chance to intern at an agency that produces such great work. It really would be a dream come true. I’ve been speaking to my professors non-stop about it. Bill Deering wanted me to say hello for him.
-Briana Higgins

Dec. 3, 2008

Hi there. I know you're eager to know if this is happening for the obvious reasons. I am checking on any issues with immigration as we decide if we'll bring you in as an exception. As I told you we don't do this kind of internship normally. It's because you're from UD that I'd consider it. Which is not to say we wouldn't appreciate your help. Hopefully I can give you an answer in the next few days. Sorry to keep you waiting. ---Nancy

Dec. 3 2008

Hi Briana. Just heard back from our head of HR. It turns out even unpaid interns from abroad need a work permit to enter Canada. She suggested that you go onto the government of Canada's website to see what steps are required. We could provide a letter of an official offer of the internship (likely required). If you're up for going to the trouble to do this, we will be happy to host you for a month.
Lorie Manley will be happy to take your call or emails if you have questions after checking out what's needed through the government. Here's her email to me from earlier today:

Hey Nancy,
Here is what I received this morning from our immigration counsel regarding the question of the young lady coming to do a one month internship with us in Toronto from your alma mater:
First, the definition of "work" under the Immigration rules:
Examples of “work” include, but are not limited to:
• unpaid employment undertaken for the purpose of obtaining work experience, such as an internship or practicum normally done by a student. Seems this lady's situation fits this definition as an internship would require a work permit.
Secondly, he's suggested the following:
There are a number of programs out there which do allow for short term work permits for students and new graduates so she should explore that and if she can obtain one then she can do your internship. Perhaps she can look into this and let us know what she finds out???
Your thoughts?
Lorie

Dec 3, 2008

Nancy-
I am definitely up to the trouble of filling out the paperwork. I am truly ecstatic! Thank you for this amazing opportunity. I realize that it is a lot of effort on your part and the agency to take on an intern, especially someone like me who is not following the regular program. I deeply appreciate what you have done for me.
I've been looking through the information on the Canadian Government's website and it looks as if I need to fill out forms for an internship/co-op working permit. The site said processing takes around two weeks so I am trying to get the forms out hopefully tomorrow. I will definitely need a letter stating the internship offer so maybe someone can possibly send an attachment of some kind? Once again, thank you so much.
-Briana Higgins

Dec. 3, 2008

Ms. Manley-
Hi, I'm Briana Higgins, the intern trying to come to Ogilvy for January. Nancy Vonk gave me your email so that I can contact you if I have any questions while I am trying to find out what kinda of immigration paperwork I need to fill out. I've been trying to figure out what I need to do from the Canadian Government's website and what I have gathered so far is that I don't need a Visa because I am a US citizen. I don't believe that I need to get a Study Permit because I found this:
"You do not need a study permit if you plan to take a course or program in Canada that lasts six months or less. You must complete the course or program within the period authorized for your stay in Canada."
I also found information on Co-op and internship programs that said:
"For some academic programs, work experience is part of the curriculum. Foreign students who wish to participate in a co-op or internship program must apply for a work permit as well as a study permit."
I'm assuming that I need to fill out the Co-op internship program forms and study permit forms? I tried contacting immigration offices and the Study Abroad Office of my school but neither was very much help. Is there someone that normally handles interns or foreign employees at Ogilvy? I found information on the normal processing time for these types of forms which is around two weeks so I'm trying to get everything figured out as soon as possible.
Thank You,
Briana Higgins

Dec. 3, 2008

Hi there. We are open Monday jan. 5 after the holidays. What are the exact dates of the internship so we can put that in the letter?

Dec. 3, 2008

The dates of the internship would be from Jan. 5th - Feb. 6th.
-Briana

Dec. 5 2008

Hi Briana---I've written a letter (attached) and thought you should read it and let me know if in your understanding of what immigration needs, it has covered the bases. We'll get this on letterhead and emailed to you
today.---Nancy

Dec. 5 2008

Nancy-
I've been doing a lot of research on what I need to get a work permit. There are  many different kinds and right now I'm trying to figure out if I need a Short Term/Temporary Work Permit or a Working Holiday Permit. Either way, I do need the job offer letter and I found this information about what content is needed:

What should be contained in the job offer?
The job offer should contain the details of the position being offered, including: the title of the position being sought in Canada; the responsibilities associated with that position; remuneration for employment; the duration of the position; and the location of employment. Depending on the specific category of the work permit application, additional details or supporting documentation may have to be included. If I get the regular Short Term Work Permit I might need a Labor Market Opinion although I may fall under exceptions from NAFTA. I am currently having my situation assessed so I can figure out what the correct paper work to fill out is. I've tried to contact Lorie Manely several times but haven't heard back from her. Thanks again for all your trouble.
-Briana

Dec. 8, 2008

Hi Briana,
I'm trying to get you some clarification on what is required/needed from Immigration Canada to come here for an internship in January. I'll send you a note as soon as I have more information.
cheers,
Lorie

Dec. 8. 2008

Hi Lorie. Based on what Briana wrote, the letter I drafted answers her questions (pay: nothing. Job: intern. Location, duration, all answered through letter and letterhead. Any other thoughts let me know. This may be more trouble for her than it's worth. Please drop her an email as she says she's been trying to ask you questions but not connecting. Thanks----Nancy

Dec. 9, 2008

Hi Briana,
You've indicated below that you are having your situaiton assessed. Please let us know what the recommendation is that you receive.
thanks,
Lorie

Dec. 9, 2008

Lorie-
I got the results back from my assessment and they recommended that I just fill out the normal Work Permit papers. This requires you to get an LMO (Labor Market Opinion). Unfortunately, it appears that I don't qualify for concurrent processing so I can't fill out the permit application until I get a Positive Labor Market opinion back. From what I understand the LMO is the responsibility of the employer. I don't know if you have ever dealt with getting an LMO before and if so do you know how long it takes to get a decision? I'm starting to wonder if it realistic for me to be able to get this permit before Jan. 5. If necessary would I still be able to start while the permit is being processed, or just putting this out there, since I am not being paid if my status could be changed from an intern to a visiting or "shadowing" student that does
not require work papers. Thanks for any help or advice you can give.
-Briana Higgins 

Dec. 9, 2008

Hey Nancy-
I officially need to fill out papers for a regular working permit. This requires an LMO (Labor Market Opinion) that I believe the employer must obtain. I sent an email to Lorie about all of this. I'm not sure how long all of the paper work will take and if necessary would I be able to start before it comes through? Also, I'm just putting this out there, is there anyway for me to come to Ogilvy as a "shadowing"or observing student rather than an unpaid intern?
-Briana 

Dec. 9, 2008

Yes you can call it shadowing. But no, you can't cross the border without your papers. It's ok with us if you do the internship later if it's ok with school. Soundslike this won't get processed in time. Sorry it's never simple to deal with immigration. You can see why we rarely have Americans come up.---N

Dec. 9, 2008

Nancy-
I am going to the consulate in New York on Monday. A classmate of mine is in a similar situation with Brazil and he went to their consulate and they actually processed his paper work that day. I am still going to try to see if I can get this to work out, but I will need that letter from you on a letterhead, maybe you can send a scanned version that I can print out to speed up the process. 

Thanks.
-Briana

Dec. 9, 2008

Be sure to tell me the exact changes you want to be made to what I sent so it's lined up with what you learned. Then we'll fire it off. Hope all this trouble is worth it for you!---N

Dec. 9, 2008

Nancy-
The original letter seems pretty good but you might be able to include a few more details about my responsibilities. Assuming it is on a letterhead like you said then the location is taken care of. I'm not sure whether it will help or hurt the situation with the LMO if you mention that the position is being created specifically for me because you need to prove that the position cannot be filled by a Canadian worker. It's definitely worth it for me if it pulls through. :)
-Briana 

Dec. 9, 2008

Considering it isn't a "position", I don't know why we'd have to prove we couldn't fill it with a Canadian. We'll do our best.---N

Dec. 10, 2008

I think I may have found a solution. The SWAP Program gives me a work permit valid for 6 months at any job anywhere in Canada and only takes one week to process.

Dec. 10, 2009

Hi Briana,
Do you need anything else from us, aside from the letter that Nancy provided, in order to apply for this? And where exactly will you apply for it (ie at the Consulate or locally)?
Lorie

Dec. 18, 2009

I received my Working Visa in the mail today so I am all set to go. They will hand
me all of the other official documents at Customs when I arrive in Canada. I have a
flight booked for Jan. 3rd. I am so glad that everything finally got worked out. Are
there any other particular things that need to be discussed before I get there? Until
I hear from you, Happy Holidays!

-Briana

Dec. 18, 2008

Way to go. We'll see you Jan. 5. It will be fun. ---Nancy

Dec. 18, 2008

Hi Briana, 

Good news. Can you please scan me a copy of what you received - or fax it to me at 416-363-5943? We'll need to provide you with an internship agreement, which we'll send shortly. If you can sign one copy and bring it with you when you arrive, that would be great.
cheers,
Lorie

the end

I can't believe the day has come. May last day at Ogilvy. Although I'm super excited to go home and get back to school I will be sad to leave here. It kinda sucks not to be able to see the final results of a lot of the things that I worked on here. Especially Crystal Light. I've learned an incredible amount through this experience and I only hope that translates into newer and better work. I'm eager to get back to school and work my ass off to get a book that I'm actually proud of.

Monday I made the mistake of thinking that I would actually get out of work at a normal hour. Haha. I'm not even sure what I worked on at this point. I think we needed to come up with different transitions for parts of the Crystal Light storyboards and I had to redraw some frames. It ended up being another late night and I didn't get home until after 1am.

Tuesday was much more laid back for once. I just had to make a few copy changes to my Shreddies files and kinda hung out for the most part. Wed. I felt really bad because everyone was freaking out over the workload that they had. I kept offering to help people out but it wasn't really stuff that I could help with. The only thing that I ended up doing was laying out the two remaining print ads for Winners and got them ready to be sent off to the studio. Later in the day I got brought in to help work on Carnation. So we ended up staying late brainstorming again until 11. I guess it was worth it because Janet liked most of our ideas. She liked more than she killed and today we have a meeting with media planners for that.

Yesterday was pretty relaxed too and I actually left work at 5. I planned on going to the Paperchase that claimed that it was like 3 blocks from my office building on google maps but ended up walking around for 45 minutes in the 10 degree weather before I gave up and sought shelter. It was painfully cold to be outside for that long. I ended up going to the mall and picked up nice sketchbooks and some thank you cards for Cara, Bee and Mike. I'm planning on letterpressing some stuff for Nancy and sending her a UD thing or two as a thank you. After my shopping fiasco I had to head back down near the office and I met my aunt to see Dirty Dancing on the Canadian version of Broadway. It wasn't totally what I expected but still fun to watch. Whoever did the casting did an awesome job at getting people that look like actors in the movie.

last monday

This morning started off pretty interesting. I got to the subway and realized that my monthly TCC card had expired because its now February. I was short 10 cents to buy a token and had to run down the street to the nearest bank and back to the station and then the teller said they were out of tokens and let me through for free. Oy. Somehow I still made it to work on time.

The interestingness continued when I got to work and Mike was like the Winners layouts are due TODAY. At 12. He only found out on Sun. from Nancy that they were due to the client so we scrambled to get that done for the first few hours of work. Nancy really liked one of my designs, too bad the client didn't. :( They basically turned the whole thing into a design monstrosity. Maybe I'll post my layouts once it goes to print. I also got stuck shrinking down those Shreddies files to under 1MB and then the guy asked me to make the two pdfs the exact same file size. Not exactly sure how one does that when the pdfs are made of dozens of different files. That would require a lot of math and time. So I'm not sure what's gong on with that.

The rest of today I spent catching up on my Super Bowl commercials. Canadian Super Bowl commercials are light-years away from American commercials. In a bad way. A very bad way. I went to a Super Bowl party with Cara yesterday, ate lots of food, and watched the game which got pretty interesting near the end.

super sunday

So Thirtsy Thursday at work wasn't too eventful for us because we had to get a lot together for the Crystal Light client meeting the next morning. We just grabbed a couple of beers and went back to work. I finished up putting together the first part of the downloadable Shreddies swag stuff I was working on and sent that off to Ivan for approval. I also worked on some more Winners designs and helped with the story boards some. They were pretty nervous about them because they were pretty crazy and included mermaids and unicorns which actually turned out to be the client's favorite part. Go figure. So the meeting went really well.

The rest of Friday was pretty laid back for a change and I didn't get assigned any work for the weekend! I spent most of Fri. trying to shrink down the Shreddies pdfs that I made so that they could go online. I really don't know why the interactive part of the agency was making me attempt to do that when they would know better than anyone else how to make things the best quality at the smallest file size. My files were 3MB and they were demanding that they be under 1MB which just wasn't happening so finally the account person persauded someone in interactive to deal with it.

I left work probably the earliest ever a little ater 5. Cara took me to the Distillery district to walk around. It kinda reminded me of Delaware with all the red brick. Toronto isn't a very old city so this area was old by their standards. After that we did some shopping and then headed to Globe for our Winterlicious dinner. The city has two events each year set up called Winterlicious and Summerlicious where the higher end restaurants offer preset 3 course meals for $35. Kinda like Restaurant Week in NYC. I had vegetable lasagna very interesting and delicious! Our meals ended up being welllll over $35 with all the booze that we ordered but well worth it for a treat. Yesterday was pretty uneventful except my cousin came over for our belated birthday (his is the day after mine) Indian feast. yum.

end of week 4

I am extremely distracted right now. For the life of me I can't concentrate on the design in front of me. I guess one of the things I'll have to get more used to when I'm working is having the discipline to concentrate on one thing for hours and hours at a time. The speed at which people work here is much faster than school. I feel like I'm starting to pick up my pace a bit which is great. At this point I can design a lot of decently tight comps in a variety of styles in one day. I also feel like my eye has developed massively and I think that I'm finally starting to come to a decision about wether I would like to be an art director or a copywriter. I'm definitely leaning towards art direction. As much as I enjoy writing headlines I really don't think I would have that much fun dealing with scripts.

This week has been pretty busy again and I've been super tired. I didn't do very much over the weekend but it was really nice just to relax and do nothing. On Sunday, though, I had to spend the whole day designing stuff for Shreddies and ended up staying up until 2 working on that. When I got in Monday morning I had to show what I designed to Ivan and he approved most of them and told me a couple of things to change and by the end of the day I sent it to the account person. I'm not really sure what's going on with all of that. I'm supposed to design desktop wallpaper to go along with the rest of the stuff that I made but I don't know what's going on with client approval from the first things that they saw. I guess I'll find out sooner or later but in the mean time I've been working on the desktop but is pretty hard to make a piece of cereal look interesting enough to want it for your desktop background. At some point during the day Noreel asked me to help him find images for the deck he was putting together for the Coke fountain project that I mentioned earlier so that consumed most of my Tuesday.

Tuesday ended up being a crazy day. Not at work but back at home. My dad took my uncle who has brain cancer to his doctor because he couldn't walk any more so they had to hospitalize him and in the midst of all that I got a IM from my cousin asking if my sister was ok. Turns out Ali was 2 blocks from our house when she hit a patch of ice, fish-tailed, hit the curb and flipped the car into somebody's yard. Thank god she is perfectly fine, just a little sore. The EMTs told her that wearing her seatbelt saved her life. She was stuck in the car upside down until the EMTs showed up and had to cut her out. They took her to the hospital and did all the routine tests and she just has a few bumps and bruises. As for the car... it's totaled. Oh, and did I mention who's car she was driving? Mine of course. Sooooo as of now I am carless. The insurance company is going to evaluate the damage tomorrow and see if can be saved, but let's face it, the thing flipped upside down, broke its windows, and had a hole cut into the side of it. So after hearing all that from my parents I was kinda shook up and done for the day so I went home around 8ish.

Yesterday when I got into work Bee asked me to help her with an emergency rush job for Cogeco because she was busy all day. It wasn't anything particularly interesting. Just a print ad for a trade magazine and convention but that ate up the whole day. I ended up staying until 11 working on it and then some of this morning. The rest of the day has been pretty laid back for the most part and today is the office's monthly Thirsty Thursday.

half way home

I can't believe that I am three weeks done with my internship. I only have two left. Time seems to go really quickly and slowly at work at the same time. I've been working really long hours but as usual there never seems to be enough time in the day. I think by the end of my time here I will be really sad to leave Ogilvy but so excited to go back to school, and my friends, and my boyfriend.

So last night I made some pretty crappy comps for Winners because I was so tired. This morning we had a meeting with Nancy for Nabob and we have a lot of changing to make on that, mostly because we didn't have any copy to work with. After that I spent the rest of the day working on Shreddies stuff. I had this massive and annoying Illustrator file to work with and it kept crashing constantly. By the end of the day I was ready to drop my computer down the atrium all 13 floors. grrrr. So I have to work on that this weekend. We have to send it to the client around 12ish on Mon. and Ivan (and probably Nancy) has to see it before then. We also found out today that our campaign for Crystal Light got approved by the client for testing. :) They said that it has the most "legs" and the biggest idea. It would be really nice if I could be here to see the whole thing through if it survives testing.

I left work today around 6 (finally a normal time) and went to Urban Outfitters with Cara. I splurged as a birthday present to myself and got a skirt and top. Tomorrow we might go to the "Distillery" which sounds to me like an Iron Hill type place. Canadians and their beer. As for right now I am SO looking forward to going to bed.

its a blessed miracle!

It's a miracle. I have 21st century speed internet at my relative's house. I finally picked up some wireless from one of the neighbors.  A nifty 4 bars and all. I really should be getting in bed butttt I've been meaning to update for awhile.

So, Tuesday was the inauguration. It was interesting to watch it in a foreign country (such a different culture in Canada haha). I swear they pay a lot more attention to American politics than Americans do. To the point where they don't know what's going on in their own country. Everyone stopped around 11:30 to go watch in the inauguration in one of the conference rooms. I'm sure it would have been a lot more exciting and emotional to watch it at home in a room full of Ameicans. As the resident American in the room I was asked a lot of questions about what I though of the whole thing and how it is to see how much our politics affect other countries. Its really true. You know the whole world was watching yet how many of us can even name the heads of Canada and Mexico let alone what forms of government they have? They were a little freaked out by the prayers and kept saying it was "so American to make such a big deal out of it and waste so much money." They were also laughing at the fact that the amount of people who went to DC just for the day was greater than the amount of people in Toronto.

After the inauguration it was back to work. We had to show our ideas to Nancy again around 5ish and she approved us to move forward with two of them. So for the rest of the night I did a lot of researching for facts and visuals styles. We left after 10.

Yesterday was the big crunch day. When we first got in Nancy told us that she was killing one of the ideas that we had been working on, which of course was the one that we had scripts written for. For most of the day we brainstormed for ambient media for our other surviving idea while Cara wrote up new scripts. At the end of the day all the there was a huge meeting with all the CD's and account heads and our idea was approved for presentation to the clients. They also chose the visual style of animation that I picked out for the commercial which is awesome because if it actually gets produced it means that I made one of the biggest art direction decisions for the spot. :) So by the time the meeting was over it was like 7 and we still had to polish scripts and make a storyboard that Nancy later said she didn't want to use. oy. All in all I got home by 1am.

This morning was the pitch, which I really wish I could have went to but I guess they can't have that many people there. It would be nice to get to see a pitch before I leave Ogilvy but they're pretty serious business especially when you're dealing with a mega-company like Kraft. Nancy said it all went very well and the client will let us know which ideas they are going to put into testing (ugh dreaded testing). They liked the Senior's idea the best but they said that our idea is large enough that they could see it running for as long as 3 years whereas the other idea would have a much shorter life span. So this morning Mike and I got assigned to do a rush job to make point-of-purchase posters etc. for Nabob Coffee which is due tomorrow. So that was most of today. Then near the end of the day I got assigned to make downloadable "campaign swag" like buttons, flags, stickers, etc for Shreddies. They're supposed to launch the new vote website on Mon. so all the freebies could be due sometime this weekend. They didn't tell me yet. And then at 5 today Ivan (who I am told is an incredible, incredible designer) asked me if I would like to do a "typography exercise" for him. He gave me a photo from the shoot he just got back from in Barbados for Winners (aka Canada's nicer version of TJ Maxx) and told me to just mess around with the type and crops but that I should have a really clean style like Gucci. So I'm showing them to him like first thing tomorrow so I don't know how serious or not it is. I think he just wants a head start on some ideas for his own layouts. I wish I had some more time tonight to do more of a variety of layouts but my eyes are closing and if he wants a Gucci look than there isn't all that much you can do.

I'm so excited for it to be the weekend. This week was exhausting but here are some of the SUPER important things that I learned:

1. If you aren't excited about your idea, if you don't get that little butterfly in your stomach then it probably isn't a good idea.

2. If you don't show confidence and enthusiasm about your idea then you will never be able to sell it to a client, let alone your CD.

3. You really, really, really have to sell the client on your idea. Presentation is unbelievably important. You basically have to put on a play and the more theatrical (voices, costumes, props) the better. You have to remember that these people are business people. They aren't creatives and they lack imagination. So, the more you can bring your ideas to life the better outcome you will have.