Student: Luke Severn
Major: Journalism
Grade: Graduated June 2013
Position: Marketing and Sales Intern at Nimia (June to August 2013), Unpaid for first 10 weeks, 30-40 hours/week
What is Nimia?
“Nimia is a digital asset management company that is working with great companies, including BrainFarm Digital Cinema and Emmy Award winning directors and cinematographers. In a nutshell, Nimia built a Digital Asset Manager for directors, producers and companies to archive, license, and distribute master video content (intermediary codecs and original resolutions). As an agency, we included all of the services inherent to digital rights management for directors, cinematographers and motion picture companies (copyright, licensing, model contracts, legal support) as resources through Nimia. Basically, a person can manage, back-up, send, and license their video archives from anywhere within the world on the Nimia platform.”
Duties include: “Reaching out to prospective users of Nimia, identifying new clients (talent search), guerrilla marketing ideas, writing tutorials and how-to articles, creating blog entries, targeting the action sports industry, and University Outreach program.”
How did you find out about it?
“I submitted my resume through a Husky Jobs posting, and they contacted me about a week later.”
What made you decide to apply?
“The idea of working with a company that focused on sales and marketing and the action sports film industry. I was almost a cinema studies major at the UW. I focused a lot of my attention on sports journalism within my major, and I also gained a Sales Certificate through the Foster School of Business. So working with a company that worked in the film industry, focusing on action sports in a sales and marketing role seemed like a slam-dunk.”
What do you like most about it?
“I like the freedom of it and the fact that it’s a very small start-up company. It’s definitely not like working for a big corporation that has a standard set amount of training time and required sales quotas to make. I don’t have six different bosses or six people telling me what to do. We all work as a team and I’m being treated like I’m a very important part of the company, instead of just another employee, which I think can occur in a lot of places. I like that I’m given different responsibilities, from contacting and meeting with clients, to writing blog posts and interviewing directors, to writing our weekly emails. It’s a lot of different responsibilities and I get to wear a lot of different hats, which I love. I’ve already learned a lot and it’s only been one week.”
Is there anything you would change?
“I would change the fact that I’m not getting paid to do basically a full-time job.”
What is the working environment like?
“It’s very relaxed. I get to work remotely if I want to and I don’t have to go into the office, although I like going into the office because it gets me more in a working mindset. It’s as startups as startups go. We all work in one room in an office down in Pioneer Square. We don’t even have a coffee maker. But I love it. It’s a lot of fun and very challenging, but the freedom of the job is what’s great.”
How do you think it will help you and your career or future goals?
“Right now I don’t have any hard and fast future goals. I’ve just graduated college so I’m still wrestling with the idea of working full-time. When I was in college, I really wanted to be a sports writer or sports talk radio host, but as I’ve come to work with new companies and new people and explored other opportunities, my goals and ambitions have changed. At the end of the day, I just want to be in a situation where I wake up in the morning and I’m excited about working toward something that I truly believe in, and right now I have that with Nimia.”
What’s your favorite accomplishment so far?
“Yesterday I got my first client to sign up for the service. He’s a director for National Geographic and he’s exactly the type of client we’re looking to represent and work with. It’s a pretty big deal to me because I’m the first person in my group to sign someone, and it’s only my first week. So I’m pretty excited about it.”