Introduction
_ Bhairavi and Aprajita, Summer Interns (May – June 2021)
It was a sweet winter afternoon, around 2:30 PM, December 2020, when we received a mail from the placement committee, it read, Lumiere has selected the following candidates for the summer internship- Bhairavi Mane and Aprajita. Within seconds our phone started buzzing and kept on buzzing continuously for the following few hours. Congratulations messages started pouring in The last day of the year 2020, gave us a parting gift, a Lumiere, for the coming year.
That was how the journey to growth and fulfillment began!
As we sit together today, which is the last day of our Internship compiling all the learnings and joy that we were constantly part of, we feel we will fall short of words. With pride in our eyes and gratitude in our heart, we would like to share our enriching internship experience.
Market Research
Project Chroma was the first professional project that was assigned to us. “Chroma” i.e. purity, was indeed a blissful project for it exposed us to the innocence and delight of our kid respondents. WhatsApp Interactions with them for over 10 days really helped us in improving our communication and analytical skills. WhatsApp moderation was followed by the in depth interviews. Anuja and Vedashree, being efficient interviewers, helped us in understanding the nitty-gritties of market research. We were able to understand the consumer perception and behavior which we have until now, only read about in our management textbooks.
Anuja, our corporate mentor and guide was an able project manager, who helped and guided us at every step. She made tremendous efforts to understand our views and made sure we never felt left out, by including us in every huddle and meetings for the project. She was someone we always looked up to, for anything and everything during our internship. Vedashree, a person with keen interest in child psychology, was a perfect match for chroma. Being an able mind reader, she brought the vigour and enthusiasm required for the project. We are immensely thankful to Tanvee, who was always a saviour and guided us with her “Intellection” and “Self Assurance”. We are also thankful to the Operations team for giving us timely updates of the respondents.
We also got the opportunity to work on secondary research for a couple of projects, including Project Mindspark, which gave us the opportunity to understand the existing market in a more efficient manner.
Strengths
It was our joining day when Anuja asked us to give a strengths coaching test. Unaware and clueless, as we were, we gave a 30 mins long test which almost covered all aspects of our personality. It all made sense when we downloaded the Signature and Insights reports which had volumes to tell about our personality and to answer the question, “Why we are, the way we are?” The same evening Deepa read our top 5 strengths to the whole team and made us understand the importance of “Strengths” and how our personalities are a unique combination of our strengths. Every Thursday, 2:00 PM used to be an awaited session for the entire week as our Mentors, Mr Milind Soman and Mrs Deepa Soman, endearing and dynamic personalities in themselves, coached us, not just for our professional development but rather for a holistic development of our personality. The Strength session was something which holds a special place in our hearts. As Milind Sir said, “My weaknesses are the manifestations of my strengths”, Strengths, a novel concept, for which we are immensely thankful to Lumiere, is a takeaway which is going to remain with us for a very long time ahead.
Lumiere Events
Lumiere Events, an event oriented platform, is a passion project for Team Lumiere. The pandemic, which coerced us to remain within the boundaries of our home, also gave us immense opportunities to connect globally, sitting in the comfort of our home. It gave a platform to speakers from all around the world to join and engage with Deepa Soman in an inspiring and luminary conversation, both for Learning Monday and Torchbearer Thursday.
We started with events from our very first week. Right from contacting the speakers, making creatives, scheduling the event to finally hosting it for the global audience, was an engaging affair. We made a few mistakes here and there, but in the end it only helped us to turn wiser.
As our end date came nearer, we also had a chance to join and contribute to the brainstorming session for the next season, as it is definitely going to grand then before.
Conclusion
Two months of working at Lumiere has taught us some very important lessons. We now know how to use our strengths in a way to not only get an optimal output, but also to understand the strengths of the speaker, and maneuver the process in such a way that they are truly able to get the Lumiere experience.