So against what the title of this blog may tell you, today was actually not that serious of a day. I mean it was work for sure but it was a nice casual and quiet Friday. Today I continued to work on and gather information for the diversity messages I am writing. I also talked on the phone with Sarah Hassan who works at Medtronic in Minneapolis and is responsible for the publishing of all social media posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the other various social media outlets that Medtronic posts to. Sarah was very sweet and helped me figure out how I can get my diversity messages posted. She also offered to review and critique my diversity messages and gave me some tips for writing. Today I started work at 8:30 and went ahead and worked straight through until 1:30 and then took off for the day. Today I also sent the diversity messages that I had to my mentor Alice for her critique and suggestions. I also followed up with the head of Diversity & Inclusion Sharon about the possibility of helping organize a diversity event as an extra part of my internship. Today was a great end to a great week but let me tell you I am ready for the weekend! I will see you back here on Monday! Same time, Same place.

Today was just one of those days where you feel compelled to wear your pajamas to work....So I did! Today I worked remotely using a Medtronic laptop. I started working at 9 and got connected to my Medtronic email, after about a half hour of work I was still struggling to connect to the Medtronic network so then I got to spend an hour and fifteen minutes on the phone with Tech Support trying to figure out what wasn't working. Finally we figured out that it was a system problem and that I had not been added to the approved remote access list and that was why I was unable to connect to the server. However we got the proper request forms in and hopefully that will solve the problem for the future. However the lack of network connection did not stop me. I began drafting some potential diversity messages for Twitter or Facebook and then with the guidance and direction of Alice began doing online research about the Diversity efforts of Medtronic, in other words potential Facebook and Twitter message topics. I found a couple of useful topics including a conference that is being held Saturday in Minneapolis by Medtronic people talking about the diversity strategy of Medtronic. I also wrote a blurb about the black history month celebration that I watched earlier this week. Overall it was a pretty quiet day but I felt like I was productive and that I got some good information about Medtronic to use as I go into the future. Thanks for your time. And I hope that you have a wonderful evening! I'll see you tomorrow. Same time, Same place.

Today my life as an intern started at 6:30am when I realized that I had overslept by 45 minutes and thus had only 45 minutes to get showered and dressed for my internship. In the end though I made it out the door on time. Today when I got to work I found a response to my question about the intranet site that I will be building and then I spent some time on the host intranet site. At 9:30 I had a meeting with Sharon Piper-Diggs who is the Director of Talent Acquisition and Diversity & Inclusion (Pretty much the boss of the whole group of people that I am working with) Sharon and I discussed what she wanted out of the intranet site I am making and we talked about where I am with the project and what it going on. After my meeting with Sharon I continued with my scrolling and exploring on the host intranet site until 10:00 when I got to participate in the weekly status meeting for the Talent and Acquisition team as well as the Diversity & Inclusion team. For me this meeting got particularly interesting towards the end when we moved from the Talent Acquisition side to the Diversity & Inclusion side of things. I got a really amazing opportunity to see how commited Medtronic is as a company to having a diverse group of people working for them whether that diversity be in race, background, experience, or even in the different ways people think. To see a company so commited to this idea that we need different types of people to create something great was really interesting and almost inspiring. Once the meeting wrapped up we had my welcome lunch where the team got together and all ate Panera in the conference room. I got to ask a couple of questions of the team and then we had some really interesting discussions about Diversity and the various Supreme Court cases that we have been studying in Humanities over the past several weeks. After that I played the role of a typical unpaid intern and I helped put together packets. It was fun though, we listened to music and I got to learn a little bit more about the people that I am working with. Then I set up a laptop computer so that tomorrow I can work from home with access to my Medtronic email, homepage, and intranet site. Hopefully tomorrow I will gain access to the intranet site that I am creating! Fingers crossed!! I will see you again tomorrow! Same time, Same place.

Today my day consisted meetings. As you can probably guess from the title of this blog post. This morning my day started at 8 at home where I was able to sit in on a "state of the union" business meeting for the Structural Heart Division of Medtroic. Just a little background the Structural Heart Group designs and build replacement valves for the human heart. Today they had a meeting that was based in Minneapolis talking about where the divison stood as they wrapped up the third quarter of their 2013 fiscal year. I was able to watch this meeting virtually over the Medtronic TV website that hosts these sort of meetings so that people from all parts of the Medtronic company from all parts of the globe can take part in meetings. During this meeting I got a really interesting glimpse into what was going well with the Structural Heart Divison, what needed improvement, and what the marketing scheme is going to be going into the fourth quarter and the next fiscal year. After that meeting wrapped up at around 9:30 am, my aunt and I jumped in the car and headed up to Santa Rosa to what is called the Brickway building. In Santa Rosa there are two sites of Medtronic buildings. The site that I work at is called Fountain Grove and the one I went to today was Brickway. At Brickway I watched a webinar about how to handle difficult situations for an hour and then we had a half hour teleconference between the Brickway webinar group and the Fountain Grove webinar group about the webinar and what we had learned. After I finished up with the webinar discussion my aunt took me down the hall to Alice, where we were served lunch and got the amazing opportunity to learn about Black History Month and what it means to some famous black people who were interviewed as well as some black people from within the Medtronic company. Also during the presentation we got to hear three songs  Sandy Harris the Director of Global Inclusion, Diversity & Engagement from the corporate office in Minneapolis. I got the pleasure to meet Sandy yesterday as well at the lunch meeting that I attended and to hear her sing was incredible. (Just a little FYI Sandy is a part of the grammy winning musical group "Sounds of Blackness") If you get a chance I would DEFINITELY reccomend that you take a minute and look up the group on youtube and get a taste of what I heard today. Even though I heard just one member it was AMAZING! After the Black History Lunch wrapped up Alice and I drove back to the Fountain Grove site, where I logged onto my computer and guess whose Medtronic email finally started working??? Thats right me! I was able to open up Microsof Outlook with my Medtronic email and start scheduling and approving some appointments for the remainder of my week. Also I was able to get onto the Medtronic Information Exchange, which is the platform I will be creating the Intranet site on, and play around a little and try to get a grasp on what type of system I will be working on over the next few weeks. Well after a very exciting day and a nice lengthy blog post I bid you adieu. See you tomorrow! Same time, Same place.

Today my three week internship at Medtronic began. And I mean really began. At around 9:00 I met my mentor Alice Hwa face to face for the first time. Alice and everyone surronding my cubicle has been so sweet, friendly, and nice. I was toured around the buildings that I will be working in which are oh so interestingly named Building A and B. I was taken to security and given a temporary badge because almost all the doors here require a badge to get through. I learned that Medtronic is monitored by the FDA because they manufacture medical devices that enter into people's bodies and thus they have to be regulated. Also with the help of Mary Vega, one of the people that I am working with,  I finally got computer log in information at around 2:00 pm. For lunch today I worked with Alice, and we went to a Diversity conference which is what I am trying to help promote with the Intranet site that I am creating for my project. I also found out today that another aspect of my project will be to create short messages that can be shared over social media to talk about diversity, the need for it, sharing quotes, or other cute messages to get people involved in promoting diversity at Medtronic both in Santa Rosa, California and worldwide. Tomorrow Alice and I are going to work thorugh lunch again and attend a discussion about Black History Month and learn about the meaning of Black History Month. I am really excited for this opportunity and to get to hear people speak about Black History and the opportunity to think about how that history is impacting us now. Thanks for listening and you can catch the blog again tomorrow. Same time, Same place.

Today I start my three week internship at Medtronic and to be entirely honest it feels like I am playing dress-up in my pencil skirt, blouse, and heels. The excitement and nerves are bubbling out of me as I sit and wait for the arrival of my mentor.... more to come, if I make it through the morning. :)