This summer I will be interning with RLM Associates. RLM Associates is a consulting firm based near Cleveland, Ohio. It specializes in the business consulting of start-up companies. I will be working most closely with a software company who is in the development and funding stage. I will also be working with Krumor, a company which produces and sells thermocouples at an industrial level, MySmartPath, another software package company, and Forks In The Road, a book series. My tasks this summer will involve all of these companies and will include objectives such as editing and publishing the first book in the “Forks In The Road” series and crowdfunding for various innovation projects. I will be working directly under CEO Robert Mikals. Each morning I report to him and fill him in on any progress that was made and then work through anything else that has come up. Around 12:00 Mr. Mikals leaves the office and I continue with the tasks I am given.

Until June I am the only intern that is working with all of these companies, so it was a busy first week. Mr. Mikals started Monday off by introducing me to all of the companies and where they were in terms of patents, marketing, development, and funding. From there he had my create a timeline for each company of all the things that were needed in order to get them from the stage they were at to being launched and actively selling products. After this I began working through each of these tasks in order to have them completed by the end of May.

For Krumor this week I went through and determined which permanent positions were needed and which internship positions were needed. From there I created a profile for each position and formalized this. The final step was to put all of the information into the formats that each advertising company preferred and then send them out. So far responses are at a satisfactory number but we’re wanting to give it another 15-20 days before we make final decisions.

For Forks In The Road book series, I went through and bought the domain that was wanted to create a website. From there I contacted a web-designer who was able to create the site and get it up and running by Thursday. Additionally, I researched and picked the self-publishing avenue that we will use for each book in the series and then bought the needed universal ISBN numbers.

Finally, I set up a marketing plan that included crowdfunding for each company in which it was needed. This also included the making of multimedia for a couple of the campaigns. I outsourced the artistic work and am excited to see what the first versions look like this coming week.

Next week I’ll have to combine all the media outlets we set up with the artistic work and a few other elements to finalize crowd sourcing campaigns, websites, and media coverage.