Memorial Day

Memorial Day Installation

Third Week of Summer Semester
(May 21- 28)

Monday I get to do some substantial work on two new Craisins^® packaging initiatives. I have a great meeting with the team where I learn all about new concepts like nuisance fees for slotting at retailers, swapping products on shelves, the Ocean Spray Innovation Leadership Team (ILT) and more.

Halfway through my day I meet with a Marketing Manager to learn about our MRF system (the system we use to request new UPC codes for products and packaging). She shows me the form I need to complete and graciously spends an hour explaining the process, how the organization of 'eaches', 'cases' and 'shippers' works and more. I'm not going to say I'm an expert after the meeting (I think I'll have to practice a few UPC requests first) but the session helped a ton.

The rest of my afternoon is spent at a meeting for a new foods product and working on several projects.

That night in my Marketing in the Service Sector class we discuss a topic that is near and dear to my heart: The Mass Audubon Society. After my Graduate Marketing Club consulting project for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society last year I'm particularly interested in non-profit preservation societies. How funny that this one is in Massachusetts also!

Turtle friend at Ocean Spray - Photo courtesy of Nick Klatte

Tuesday I have my weekly 1:1 session with my boss. We discuss a ton of topics including how Ocean Spray's Pool financial planning works (as an agricultural cooperative we have a fiscal year and a pool year), she handed off some great new projects to me and answered my numerous other questions.

The rest of my afternoon is literally booked from 1:00-4:30 pm with meetings. On the itinerary? A weekly meeting for a new Craisins^® package, a meeting to discuss our Craisins^® challenge (where I actually get to contribute some of the suggestions I made for my Innovation and Enterprise growth project on Six Flags to the conversation!), a conference call with a company that puts on large active events such as 5K runs and a training session for a new MRF system (the day after I learned the old system!).

That night in class my group and I have our article presentation. Fortunately, it's on a an article all of us had already read in our Brand & Advertising Management class last semester called "Getting Brand Communities Right". How convenient! I felt our presentation went quite well but as the first group to go, only our grade will tell.

The baby geese of Fenway are growing up!

Wednesday is a slightly more quite day on the work front. I don't have any meetings, which is shocking, so I get the day to really get down to work.

In class that night, we discuss Starbucks and how it is the 'gold standard' of empowering employees and creating exceptional service environments. In particular, we talk about how the coffee chain actually gives baristas stock in the company, how they require executives to train as baristas and more. While I'm a Dunkin' Donuts girl at heart, I now have a greater appreciation for 'the Bux'.

Thursday is a particularly fun day at work! I start out my morning with a weekly Marketing huddle in the Marketing lounge. I love these half-hour sessions because it allows the team (from assistants to directors) to share what they have been working on in a casual environment.

In between the rest of my work that day I also get to have my buddy lunch. Yay!

In class that night my fellow Northeastern MBAs and I analyze the entry of Cleopatra soaps (a French brand) into Canada. It was actually pretty neat to talk about because they are discussing entering the province of Quebec. Having now become a Montreal expert (well, at least in the realm of poutine) I feel like I can bring some real life experience to the class discussion.

Friday marks the official start of summer hours at Ocean Spray! As part of the amazing perks of working for the company, starting Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day employees get half day Fridays! Woohoo!

However, this means I have to be super efficient because I have half the time to do the work I need. I get in early to try and get as much done as possible while it's still quite in the office.

Because I'm so busy, I don't get to leave at 12:30 pm, but even staying a couple of hours later lets me get a ton  more work done and I still get to shut down the ol' laptop at 2:30 pm (not too shabby). On my way home, I stop by Target to grab some treats for my boyfriend since he's coming to visit from Montreal (included in my haul? Two flavors of Craisins^® and two flavors of Ocean Spray gummie snacks - my new addiction).

I then work really hard to get as much homework done as possible, with a few breaks to clean up my apartment. In particular, I work on my portion of my team's Consumer Behavior project paper and presentation, some reading and more.

Nick arrives in the city around 9:30 pm and we head straight to our ritual New York Pizza run followed by drinks at Parish.

Yup, I work here.

On Saturday Nick and I sleep in embarrassingly late (like noon). I get up and start doing some homework. Once we finally drag ourselves outside we grab some breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts and hop in my car for a drive down to my Lakeville to show Nick the gorgeous setting of my work. Needless to say he is super impressed! He keeps saying how it looks like a country club. Personally, I'm happy to be able to wander some of our nature trails and take in the local wildlife.

After our Ocean Spray visit we decide to make a day adventure of this and drive another 45 minutes south to New Bedford for some authentic Azorean food. New Bedford actually boasts one of the largest Azorean populations in the United States (more than 50% of the city's residents are of Azorean descent!). We get an obscene amount of pork product and chat with some other guests as we all fawn over the serving sizes.

That night Nick and I indulge in an On Demand movie, Young Adult, and then I work on some more homework.

Sunday I wake up and complete a couple of hours of homework so that I can relax for the rest of the day. Nick and I head over to Fenway so that I can show him that there are Mexican Food restaurants in Boston. Our destination? El Pelon Taqueria. We order up some pretty delicious Pescado and Caramelos tacos and we enjoy them in the outside seating area.

All fueled up on the native food of our California homeland, Nick and I walk down to The Boston Public Garden and Boston Common to visit the Memorial Day installation and lounge in the sun. Let's just say, you know you've been a recluse when 15 minutes in the sun gives you a sunburn! Nick and I cool down with some soft serve dipped cones from the Boston Frosty truck and hop on the T back home.

Groupon success at Darryl's Corner Bar & Kitchen

We pass the next few hours with me doing some homework and Nick lounging until our 7:30 pm reservation at Darryl's Corner Bar & Kitchen. Despite being located around the corner from my apartment, it took a Groupon deal for me to finally experience this awesome restaurant. For $32, Nick and I share an appetizer of the most amazing wings I've ever had (try sweet peach chile and buffalo flavor), followed by my first ever chicken and waffles (anytime I can put syrup on my dinner entree, it's a win in my book).

Monday is a glorious day off! Nick and I get up and grab breakfast after I get a couple of hours of homework in. We then head to Target for some shopping before he has to leave to make the drive back up to Montreal. As soon as he drives off I head right to Panera for a working lunch/dinner with one of my Consumer Behavior teammates as we work through the paper portion of our presentation for Tuesday.

When I get home I plug away with more homework before crashing after a much-needed relaxing weekend.

* The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Northeastern University, Ocean Spray Cranberries, either entity's staff or affiliates.

A Super Busy Week Ends with a Superhero Brunch

Just another beautiful Boston afternoon

Second Week of Summer Semester
(May 14 - 20)

Monday I start my morning with a great training session with the Senior Manager of Commercialization Projects at Ocean Spray. She has offered to train me on our Product, Package, Price Change Authorization system ( PPPCA) which is used for chartering and getting new projects through the stage gate process.

After my training, I head downstairs for my HR benefits orientation. Since I'm now officially full-time I get the benefits of, well, all the great Ocean Spray benefits.

After the orientation I get a few minutes back at my desk before meeting my boss for lunch and store visits. I'm super excited for this lunch and learn. We head to Panera for some grub before stealthily perusing the aisles of Shaw's and Walmart to scope out our Craisins^® products and our competitors. It was very helpful and provided some great insight into what the dried fruit market looks like.

After my fun lunch session, I meet with a logistics manager to discuss all the potential merchandising vehicles for Craisins^®. As part of my project to streamline these different shippers, clip strips and more I figured I'd meet with an expert to get his input.

The rest of my afternoon is spent getting a good amount of work done before heading to class.

On the itinerary for my Marketing in the Service Sector class tonight is a discussion of Aussie Pooch Mobile, an Australian company that pioneered a mobile dog cleaning service. Among the issues facing the company are whether or not they should continue their franchise internationally and how to handle a slew of new competitors.

Tuesday morning I start my day getting some work done before a training session for NCH - a company that handles many of our coupon offers. Since I recently submitted a Craisins^® coupon request through NCH, I'm particularly interested in this training session so that I can learn how to review the redemption rates of these promotions and use that to help track my budget and how well the program did.

After the training session I have a half-hour meeting with a Marketing Manager to get a grounding on two new packaging projects I'll be helping her with. I think both are great ideas, but one in particular I'm super excited about and can't wait to help out with.

After lunch I meet up again with the same Marketing Manager and her entire team for a weekly meeting for the packaging projects I just learned about.

After that it's off to another new product meeting, this time for a new foods item.  I'm loving being a part of all these innovative new Ocean Spray products!

Next is my weekly 1:1 with my manager. She gives me tons of awesome new projects to work on, including digging deep into Nielsen data to analyze some new competitors and working on setting minimums in our new merchandising vehicle ordering system by looking at past order volumes.

In my Consumer Behavior class that night I have to give my Topic Talk! How Topic Talks work is that I am responsible for finding a current news article (less than one year old) that directly pertains to our reading and lesson plan for the day. I am able to find an awesome article on how touch impacts consumer purchase behaviors. We also get to share our experience with interviewing a friend or family member on what is in their 'medicine cabinet'. I interviewed my Mom and had some great insights from her choice of makeup, face washes and shampoos.

Wednesday I get all morning to work on my projects before my first meeting at 11:00 am. I've been invited to a session put on by Brand Connections, a vendor we have used in the past for Craisins^® sampling. We learn all about their capabilities, including ad placement on airplanes, cruises and more.

After the meeting I get several more hours of work in before another Meet and Greet with our Insights Manager. She gives me the low-down on what her group does and the OSCAR system on our intranet that houses nearly all of the consumer research Ocean Spray has done for the past several years. When I have the time, I totally intend to go through and read as many of those documents as possible. I imagine it would be an amazing way to learn about the company.

In my Service Sector class that evening, we actually discuss the Shouldice Hospital case, which I did last year for my Operations class. It was neat to look at it from a very different perspective (service sector marketing versus operations).

Thursday is a busy day of meetings. I start out with a weekly marketing team huddle in the marketing lounge. I love these huddles because it gives the group a chance to get together in a casual setting (couches and plush chairs in the lounge) and share what everyone has going on in their respective businesses.

After the huddle I head to my meeting with an Associate Trade Marketing Manager to get a sales perspective on my effort to try and reduce Craisins^® merchandising vehicles.

I spend most of the rest of my day in meetings to continue this effort. I meet with a Marketing Manager who performed this same task several years previously and followed by another meeting with the person in charge of ordering the trays, stickers and clip strips for Craisins^®.

My work day ends with an awesome introduction to consumer affairs at Ocean Spray. The Consumer Affairs Supervisor graciously set up an hour-long introduction to how we handle consumer complaints, requests, compliments and more. It was really fascinating.

As I'm leaving work and checking my e-mail, I notice that a classmate of mine was kind enough to send over a recent article in CFO magazine featuring Ocean Spray's very own CFO! How cool (and how cool of her!). Check out the article here http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/14638244/c_14639338?f=magazine_alsoinside.

That night in my Consumer Behavior class we discuss the Cyworld case. Cyworld is the South Korean equivalent of Facebook. We had a large case write-up on it due as well where we had to decide how the company should proceed in the face of growing member defect rates and a loss of interest in their paid digital home page decorations. Here's the U.S. version of the site http://us.cyworld.com/.

Friday is a great day! I start off my day with a Craisins^® meeting where we discuss business insights such as key account performance and past research conducted by consumer insights.

I also get the opportunity for two amazing meet and greets; one with the Director of Marketing and one with the Director of New Business Development. It was awesome to speak to two women who have been so successful in the organization and have seen the business change throughout the years. Amazing!

The day wraps up with lunch with my Ocean Spray buddy and another meeting with demand planning to look at the Craisins^® merchandising vehicles.

My Saturday morning starts, how else, but with the day in the library? I roll into Snell Library at 10:30 am and spend most of my day working on my team's paper and PowerPoint for our article presentation on Getting Brand Communities Right. It was great because we actually covered this article last semester in Brand & Advertising Management so it really helped me dive deeper into it's meaning.

Cafeteria: makers of glorious burgers

Fortunately, I have some great motivation to get my work done because I have a date with my library compatriot for dinner and drinks at Cafeteria. I get an amazing burger topped with a fried egg and bacon along with some amazingly delicious beverages (including one called Spring Break that comes with rock candy as a stirrer). Win!

Beautiful!

Sunday starts out in a way that can only be described as 'super' with Blue, Inc.'s first ever superhero brunch. I make my way downtown to this new restaurant run by a chef that was featured on Hell's Kitchen. I get there a little earlier than my friend so I meander around the parks downtown and take in the heavenly weather.

Once my friend arrives we enjoy cocktails that smoke with dry ice, an appetizer of fresh cinnamon donuts paired with nutella mascarpone and raspberry jam followed by my entree of red velvet french toast topped with cream cheese icing (yes, you read that correctly: red velvet french toast!). Oh, and did I mention that all of this was served by a wait staff dressed in superhero costumes!

After our embarrassingly decadent brunch my friend and I head to the library for some serious studying, which includes a ton of reading, case preparations and more. At least I have the sugar rush to keep me going!


*The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Northeastern University, Ocean Spray Cranberries, either entity's staff or affiliates.

My First Employee Off-Site Event

Ocean Spray Bog at Patriot Place

Week 1 of Summer Term
(May 7-13)

Monday marks doomsday; the start of what will be the most challenging two months of my graduate school career. If you recall, I now work full-time, as well as take a full course load in the evenings. I am more than a little nervous about the whole thing.

My first day of my first full-time week opens up with some budget reviews. I had set up a meeting with someone in sales to help me understand some of the program budgets that pertain to her work with stores such as BJ's, Sam's and Costco.

After that wraps up I head to a meeting to discuss some new packaging options we are working on. I make sure to take notes and understand all of the elements of the program as best I can as this will be one project I will be expected to eventually take over.

After the meeting lets out I have just a few minutes at my desk before a group 'Meet and Greet' with the commercialization team. We all gather in our cozy Marketing lounge area and I get to meet several of the members of the commercialization team at once . They are all super nice and the meeting is a great way for me to see who I might be working with in the future as each new product launch and even package redesign requires a commercialization manager. In fact, I already know one of the attendees from meetings for a new foods product we are trying to launch.

After lunch I head to the Board Room (a quite fancy looking conference room with paintings of important-looking executives placed on every wall) for some more training on our budget management software. It's pretty complex and my notebook looks like a mess of notes when I leave.

The rest of my afternoon is spent working through all of my projects, with a nice break around 3:00 pm for another 1:1; this time with a Senior Marketing Manager that I had met previously during my interview process. I use the opportunity to hear all about her work at Ocean Spray over the years and the several new products and package redesigns she has worked on. She had amazing insights into some of the projects I'm working on as well.

Leaving the office. Isn't it pretty?

After work I head right to campus for my first night of class of the Summer Semester. I'm taking Marketing in the Service Sector on Mondays and Wednesdays. Tonight we get the general overview of the course and I start to adjust to what my schedule will be like for the next two months.

Tuesday is a day of 'Meet and Greets'; I have three lined up! These meet and greets include meeting with a Social Media Specialist (which is right up my alley!), a session with the Manager of Digital Media (another topic that I adore) and finally a meeting with the Senior Manager of Product Development, where I even get to try some prototype Ocean Spray food products (super win!).

In between all of these awesome meetings I attend training on a new Material Request Form process (e.g. how to request UPCs for new products and packaging), have my weekly 1:1 with my Manager to check in on how I'm doing and a group meeting with the sales team to discuss merchandising vehicles for Craisins^®.

That night is my first Consumer Behavior class of the semester. The professor seems great and tells very entertaining stories - essential when your class is from 7:30-9:30 pm after a long day of work.

Wednesday is the start of my very first off-site work meeting ever! I'm super stoked for the two-day event at Patriot Place with the Marketing team at Ocean Spray. Plus, I get to sleep in just a tad longer since the commute to Patriot Place is slightly shorter than to our corporate offices. When I arrive, I slide into the meeting room in time for some mingling, Ocean Spray juice and coffee.

The kick-off to the two-day meeting has several marketing managers presenting trends and recent findings for each product segment. This is then followed by the Innovation Team presenting on competitors, trends in the market and more.

Scavenging: Me with Toby Keith's Guitar (and an Ocean Spray juice, of course)

We break after about three hours for lunch in the Renaissance Hotel's swanky lounge. We make sure to eat up because next is a professional scavenger hunt game put on by Cashunt. The game is super fun and involves two hours of locating 100 items, gold coins, getting video footage of bystanders doing conga lines with us and more! My favorite part? Getting to see, first hand, the Ocean Spray sponsored bog behind Bass Pro Shop. It was simply gorgeous. I just wish I could have taken my time to explore it- but scavenger hunt duty calls!

After the hunt, we get the results on the rankings from the eight teams, and would you believe it, one of the Ocean Spray teams turned out to be the highest scoring team of the year for Cashunt and are now invited to their national competition! How fun!

Signature Ocean Blue cocktails made with Ocean Spray Blueberry Juice

After our fill of scavenging, we have about an hour to go up to our rooms (did I mention this is an overnight event and I get my own room? Fancy!) and prepare for our mixology class and awards dinner. We spend the next several hours learning about the Foods service business of Ocean Spray, as well as indulging in H'ordeuves and signature Ocean Spray cocktails ranging from the 'Ocean Blue' to the 'Classic Cosmo'.

Dinner follows as does the awards ceremony. It was a perfect event and wonderful way for me to casually mingle with all of my new coworkers. I simply loved it!

I end my night with some textbook reading before passing out, exhausted from a great day.

Thursday I'm up early for breakfast at the hotel and to start our Marketing Department engagement survey discussion. You see, Ocean Spray conducts employee engagement surveys every couple of years and now we are looking at the most recent set of data. I think it speaks volumes that a company is willing to truly invest the time to take in employee feedback.

This all wraps up around 12:00 pm and I head home. I am told that I can had a free half-day (oh the glory!). In that extra few hours I am able to finish up my homework for class this week, do a ton of errands and other such things. My productivity made me happier than you know.

In Consumer Behavior class that night we discuss a case on Volkswagen's 'New' Beetle and have some friendly debate on how it should or could have been positioned to the market to successfully leverage the brand's history.

Friday I'm back in the office. I close out my week by continuing to review budget items and trying to figure out our budget management system. Fortunately, my day is broken up with a meet-and-greet with the sales planning manager (I love meeting all these new people!). It's super informative and opens my eyes to all the complexities that an agricultural cooperative must consider in planning (hint: fruit availability and usage is a huge factor).

I go home that night and just lounge. I promise I tried to do some homework but I was just too worn out from my first of many long weeks during the Summer Semester (but hey, I survived!).

A slightly less appealing view than the bog...

Saturday is the start of a less-than-fun weekend for me. On the menu: five textbook chapters, three cases to read and prepare for class, a project proposal, topic talk presentation, a paper on consumer self perception and an additional case with a 6-7 page write-up attached to it - and two days in which to do all of it. Cue panic.

I'm into the library that morning by about 10:00 am after running a couple of errands. I stay in that library until 5:30 pm, breaking only for a quick respite at Au Bon Pain for lunch.

Mint Julep at Citizen Public House (in honor of the Derby last week)

After 7.5 grueling hours, my library study compatriot and I decided that another break is needed so we make  our way to Fenway for drinks and appetizers at Citizen Public House and Oyster Bar.

Sunday morning I'm back at Snell Library for some more powerhouse studying. But besides all that homework stuff I also manage to return some old textbooks for refunds, order a delicious pasta take-out meal from Black Jack Pasta using Seamless and enjoy it while doing my laundry at the laundromat.

* The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Northeastern University, Ocean Spray Cranberries, either entity's staff or affiliates.