William Kadel ’22 — This summer, I had the incredible opportunity to work as a summer intern at the Crawfordsville | Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce. I want to thank the Career Services office for giving me this tremendous internship experience.
In particular, I lead numerous projects over eight (8) weeks. The first project was to research how to utilize Google Analytics for business and website development. At first glance, Google Analytics seems too much to comprehend and understand. To the untrained eye, all these new terms and techniques can be intimidating and confusing. From managing different properties to assigning tags to track ad campaigns, what does it all mean, and how does it apply to business? I shared what I learned about the software with other interns. So, I put my best foot forward and began my journey learning Google Analytics in hopes of becoming proficient in the software while teaching others in the process. Throughout this project, I implemented the Google Analytics system into the Chamber’s website and eventually made resources for Chamber members to utilize in their journey with Google Analytics. During this project, I learned how to manage and track marketing plans with Google Analytics to increase traffic within the website.
The second project I lead was researching a preexisting program to create a newer and more advanced version. This program is called the Chamber Buck$ Program. The program is a gift certificate program designed to keep money in the Montgomery County area to support local businesses and entrepreneurs. My goal for this program was to change the out-of-date paper gift certificates to a plastic, Visa-powered gift card. The purpose is to make the job of both the Chamber and the Merchant easier and more streamlined. A few weeks after completing my internship, the Chamber of Commerce should be up and running with a new system utilizing these Visa gift cards and doing away with old certificates. Through this experience, I learned that not everything is as simple as it seems, and implementing a new program introduces many unseen and complicated challenges.
As a result, my experience as a summer intern at the Crawfordsville | Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce taught me the importance of shopping local while testing my leadership, communication, and responsibility skills. I appreciated my time here while valuing the lessons that will carry with me to upcoming opportunities.
