It’s Thanksgiving! That means that we’re going to run with the theme and talk about a… chicken company? I know we’re all getting ready to chow down on some turkey, but first we should take a look at Pilgrim’s Pride, a Pittsburgh, TX based company that happens to be our country’s largest chicken producer. Much like how our tradition of Thanksgiving started with one small group and grew to be celebrated by hundreds of millions of people, Pilgrim’s Pride started as a single feed store and grew to be an $8.5 billion company. Unfortunately, Pilgrim’s Pride has hit some problems as of late, as they’re going through a bankruptcy. Still, they couldn’t have a more appropriate name (it came from their founder’s last name) for a Thanksgiving themed post, and they do appear to offer internships; in fact, they even seem to have turned a profit in their most recent quarter.
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agriculture,
animals,
food,
holiday,
Internships,
Texas
Last spring when sports fans on the North Side of Chicago were still hopeful, Amy and I decided that we wanted to go to a Cubs game. It was the day of the game, and we didn’t have tickets. We checked out StubHub, and saw some pretty good prices, but we decided that waiting would get us even better prices. We waited. The prices went down. We waited some more. The prices went down some more. And then disaster struck. StubHub stops selling tickets 2 hours before a game. We were shut out. We ended up heading to Wrigley and buying from some “ticket brokers” outside of the park. We got a pretty decent price, and we had a great time (I may or may not have been listening to the Yankees game on my iPhone at the same time), but we were left with the question of when is the best time to buy tickets on the secondary market. Apparently SeatGeek has the answer—they’re a New York City based web startup that predicts the price of sports and concert tickets. We’ve seen similar startups succeed in the travel market, and I think this business may make even more sense for event tickets.
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analytics,
data,
Internships,
New York,
research,
social media,
social networking,
sports,
statistics,
unpaid
Amy, my girlfriend, loves trivia. There’s no better way to win her over than to ask her a quiz question or share a random factoid. Since she travels every week for work, I recently bought her The Visual Miscellaneum: A Colorful Guide to the World’s Most Consequential Trivia
(affiliate link) to read on the plane. It’s an amazingly cool book that any information geek will love—I definitely spent some time with it before I gave it to her. It’s all about taking data, facts, and trivia and making it visual through design. The book was written by David Mccandless, who is also behind the website Information is Beautiful. There’s a good chance that you’ve seen his infographics before—here’s one called The Billion Dollar Gram and here’s another called Caffeine and Calories. I think it’s truly brilliant work.
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Tagged as:
data,
design,
international,
Internships,
paid,
research,
united kingdom
If you had a laser that could scan 3-dimensional objects and create digital models of them on your computer, what would you do with it? I’d probably use it on myself first. Then I’d try it on all kinds of stuff that is lying around the house. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that I’d ever get sick of such a toy. Unfortunately, these things don’t exist for consumers yet, but Research Triangle Park, NC based Geomagic has the technology to do this for inspection and manufacturing processes. Names like Ford, Harley-Davidson, Richard Childress Racing, Timberland, Fisher Price, Pratt & Whitney, NASA, Alcoa Howmet, Danaher and Invisalign use Geomagic’s technology to improve their products. Whether it’s for custom fitting dental products or repairing a NASA space shuttle, digitizing 3D objects opens up all kinds of opportunities.
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engineering,
Internships,
North Carolina,
paid,
quality assurance,
quality engineer,
software development,
web development
One of the coolest things about big cities is that they have unique neighborhoods and districts. Small towns are lucky to have one theatre, but New York City has an entire theatre district, which is called 42nd Street. It’s kind of a misnomer, because the whole street isn’t filled with theatrers, but around the area where it intersects with Broadway at Times Square they get pretty dense. Unfortunately, in the 1980s a large swath of 42nd Street became neglected and blighted. With so much great theatrical history there, New York City and New York State got together to found a non-profit organization to revitalize the area. This organization is now known as The New 42nd Street. The organization “oversees the redevelopment of seven historic theaters on 42nd” and operates these three projects: New 42nd Street Studios, The Duke on 42nd Street, and The New Victory Theater.
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communications,
education,
events,
Internships,
marketing,
New York,
non-profit,
operations,
paid,
production,
public relations,
sales,
theatre
When I was in college, campus sustainability was just starting to become a common buzzword. I guess it makes sense that higher education institutions would be at the forefront of such a movement—you know, since they deal with students protesting by camping in tree tops all the time. Second Nature is a Boston based non-profit organization that is continuing this movement (no not the camping out in tree tops). They initiate and support “high-leverage national initiatives and programs aimed at re-orienting the higher education sector toward more sustainable outcomes.” It’s a smart idea, because they’re targeting the places where their ideas are most likely to catch on. If they can succeed by pushing sustainability forward on college campuses, then there’s a good chance that the sustainability movement can go a lot farther.
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Tagged as:
conservation,
education,
green,
Internships,
Massachusetts,
non-profit,
paid,
sustainability
We’ve looked at plenty of Internet video companies in the past, but we haven’t spent too much time looking at companies that provide the underlying technology that drives Internet video. DivX is a San Diego, CA based company that develops and licenses video codecs. Codec is short for compressor-decompressor, which is essentially technology that allows you to more efficiently transfer data. In DivX’s case they provide a codec that allows high definition video to be compressed without sacrificing quality on the other end. They’re a big part of why Internet video finally works so well. Transmitting uncompressed video over the Internet takes a huge amount of bandwidth, but using a DivX codec significantly decreases the amount of bandwidth necessary to transmit your favorite time wasting video.
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engineering,
Internships,
Pennsylvania,
software development,
video,
web development
A couple of days ago the blogosphere exploded (pun intended) with news about bomb proof wallpaper. The story originally came from Popular Science with a video of a wrecking ball trying to knock down a brick wall that has been reinforced with the X-Flex Blast Protection System (the video is included below). I always love news stories like this one, because it puts the spotlight on a company that you never would have otherwise. In this case it’s Berry Plastics, an Evansville, IN based plastics company. Their products range from agricultural films to plastic bottles and from drink cups to trash bags. There’s a good chance that you have dozens of items in your house/dorm/apartment that were manufactured by Berry Plastics—you just don’t know it because most people don’t care who manufactured their shampoo bottles.
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administrative,
engineering,
Indiana,
Internships,
Manufacturing,
marketing,
paid,
product development,
research and development
I’ve been building websites since 1998 (I think). Even back then, there were online services that made it easy to build a web site without any knowledge of HTML. The difference is that now there are services that enable you to make a website that looks good with no HTML knowledge. These website builders are extremely powerful, and server the purposes of most people who want a relatively simple website. Weebly is a company that offers the ability to create a free website and/or blog. They’re based in San Francisco, and they were named one of TIME’s 50 Best Websites of 2007. Weebly has some of the best names in the Venture Capital world behind them, and they’re actually profitable (based on the freemium model).
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California,
community management,
customer service,
Internships,
marketing,
unpaid
I love Ivy League sports. I really do. Although I think the league gets less respect than it deserves, I know that they’ll never be the Big Ten—even if a powerhouse like Cornell (hey, I’m biased) continues to excel at the national level in sports like Hockey, Lacrosse, Wrestling, and even Basketball. I didn’t realize how big Big Ten sports were until I walked around Chicago on a Saturday afternoon in the fall. The Ohio State bar is packed with Ohio State fans, and the Michigan bar is packed with Michigan fans. Everyone is dressed in their school’s colors—and these are people hundreds of miles away from their schools and many years away from graduation. I guess that’s why there’s the Chicago based Big Ten Network, a television station devoted to everything Big Ten. While I’m watching grainy online streaming video of Cornell Hockey with my laptop hooked up to my tv, Big Ten fans can watch their favorite team—often in HD.
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communications,
football,
Illinois,
Internships,
marketing,
production,
sports,
television
This is a guest post by Heather R. Huhman. Heather is the media relations manager at a national health care professional association and entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com.
Text 100 is a global, high tech public relations agency. They call themselves the world’s only “global boutique PR consultancy” or “big agency 2.0.” Like the public relations industry as a whole, Text 100 prides itself in constantly evolving to meet its clients’ needs. Speaking of clients, I recognize nearly every name on their client list, which includes PayPal, MTV, IBM, Adobe, eBay and more. This year, Text 100 took home two awards, including the 2009 Holmes Report “Best Agencies to Work For” where it ranked #6. The other award, also from Holmes Report, was “Best Campaign” for its work with Cisco.
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Tagged as:
account management,
California,
communications,
Internships,
New York,
public relations
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been well enough behaved during the course of my life to avoid any appearances in court. I did have to serve on jury duty for a day a few years ago, but most of knowledge about court rooms comes from tv and movies. Despite my limited knowledge of the legal process, I don’t find it hard to imagine that there’s room for innovation in our courts. Center for Court Innovation is a New York City based non-profit organization that is doing just that. They act “as the court system’s independent research and development arm, creating demonstration projects that test new ideas.” Some of their projects include community courts, drug courts, reentry courts, domestic violence courts, and mental health courts.
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Internships,
law,
New York,
non-profit,
research,
unpaid
Who doesn’t love the Constitution? Not only is it an extremely cool historical document, but it also happens to ensure our most sacred rights. You would think that such a document would be written with extreme clarity, but you probably know that ambiguity and interpretation come hand in hand with the Constitution. We’ve seen plenty of fractious debates end up in front of the Supreme Court and get settled with 5-4 decisions. The Constitution Project is a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that aims to build consensus on Constitutional issues.
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Tagged as:
Internships,
law,
non-profit,
public policy,
unpaid,
Washington DC
Happy Friday the 13th! If you let your belief in bad luck and superstition affect you on a daily basis, then you’re setting yourself back in the internship search. It really won’t do you any good. With that said, there are millions of people who suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia—the fear of Friday the 13th. One of the biggest symptoms of this phobia is an unwillingness to travel on Friday the 13th. There’s some debate as to whether this actually has a significant effect on the travel industry, but I’ve heard that you can get pretty good deals when the 13th day of a month falls on a Friday. Since I’m not a big fan of superstition—especially when it comes to the internship search—we’re going to fly in the face of paraskevidekatriaphobia and take a look at internships with Orbitz Worldwide. If you don’t already know, they’re a Chicago based online travel company. In late 1999 they were formed through a partnership between 5 major airlines—Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and American—to compete with Expedia and Travelocity.
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Tagged as:
analyst,
holiday,
Illinois,
Internships,
marketing,
software development,
travel,
web development
I have to admit that I pretty much stopped watching local news after going to school and living in Central New York for four years. I swear that every night the news would come on at 11 PM, and there would be a new crew reporting live from a barn that caught on fire. Here in Chicago it’s more likely to be a shooting or possibly some government corruption. I’m sure that your area has its own regular story. Usually I like to talk about how the Internet is kicking traditional media’s butt, but that hasn’t been true when it comes to local stuff. TV and newspapers still own the local market, which is why NBC Chicago and Telemundo Chicago would be pretty cool places to intern. (Telemundo is a local network much like NBC 5 Chicago, but it’s tailored to a Spanish speaking audience.)They’re still the place to go for local news (whether it’s on the web or on the tube).
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Tagged as:
advertising,
bilingual,
broadcast journalism,
broadcasting,
business development,
communications,
editorial,
healthcare,
Illinois,
Internships,
journalism,
marketing,
production,
research,
sales,
software development,
television,
unpaid,
video,
web development
Although we don’t have a Veterans Day themed post for today, we hope that you’ll celebrate by thanking a Vet and possibly checking out our post from last year on internships at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Earlier this week we took a look at Seed Media Group, a relatively new company that is finding success in an otherwise declining industry by focusing on a specific niche. Another company that is taking a similar approach is EatingWell Media Group, which is based in Charlotte, VT (near Burlington). They are “a fast-growing, independent communications company producing an award-winning national consumer magazine, high-quality food and nutrition-related books, a content-rich website, e-mail newsletters, and serving content to strategic partners with other electronic media.” It’s all about healthy eating without sacrificing the enjoyment of food. Some people think that those two things are mutually exclusive, but EatingWell Media Group has built its business on delivering content that proves otherwise.
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design,
editorial,
Internships,
magazines,
marketing,
media,
production,
seo,
software development,
unpaid,
Vermont,
web development,
writing
Today’s post comes with a big announcement. I’m writing a book! A textbook on Career Development to be precise. The best part of that news is that the textbook is going to be available online for free because I’m working with an awesome publisher named Flat World Knowledge. They’re a Nyack, NY based startup that is aiming to revolutionize the textbook industry. I’m sure many have you have been forced into spending thousands of dollars over the course of your college career on textbooks (and how many of them remained in their shrink wrap?). Flat World Knowledge is building a business by providing you with better, more affordable options. Textbooks from Flat World can be read online for free. You can pay to print a chapter (or the whole book) at home. You can buy a softcover copy in black and white—or color. You can even get an audio book version. When my book comes out, you can read it however you want to read it—and you’ll never be forced to pay an arm and a leg for it.
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education,
Internships,
marketing,
paid,
public relations,
publishing,
sales,
virtual
The magazine business is dying, right? A lot of people seem to think so, and for the most part I agree with them; however, we seem to be seeing a new breed of magazines cropping up. They’re web integrated, extremely well designed, and laser focused on a specific audience. They still sell advertising, but they offer advertisers access to a well-defined audience that general interest magazines can’t compete with. The company behind one of these magazines (Seed Magazine) is Seed Media Group. They’re based out of New York City, and they are a media and technology company built on the premise that science is culture. They’ve been offering a new take on science since 2005, and it seems to be working with them.
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blogging,
design,
editing,
editorial,
Internships,
journalism,
magazines,
media,
New York,
paid,
science,
writing
Although I’ve never been there, I hear that the Mall of America is great. It’s an impressive spectacle of consumerism, and it’s a must-see if you’re in the Twin Cities area. However, I’d imagine that it’s not the most educational place to take your kids. Luckily, Minnesotans have the Minnesota Children’s Museum in St. Paul. It was named by Cookie Magazine as one of “sixteen road trip-worthy museums that put the emphasis on children.” The Museum is loaded with cool exhibits like Earth World, which focuses on local habitats, and Habitot, which creates exploration opportunities for toddlers. They also play host to exciting traveling exhibits like Dinosaurs, which will be arriving in 42 days (they have a countdown on their homepage).
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Tagged as:
development,
education,
events,
human resources,
information technology,
Internships,
marketing,
Minnesota,
museum,
non-profit,
operations,
program development,
recruiting,
social media,
unpaid
Did you know that how wealthy your family is has a lot to do with which sports you play growing up? Sometimes it’s a demographic thing, but a lot of times it just has to do with whether or not your family can afford to pay for the equipment. Take hockey for example. There’s a ton of stuff you need, and it’s all expensive; whereas, basketball can be played with just a ball and a hoop in a park. There are no hard and fast rules about this, but it’s very clear that many kids don’t get the opportunity to try some sports because of the costs involved. Good Sports is a Boston based non-profit that “provides sports equipment to disadvantaged youth in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Philadelphia, and Chicago.” They may have pictures of Boston athletes plastered all over their website (yuck!), but they’re doing a really good thing.
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development,
Internships,
marketing,
non-profit,
outreach,
public relations,
research,
sports,
unpaid
When I was in college, I lived in a rundown house with 9 other guys. Pretty much all of them rode skateboards. Most people would have a coat or shoe rack at their front door. We had a skateboard rack. I was the one guy who didn’t ride a board, because I did not want to suffer the embarrassment of coming home bloodied and with ripped clothes. I kept my action sporting to crawling through gorges to find undiscovered fishing spots. Now, I’m not sure where my buddies bought their skateboards, but I’m pretty sure that had they known about Bamboo Sk8, they would have considered them. Bamboo Sk8 is an Oceanside, CA based company that uses natural products (bamboo possibly) to make sustainable skateboards.
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California,
Internships,
marketing,
social media,
sports,
unpaid
“Ball game over! World Series over! Yankees win! THEEEEEEEE YANKEES WINNNNNNNNN!” Although I was watching tv and not listening on the radio, I heard John Sterling’s call in my head as soon as Cano threw to Teixeira to get the 27th out and a 27th World Championship. As you can probably guess, I’m a huge Yankees fan, and I’m in a great mood. Since we’ve already covered internships with Major League Baseball teams, internships with the YES Network, and plenty of other internships in baseball, today we’re going to take a look at Steiner Sports. They’re based out of New Rochelle, NY, and consider themselves the “the leader in autographed sports memorabilia and sports collectibles.” They also happen to have a very strong partnership with the New York Yankees, so they are the place to go for your 2009 Championship collectibles. Whether you want a seat from the old stadium or an official Championship locker room t-shirt, they’ve got it. You can even buy a Derek Jeter autographed 2009 World Series ball despite the fact that he probably hasn’t had time yet to sit down and sign autographs.
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baseball,
development,
events,
holiday,
Internships,
marketing,
New York,
sales,
sports
I’m going to be brutally honest with this one. When I landed on the The Wrap’s Home page, I immediately clicked the back button. I thought that I had landed on one of those Google Money Maker scam pages (it’s all because of the font choice). After processing what I had seen, I decided to take a second look. Despite their poor design choices, The Wrap is a legitimate site—if a site that covers entertainment industry analysis and breaking hollywood news can be considered legitimate (I kid). Now, The Wrap shouldn’t be confused with gossip sites like TMZ or Perez Hilton, this is actually an industry focused site that does primary source reporting. They’re venture funded and quite obviously located in Los Angeles. I don’t know a lot about the entertainment industry and how it’s covered by the press, but it looks like The Wrap is growing a solid audience with their web-based content.
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blogging,
California,
entertainment,
Internships,
journalism,
writing
One thing that I find really exciting is the fact that there are cool startups popping up all across the country. Yes, Silicon Valley and the Pacific Northwest are still the primary places for technology focused companies to open up shop, but that’s becoming less and less true. That’s why I was intrigued by Fanzter—they’re web products company based in Collinsville, CT. Considering the fact that I’m from Connecticut and have never heard of Collinsville (it’s near Hartford), you have to consider it an unusual location for a startup (they would tell you it’s optimally located between Boston and New York City). Fanzter’s first (and only current) product is called Coolspotters. It’s a website that “makes it easy to discover and buy the products, brands, and fashions being used by your favorite celebrities – in their real lives, and in movies and television.” It reminds me a lot of what Delivery Agent is doing.
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Connecticut,
editorial,
fashion,
Internships,
paid,
software development,
trends,
web development,
writing
This is a guest post by Heather R. Huhman. Heather is the media relations manager at a national health care professional association and entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com.
Cohn & Wolfe, a global public relations agency, recently won the 2009 Holmes Report “Best Agency to Work For.” That’s not the only award they took home this year, however. In 2009 alone, they won eight other awards, ranging from the 2009 PRSA Bronze Anvil Awards for Commendation: Press Kits/Media Kits – Digital to the 2009 Gold Sabre Award for Social Marketing. It’s always so exciting to work at an agency that’s being recognized by the industry for excellence. With 10 wide-ranging practice areas, there’s likely to be a fit for nearly everyone. As a huge baseball fan, sports marketing would probably be my favorite!
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Tagged as:
communications,
Internships,
New York,
paid,
public relations
I’m a nut about wildlife. I don’t watch Animal Planet all day or anything, but I get ridiculously excited when I see a new species in the wild. My hope is to one day run into a mountain lion in the wild, at least as long as I’m not being hunted. As fanatical as I am about wildlife, I bet I don’t even come close to the people at the Wildlife Conservation Society, a New York City based non-profit. They were founded in 1895 with a “clear mission to save wildlife and wild places across the globe.” Their first major success was aiding the recovery of American Bison, and now they’re working to “protect many of the world’s iconic creatures here and abroad, including gorillas in the Congo, tigers in India, polar bears in the Arctic, and ocean giants in our world’s amazing seascapes.” Beyond doing that, they also run 5 parks in New York City—the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo.
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animals,
biology,
conservation,
development,
human resources,
information technology,
Internships,
New York,
non-profit,
paid,
research,
sales,
science,
zoology
Happy Halloween! Yesterday we took a look at Mars and talked about Halloween candy, but today we’re going to take a different tack. Since we’re told from an early age that candy will rot our teeth, I figure that Halloween is the perfect time to discuss a dental non-profit. It’s also appropriate because many people would consider the dentist to be way scarier than even the most deranged Halloween costume. After a little searching, I came across Children’s Dental Health Project. They’re a relatively small Washington, DC based non-profit organization that “advances policies that improve children’s access to oral health.” Now, this definitely does not mean that I think that anyone should give out toothbrushes for Halloween, but make sure you brush after eating all that candy.
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Tagged as:
advocacy,
healthcare,
holiday,
Internships,
non-profit,
public policy,
Washington DC
Tomorrow is Halloween, which means that we need to talk about candy today. We’ve already looked at companies like Jelly Belly, The Hershey Company, Charles Chocolates, Vosges, and Just Born Quality Confections. We’ve also discussed jobs at Mars & Co., which is a consulting firm, and not to be confused with Mars, the CPG and candy company. You probably know them best for M&M’s, Snickers, Dove, Milky Way, Twix, and Mars bar; however, they’re also behind Pedigree, Whiskas, Uncle Ben’s, and quite a few other brands. For your sake I hope you only run into the good stuff and not Whiskas or Pedigree during your trick-or-treating. While headquartered in McLean, VA, Mars has locations all across the world. They’re a huge company with a ton of international business, which makes for a great place to gain some experience.
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engineering,
finance,
food,
holiday,
human resources,
information technology,
international,
Internships,
Logistics,
Manufacturing,
marketing,
nationwide,
research,
sales,
Virginia
It took long enough, but Internet video is everywhere. Yes, we had online video 10 years ago, but now it actually looks good—and works. The main reason for this is that end users (you and me) finally have technology in their homes that can handle playing online video. This means high speed Internet connections and computers with enough processing power to not crash when a website uses a Flash video player. The issue for content creators is that delivering video still poses some challenges. Sure, I was able to produce an online job search training course that relied heavily on video with little trouble, but I wasn’t delivering video to thousands or even millions of people (I wish I had the problem). As your use base increases, the challenge of delivering video increase exponentially. Moreover, managing video content in an organized fashion is a completely different challenge than organizing text and images. Brightcove is a Cambridge, MA based company that provides an online video platform for many of the worlds biggest brands.
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Tagged as:
business development,
customer service,
data,
engineering,
Internships,
marketing,
Massachusetts,
operations,
quality assurance,
quality engineer,
sales,
software development,
training,
video,
web development
Whether you think the human race is going to end at the hands of the greenhouse effect or you just don’t like paying 3 bucks a gallon for gas, you likely have a vested interest in alternative energy. There’s a good chance that some time in your lifetime our main energy source will be something other than fossil fuels. Then again, I’m just coming to the realization that I won’t see flying cars in my lifetime. Hopefully I’m wrong about that one. Anyway, there are a ton of companies that are vying to win a big share of the alternative energy market. Many of these are small startups that you’ve never heard of. Their websites are ugly, and they’re usually not located in big cities. You’d never guess it from their appearance, but they’re actually at the forefront of engineering technology. One of these companies is Malvern, PA based Franklin Fuel Cells. Their focus is on “commercializing a unique solid oxide fuel cell (SOFCs) technology that can operate directly on today’s hydrocarbon fossil fuels as well as future fuels such as, biofuels and hydrogen.” I don’t really know what that means, but it sounds pretty cool.
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Tagged as:
energy,
engineering,
green,
Internships,
paid,
Pennsylvania,
research
