If I ever make a ridiculous amount of money, the first thing that I’m going to do is buy a private jet—or at least a share in one. It seems like the ultimate way to travel. I’ve been on private planes before, but they had propellers and I was sitting next to or right behind the pilot (not nearly as classy). NetJets is a company that allows wealthy individuals and businesses to buy shares in private jets (since who really needs an entire jet to himself or herself?). They also have a subscription service called MarquisJet that lets you get a guaranteed number of hours of private jet use. It may not make private air travel affordable or cost effective, but it certainly puts it within reach for a lot more people. NetJets is by far the market leader, and they’re also a Berkshire Hathaway company. You know if Warren Buffett is investing in it, it has to be pretty good. NetJets is based in Columbus, OH, but quite obviously they operate all over the world. Continue reading about NetJets…
I know that it sounds like a place to buy illicit substances, but Dealer.com is a legal operation as far as I know. They may operate in the underworld of search engine optimization, but so do I, and I’m not a sleaze bag or spammer. Dealer.com is a Burlington, VT based company that “has become the global leader in online marketing solutions for the automotive industry.” They provide a platform for car dealers to generate leads online. I’d imagine that Dealer.com is a direct competitor with Cobalt, a company that we featured back in January. It’s no surprise that automotive online marketing is a growing industry. Most car dealerships don’t have the resources to do online marketing themselves—cheesy tv commercials don’t translate to the web. So how do they reach the masses of people who are using search engines to aid in car buying decisions? They either build an internal online marketing division, hire a local agency that doesn’t know anything about the industry, or go to Dealer.com. Which decision do you think will sell the most cars? Continue reading about Dealer.com…
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. Continue reading about Brightcove…
My parents are in town for the weekend, and I’ve been thinking of fun things to do with them around Chicago. One place that came to mind is Shedd Aquarium. I don’t think that we’ll end up getting a chance to make it there this weekend, but it was certainly a good thought. And once I thought about it, I realized that they’re probably have internships. Shedd Aquarium is much like other aquariums now, but it really stood out when it was opened in the 1930s. The aquarium was founded by John G. Shedd, retired president of Marshall Field & Company, and financed by him with $3 million in gifts. The goal was to bring Chicago up to par with other “cosmopolitan” cities that had aquariums, and by the end of the project Chicago’s aquarium “housed the greatest variety of sea life under one roof.” It also happened to be “the first inland aquarium with a permanent saltwater collection,” which meant that they had to ship millions of gallons of seawater from Florida on trains to provide a proper habitat for the sea life. Continue reading about Shedd Aquarium…
I think that e-mail is still the king of social media. We have all of these fancy social networking accounts, but they all send their notifications to our inboxes. If you want someone’s attention, e-mail is the way to go (assuming your message doesn’t look like spam). Heck, you’re probably reading this in your e-mail. That’s why e-mail marketing continues to be a rapidly growing industry. Over on One Day, One Job we’ve already taken a look at jobs with Constant Contact, Aweber, and e-Dialog, and now we’re going to look at an industrial strength e-mail marketing company, ExactTarget. They’re based in Indianapolis, and since 2000 they’ve been focused on “providing the most powerful on-demand software for email communications and finding the best and brightest marketers on the planet to revolutionize the way people think about email.” Continue reading about ExactTarget…
I’ve heard a lot of people complain about the plight of “Generation Y” and the bad rap that “we” get, but I think most of it is bunk. Complaining isn’t going to get “us” anywhere. Working hard and taking action will. There’s one exception though, and that’s with the political process where complaining is the preferred way of taking action. Right now we live in an era where older people have mortgaged our country’s future for their own benefit. Yes, they have literally amassed huge amounts of debt to pay for all of things that they want. We live in a Democracy, and there are more of them than us, so they get what they want. And when the bill arrives, they’ll have left the table—to put it nicely. This is a real generational issue, unlike the generational issues that “Gen-Y experts” are constantly talking about. Young People First is a Washington, DC based non-profit startup that is attacking this issue with fervor. They’re sick of “how much lip service was being paid to young voters, yet how little real inclusion in the political process they were offered,” and so am I. Continue reading about Young People First…
Yesterday I told you about TechnoServe and all of the good that they’re doing by spreading entrepreneurism. Mercado Global is taking a similar approach to fighting poverty, but they’re doing it with a very specific focus. They are a New Haven, CT based non-profit organization “that links the world’s most rural and economically-disadvantaged cooperatives to the U.S. market through a model that provides both fair wages and investments in community’s long-term development.” Even more specifically, they focus on working with women who produce handmade products. So, not only is Mercado Global creating positive change in the developing world, but they’re also providing you with shopping opportunities. Continue reading about Mercado Global…
Not too long ago, the only unmanned aerial vehicles were planes flown by women (yuck, yuck, yuck). Now we live in a world where planes can fly themselves. Sometimes I like to consider myself high-tech for running a business on the web, then I think about the companies that design, develop, and produce autonomous aircraft and realize that I’m not high-tech at all. Bingen, Washington’s Insitu is one of those companies. They build UAVs that have amazing reconnaissance, communications relay, and geophysical surveying capabilities. Most of their work has been with the military so far, but Insitu is operating in an infant industry with an amazing potential for growth. In fact, from 2004-2007 Insitu’s revenue grew by 1,702.4% to $50 million annually. This performance put them on Inc. Magazine’s List of the 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in 2006 and 2007. Insitu CEO Steve Sliwa was also named CEO of the Year for 2007 by Seattle Business Monthly. Insitu is clearly comfortable with taking off. Continue reading about Insitu…
I love Apple products, and I have for almost 20 years. My first computer was an Apple IIe, and now One Day, One Internship, One Day, One Job, and Found Your Career are all run from a MacBook Pro and an iPhone (ok, we have a server that is not a Mac). I’m constantly amazed by the innovation that comes out of Apple, and I’m probably unreasonable about how much I prefer Apple products. I mean, I sit in front of my computer and watch live blog updates whenever they’re making product announcements. In my mind there’s no cooler company than Apple, so it’s surprising that it took me this long to feature their internships. Continue reading about Apple…
After only two years away at college, my family decided to replace me. My sister wanted a new brother, and my parents wanted a new son, so they decided to host an exchange student. They had heard good things about AFS, and our high school had typically hosted an AFS student every other year, so they looked through the book of students whom they thought would be a good fit with our family and picked one from Italy. Luca was a great addition to our family, even if he was supposed to be my replacement. We had a great time with him, and learned a lot. I’m not sure that we did much to achieve AFS’s goal of “building a more just and peaceful world through international student exchange,” but we certainly enjoyed the experience. Continue reading about AFS…
I was blessed to grow up in Chicago during a time when the Bulls were the most dominant sports team in the world. I was crazy about each and every player on the team, but was especially obsessed with BJ Armstrong. Now, I know that you may be thinking that BJ is a funny choice, given the more obvious picks of Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and the likes, but there was something about BJ’s work ethic and drive that made me fall in love with him. So when I saw him eating dinner at a restaurant near my house, I could hardly contain myself. Now imagine yourself eating dinner everyday next to your favorite Olympic heroes. As an intern at the U.S. Olympic Committee you could do just that, plus breakfast and lunch.
Continue reading about U.S. Olympic Committee…
