This episode of Insider InSites gathered some insights in a little bit of a different way:

E.B. Moss spoke directly with some of the attendees and a panelist from the 4th  Annual 1stFive Summer Intern Experience. At Media Village 1stFive refers to people who are in their first five years of the media, marketing, and advertising industries. Interns? They’re the ones who work hard all summer long, trying to gain their own insights about what this field is that they might be getting into. MediaVillage, Turner and Horizon Media gathered about 350 students and invited them to hear from some senior industry leaders, like our own Jack Myers, the Founder of 1stfive.org and MediaVillage.com, and Donna Speciale, President of Turner Ad Sales, Eileen Benwitt, Chief Talent Officer for Horizon Media, and a host of other luminaries.

The students were really interested in what these senior leaders had to say, and we were really interested in what these Generation Z students had to say during breakout sessions afterwards. We heard some pretty heartfelt stories from these students, ranging from their experience with diversity and the challenges that that presented, to the thrill of being able to really make on the job contributions, whether it was in production or social media, or coming up with a smart media plan. The stories are heartwarming. You can read a lot more about them on mediavillage.com in the 1stFive section.  

Here's the transcript:

E.B. Moss    We're here at the 1stFive Experience. My current victim is Casey Carty. She's a senior at College of Holy Cross, and she had a great opportunity interning at Turner this summer, right? Tell me a little bit about the department where you work.

Casey C.:   I'm working on the Solutions Team at Turner, specifically in the News Department, so I work with CNN, HLN, and Great Big Story.

Moss:  Are you already a news fan, or was this a department you were put into regardless of your interests?

Casey     I think it was more of a marriage... I've always been very passionate about politics in particular. I'm actually a political science major at Holy Cross, so it worked out really beautifully. I'm also really passionate about human interest stories, which is something Great Big Story does so, so well right now. They're creating beautiful content, from all around the world and the people that live within it.

 Moss:     Tell me a little bit about your goals for your career in media.

Casey  I think that for me it's really important to be constantly challenged, and to find something that I'm really passionate about, something that I can throw all my energy behind. I want something that's really going to move me and move the people around me....I'm loving branded content right now; it’s an amazing way that media's really catering to clients right now, and companies that want to put their message out there, making it interesting to audiences, and really relevant to what's happening in the world. Some do it not so well, but the people that are doing really well are phenomenal...and it's only going to create more opportunities and visibility for people.

Moss:  What did you get to put your hands on in developing branded content this summer as an intern specifically?

Casey:  I just finished my intern project, where I had the chance to pitch two editorial and two branded content ideas for Airbnb, which was really fun. It's a company that's very near and dear to my heart, because I use it quite a bit [studying in Scotland] ... I got to was partner them up with Great Big Story and the incredible human interest stories that they're telling. A specific one was one about a couple who live in Maine... renting their home out and pursuing their dream of traveling up and down the coast of New England on their sailboat. ...

Moss:  What did they let you do specifically? How embracing was Turner of your ideas and how much did they let you push up your sleeves and put your hands on things?

Casey: This is more of a thought starter, so it was something that we were theoretically pitching Airbnb, so no production. I'm more on the marketing and sales side, but where a lot of my input came in was the idea...I sat down with a couple of the producers and we just talked it out. We were like, "What about this? What about that?" We made up a story and then we went out on Google and actually found those people, which was really fun. Julie and Michael came to life. ...

Moss:  You felt that people listened to you as a 20-something-year-old and you haven't graduated college yet, but you felt respected and listened to?

Casey:  I think it's a lot about how you portray yourself. I'm learning so, so much from the people around me, but I think that they also realize that I have valid ideas. I have a valid opinion. It took a while, of course, as I started out. I'm not going to burst out on my first meeting, "Oh, I have a great idea."

I'm still learning at that point, but I think as I started to realize what the company was trying to portray for themselves, and what Turner is and the brand image that Turner has and has established for itself for so many years. I started to understand that, which I still haven't completely after two months or three months, but I think I got a better perspective and I was able to talk to my supervisor and say, "I think I have a really good idea."

They'd be like, "Bring it up in the next meeting. We want to hear it." They really opened that door for me and shined that light on my idea, my creative side that maybe wasn't always being shown when I was taking notes or copying papers.

Moss: There was a lot of talk earlier in your breakout session here at the 1stFive Summer Intern Experience about diversity. What's your observation about that, and what's been your experience? Do you sense inclusion? ... exclusion? Talk to me a little bit about diversity and what you want in a future organization you'll join.

Casey: I think one of my fellow Turner interns said it really well, that companies can always do better. There's so much more that companies can do, because it's never going to be enough. I think there's always so much more that we can do. I think that companies need to push beyond the gold stamp of "We hired two minorities this year." That's not enough. They need to be people that young people in the company, young people in the industry coming up, can view as mentors, as people in leadership positions, because they're qualified.

They're ready to take on those jobs and they're ready to push the companies forward. Women, minorities, they're all here for it, and they're ready to do big things in the industry. Hopefully companies like Turner, big trendsetters, CBS, Disney, hopefully they realize that, they recognize that and they do more, because there's definitely more to be done.

E.B. Moss: I think that you express yourself beautifully. I think that you're well on your way, Casey Carty in case anybody's hiring in another year!

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Now I'm sitting here with another fabulous intern, Catharine Okoye, who was in a different breakout session here at the 1stFive Summer Intern Experience. Tell me a little bit about where you've been interning this summer, Cat.

Catharine O.:   This summer I'm interning with Experience Harlem. It's a local Harlem blog that informs people of all the essential activities to experience in Harlem, uptown. I've been a marketing intern, so just learning how to create and send messages that reflects what Experience Harlem is all about.

Moss:   This is your second internship. What inspired you to apply for Experience Harlem? How did that form, or whatever you've done in your other internships, form where you want to go in your future?

Cat:  I was inspired to apply for Experience Harlem because of the lack of diversity [in my previous internship.] Experience Harlem is owned by a black woman and she has a lot of experience within the industry of marketing, working for Ebony and Essence. I just wanted to go to where my voice would be represented, respected, and obviously reflected, and I have a lot of hands-on experience right now. She's letting me do a lot of things that, especially with the social media marketing, I didn't really get a chance to do before.

Moss: What do you get to do as an intern? Tell me all about your experiences.

Cat:  I had another internship at WABC-TV and I had a lot of hands-on work I could do there too. They also let us go to different departments as well, which was really cool. But with Experience Harlem I get a lot more because it's way smaller, so I get to see a lot more of the action: I attend events, do street teams, sending out guides...As far as in the office, I am doing social media marketing, so I'm looking at the different activities that are going on in Harlem, and how I can create a short caption to really relay the information to her audience...of Uptown, which is Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, and let them know, "Yo, you need to come experience this, this weekend, or experience it today, it's going to be fun," stuff like that.

Moss: You feel valued. You feel like they listen to you and that they take up your recommendations and your creativity?

Cat:  Yeah. I feel like I'm learning a lot with this internship. I'm learning that it takes a lot of thought and effort, and a lot of meaningfulness, and making sure that you really do care about the type of messages that you're sending out. It's not something that you just do quickly, [despite] this era that we're in, people are so incentivized to send out whatever they want so quickly.

 I feel like preparation... is really important alongside creativity. That's what I'm learning and just trying to figure out, actually, how my path is going to go. It's not as straightforward as I thought it was going to be. It's changing.

Moss:  That's really good to know and to own and decide where you want to go after that. A big focus for us at MediaVillage and a large part of why we wanted to do this Summer Intern Experience was to talk about diversity. It's very important in terms of the Gen-Z generation which is very multicultural and represents where America is going in terms of the [shifting] balance of minority and majority [population]. What do you think, as a Gen Z woman, in terms of any progress we're making, any hope for the future, any balance that you're seeing or not?

Cat: This is tough for me. As far as diversity goes, I feel like there's a lot more work that could be done, especially when you see the transition from Obama White House to now a Trump White House. I really do believe that America can do more to make people feel more inclusive. I do see progress somewhat, and... I do bag on Trump, but at the same time his confidence is something that I can't really just knock down.

                                                      I've been inspired by the fact that he's able to be himself. It makes me more inspired to make sure that I stick to my truth and communicate that to others, and making sure that I'm helping my community and we're helping ourselves to progress. I do see it. It just needs more work. I feel if there were more people who believe that, they need to just do as they say.

Moss:  I love that you took a positive out of what's going on in our country today, and that you're applying it. It sounds like you're applying it in terms of choosing where you wanted to intern as well, is that right?

Cat: Yes, yes. Put your money where your mouth is.

Moss: Great conversation, Cat. Keep us in mind when you're looking for that first job out of college. You sound great!

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Finally, I had a chance to also catch up with Eileen Benwitt, who is the EVP, Chief Talent Officer at Horizon Media. Eileen was a speaker as part of our 1st Five opening panel. Then she led a breakout session and really got to get inside the heads of some of the interns who spent their summers both at Horizon and a slew of other media companies.

Moss: Eileen, what would your big takeaway be from today?

Eileen Benwitt: I would say the level of intelligence and awareness of the interns really blew me away. This was an incredibly articulate, passionate, purposeful group of interns that, I would hire all of them if I could.

 Moss:  A lot of what we talked about today was the Gen-Z attitude and what they're expecting, hoping for, the difference between them and Millennials. What was your take on their perceptions and their attitudes?

Benwitt: It's an interesting question, because during the breakout, a couple of people said that they were surprised and pleasantly pleased that as Gen-Z that they're different than Millennials. They're desperate to have their own identity and not to be blended in with Millennials. They themselves, to hear that, were surprised and pleased.

Moss:  What do you think is a key difference, for example?

Benwitt: I think the key difference with Gen-Z is that they grew up smart. What I mean by smart: smartphones, smart technology, smart TVs, and that interaction is something that none of us grew up with. I can't imagine what it's like but for them that's all they know: They have access. They have interplay, they have intersection with everything, so we have a lot to learn from them.

Moss: Fascinating, yes, and Jack Myers [in his keynote] asked them to "Please disrupt. Disrupt, we need you as our future leaders." Do you feel similar?

Benwitt: bsolutely, because they're in it. They're experiencing it. That's their comfort. What I'm interested in is what is their discomfort, because if you're comfortable in disruption, what's next? They're going to teach us that.

Moss: Yes, and part of the advice that you gave to these 1stFivers was to develop an understanding of themselves... There was a lot of conversation around diversity Tell me more about what Horizon's doing to satisfy the Gen-Z interest in seeing diversity.

Benwitt:  Their level of awareness that they each brought to this topic moved me quite a bit and it made me feel really passionate about figuring it out, because we don't have the diversity that we want in this community, in this industry. We absolutely, we have to figure it out, and we all are trying to figure it out.

We're partnering with different organizations, different schools to understand and see what we can do to bring more diversity in. I think it's going to be what's going to change this industry.

Moss:  Did you identify some standout interns that you can see working here? What were some of the qualities that you just loved?

Benwitt: Their awareness of themselves, their awareness of the marketplace, their awareness of the role social media, media advertising has in community, in business, in the socio-economic landscape that we're all a part of.

E.B. Moss:   Well said. Eileen Benwitt, who is the EVP and Chief Talent Officer, Horizon Media, thank you so much for not only being a part of the 1stFive Summer Intern Experience but also for guiding them through some really great lessons in the breakout session.