Ola’s Internship Experience

December 31, 2013 | By Ilfusion Team

From the moment I walked into Ilfusion’s office in Fort Worth’s West 7th District, I knew that I would love my internship experience. The office boasts an open-concept floor plan with tall ceilings and dozens of interesting fixtures. A wall against the bathroom features a Super Mario-inspired mural (complete with the ever-iconic question blocks!) and the fridge in the kitchen has tech-geek inspired “app” magnets and fliers for fun local events.

You can definitely tell that creative people work here.

The company culture is comfortable and friendly – exactly the kind of place you could see yourself working in for years and never having a day where you “dread” coming into work. Everyone in the office is friends, and as such, the conversations are light-hearted and the laughter is aplenty.

And the beauty of it all is that work still gets done, and it gets done well. Collaboration is a huge part of Ilfusion’s work culture, and everyone is on the same level. I don’t think that there is a single project that the company has undertaken in my time here that hasn’t required the collaboration of at least five or six employees. Even as an intern, I felt as though my input was appreciated and taken into serious consideration. I wasn’t stuck being the “go-fer,” grabbing coffees and making copies. Instead, I was able to play an active role in working with some of Ilfusion’s clients, writing blog posts, managing social media, and using analytics numbers to understand trends and growth – I even got to help name a contest that they launched for a client that generated a huge amount of social media growth!

In my short four months at Ilfusion, I have learned way more than I thought was possible about the business side of social media. As a millennial, I thought I knew every single in-and-out of Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Google+. I was very surprised to learn that I had only just seen the top layer of the social media world, and that it was a lot more complex than I had originally considered. Thanks to the guidance of my social media mentor extraordinaire, I learned a ton of new things that I know I will be able to use in the future in my own aspirations!

That being said, Ilfusion’s strength truly lies in its people – everyone in the office works hard and puts forth their best efforts, but they never take themselves too seriously, and random office adventures are a great way to strengthen the bond among the Ilfusion clan.

For example, one of the most amusing days at my internship happened a few weeks ago. As we sat at our desks, doing our work, we were shaken by a sudden noise at the doorway – it was a bird. Somehow, the avian had found its way through the door and had flown into the office. It fluttered above our heads, and we leaped into action. “Get it before it poops all over the place!” exclaimed one of my co-workers. Logically, the only way to get it to move was to throw little stuffed koala bears at it and hope that it would somehow find its way back out the door. While the bears did get the bird to move from the wall, it instead took residence atop the exit sign above the front door. The next plan was to gently coax it toward the door with pool cues. As Clif tried to help the bird off the exit sign and out the door, the action was filmed on multiple cell phones. After some maneuvering, laughter, and creative use of pool cues, the bird managed to find its way back out the door, the morning was considered a success, and company morale was high.

“The great bird misadventure” is just one example of how Ilfusion Creative’s environment fosters a sense of lightheartedness and how its employees embrace unexpected obstacles with creative problem solving, and have fun doing it! It’s refreshing to see an environment that seamlessly mixes business and hard work with fun. After all, if you have a job that you love, you never work a day in your life, right?

Thanks for the awesome experience this semester, Ilfusion!