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Journal of Camille Dezamis Inter at XNG Natural Gas

Thanks to the Riipen project and the American culture class of Mr. Jay Halfond

Monday, 19th September 2016

At 8:50 am, I received email that wakes me up with good news: I am part of the Riipen

project with one of my friend Alix! We are assigned in a company called XNG. To be honest, I have

never heard of the company. I went on their website and it is a company that takes care of the

transportation of natural gas by truck in the New England (mainly).

I am really excited to learn new things and to apply all I have learned from the past two

years at PSB Paris School of Business. I am also quite nervous because I don’t know if I have the

academic level or if I am enough qualified for the job as a consultant marketing. Because I want to

learn more about my position, I send an email to Alice, the contact the Riipen website gave to me. I

am waiting for an answer. Wish me luck.

Friday, 23rd September 2016

Today is a big day. I have a meeting on the phone with Alice. Alice is the woman who

answered to my email when I explained to her that I was a member of the Riipen project and I was

her new intern. We chat a little bit by email and we figure it out that we were both free this Friday

to talk about my previous experiences, about the project in itself, learn more about the company,

etc…

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Here I am on the phone before Alice answering my phone call. I seem to be relaxed but I

can assure you that I was really nervous. English is not my mother tongue and I was scared to

don’t understand anything and that Alice could thinks that I am a joke. I really wanted to do my

best even if I was nervous.

The phone call was planned at 11:00 am and it was a really success. Alice is a kind and

joyful person. She was really happy to hear more about my previous internships and me. She told

me that I don’t have to be worried, that I have the level to succeed this project. She explained to me

the purpose of my internship at XNG: I have to modernize, create and bring new ideas for the

marketing strategy of the brand.

This internship seems really good and quite challenging but I am excited. Alice feels it and

asked me if I can come in person to their headquarters downtown to meet the director and the

team to discuss further about the project.

Wednesday, 28th September 2016

Today, I am nervous. I woke up really early to get ready and to meet the whole XNG team

in their headquarters. I took my laptop to show Alice and the directors my marketing and

communication works from previous internships as they asked me. They want to know exactly in

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which extent I can help them. It is the first time they participate to the Riipen project and they do

not know what to expect.

I arrived downtown Boston at the tube station Government Center at 11:00 am. When I get

to the office, I met the director who is really friendly and welcomed me in the conference room. I

met for the first time in person Alice. She asked me to show her my previous projects and she

understood quickly that I am quite effective with new technologies and social media and that I

take pictures of quality.

Alice explained to me the situation: XNG is a little company that is getting better and better

everyday. They are surfing on the trend of natural gas and with their ingenious idea of

transporting condensed gas by truck in all security to reach areas where people need more gas

because the pipelines isolate them, XNG is THE company. The main problem of the brand is their

presence on the social medias, their brochure is quite out of date, and they need more materials

such as pictures and videos to attract even more customers. Because they want to extend their

business in different places in the United States, Alice explained to me that she is waiting from me

to create new content for the utilities. She wants something new, design, attractive, joyful, and

professional of good quality.

When she explained to me everything, I was quite nervous but I hided it. She talked to me

with lots of vocabulary from the natural gas industry and I don’t have any vocabulary about it. I

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am really happy to rely on the brochure, the pictures and the videos that I saw before coming to

understand most of the speech. I told her that I would need some time to understand all the

terminologies from her job but I will do it.

When I told her that everything she explained to me with quite conceptual and far from

what I know she thought that it could be a good idea to take me and Alix to a central where they

refill the trucks before they go to the customers.

Friday, 14th October 2016

Today with Alix we take the train, direction Exeter, New Hampshire.

It is really early and we have to go to a central to meet there Alice and few employees and

technicians that work there.

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It is a really good idea from XNG because thanks to this little trip of one day we can

understand better what we are working on, take pictures with the Autumnal color that can go in

the new brochure. We are really excited.

After few hours, we arrived at the central.

Here I pose in from of the sign of XNG in a little town of New Hampshire, Eliot, where the

central is. It is a little town in the middle of the forest.

We had the chance to meet few employees (technicians, drivers…)

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These employees are really welcoming and take us in a tour. But before we had to dress up

for security:

Here is my outfit. I am not going to lie: I loved it! I was feeling really professional, listening

to all the explanation of how they transport from one way to another the gas. This process is really

complex and the security rules are really strict.

To understand better the core business of our company, one of the technician took us in a little tour

and we saw :

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To see from our eyes the core business and the business in action was really impressive and

interesting. I was in charge of taking pictures and Alix took notes to don’t forget anything about

this trip to the central.

After few hours talking to the employees and looking to everything, Alice drove us to the

main office few minutes away from the central.

The main office is a wonderful place in the forest. We met all the employees that are in

charge of the safety and the efficiency of the business. We talked a little bit about our project and

what we already thought about to improve the marketing strategy of the brand.

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Then, we had 3 hours to work in the office on our project, edit the pictures etc. Alice

explained to us that for the weekend of Halloween, she would like us to give back to her a

complete innovative marketing strategy with new ideas for the company. She wants a Powerpoint

presentation and a speech for us to explain to the director our strategy for the company.

Wednesday 9th November 2016

Today, me and Alix are ready. It is time to present to the director the ideas we were

working on for the past month. After few meetings with Alix we knew in which way we wanted

our strategy to go and we were really excited to present them.

When we arrived in the office downtown Boston, the director welcomed us with Alice and

the meeting began straight away. During the whole meeting, the director, Alice and an engineer

who came were really please by our work. They validate all our ideas and congratulate us. After

the meeting, Alix and I received an email from Alice saying “GREAT JOB TODAY! Very

exciting!!!”. I was really happy about it because we worked to find solutions to a problem they had

and they were pleased by our work.

This experience to present in front of important people is something that I am not really

afraid off; it is something that I am stimulated by. I love to learn from their feedbacks and offer

them new perspectives that they wouldn’t though of.

Thursday, 8 December 2016

Tomorrow is the day when I have a meeting to actually make into reaality our idea to

update the LinkedIn of the company to make it looks more active and professional with one of the

engineer. I love the fact that we participated to the whole project: we developped the idea and we

make it into practice. It is the first time during an internship that I will have the time to see the

final resulting before the end of my working period within the company.

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We also have to deliver our vision with Alix of the new brochure we would like them to do.

Because we are still quite external of the company and we still have customers’ eyes we use that to

develop our perfect brochure for the company with the pictures I have took.

Conclusion

I would like to thanks Jay Halfond for trusting us and for this good experience during

which we learnt a lot. I would also thanks all the members of XNG who had the patience to

respond to all our emails and requests.

This experience was really memorable because we were in contact with the real work

environment and we met amazing people that love their job and know how to make it

understandable for girls that are really far from this universe.

So thank you very much.