On 26 August 2010, Flow welcomed Terri Modrakowski to the team, albeit on a very short-term basis, to spend some time learning about the big, bad world of work. Terri, aka Anko, is a Grade 10 learner at Charter College in Honeydew, who was tasked with notching up some work experience in her school holidays and then reporting back on her experiences and learnings. Here’s what she had to say:
Flowstar for a day, Anko Modrakowski
“On Thursday, 26 August, I spent a day at Flow Communications. This was so that I could experience the career that I might wish to pursue in the future. As a teenager, I was not pleased to be dragged out of bed and into the cold breeze, but the staff and members of Flow made it an exciting and fascinating learning experience.
“The instant I walked through the door, I was welcomed in by Colin Ford, who gave me the opportunity to experience the wonders of web design, word creation and publishing. Over a cup of tea we discussed what I expected to learn on my day at work. Writing, designing and publishing dynamic and fresh ideas these days can be a difficult task at best, but it is a task that Flow workers handle with utmost refinement and detailed thinking.”
The first stop was the design studio. A gentle tune of music danced through the air and pictures of different styles of creativity hung on the walls. This all contributed to the wonderfully creative atmosphere where the creators of online layout masterpieces practise their art. I learned that it is a complicated process. Computers overflow with virtual tons of research. The designer must decide what’s needed for a site before designing its backbone; each site is customised to its owner’s specific needs and its designer’s unique style. The designers’ imaginations flow into buttons and layouts that enable visitors to access blogs, links and networking sites easily and to provide feedback to express their thoughts.
Soon it was off to the writing studio where the content of the websites and publications is generated and uploaded. Here I was taught how to upload documents onto the website and experienced the stress of the workers. After the somewhat tedious process of uploading many links, the customer decided that he did not like the idea that he had requested initially and that the links had to be moved and changed to fit new specifications. I can imagine that this is a horrifying occurrence, all the hard work that goes into crafting a web page can be thrown away and abandoned by an indecisive customer! But I learned that “the customer is always right” and that the Flow team will bend over backwards to make sure he (or she) is happy.
Behind the scenes, all of the coding and formatting happens. Letters and numbers that resemble hieroglyphics to the average person stand boldly on the screens. These are a code, a code that anyone can learn but the mastery of the code depends on the individual and their precise guiding hand. One mistake can mean the difference between sink or swim, artwork and a catastrophe or even the future of a company.
Flow’s creative feats are most likely due to its colourful personality; each member is friendly and committed to putting their best work forward. Every department relies on the others to reach their goal. The accumulation of great talents could only produce amazing feats of internet originality, such as TEACH South Africa, the Nelson Mandela Foundation, and Etana Insurance to name but a few.
My lessons from the day:
1. Getting out of bed in the morning can be hard, but you have to do it if you want to get somewhere.
2. To survive in the business world you have to be able to deal with people maturely.
3. To make a business work everyone has to do their share, even better if you can work together.
4. Creating quality ideas takes time, you can’t rush it.
5. Don’t do things you don’t enjoy, you won’t get anywhere worthwhile.
6. Your mom doesn’t come to work with you every day to make you tea!