Discovering new skills is fun ... and scary

I graduated with a B.A. in Communication and a certificate in Public Relations with the intention to enter into the PR field with reckless abandon. Fortunately for me I scored an incredible internship that opened doors for me in the form of employee and executive communication. I'd never heard of them before, never given any thought to how they happen, but thank God for that internship because I discovered something I am incredibly passionate about and talented in.

Today I manage the employee communication program for my company. It includes a weekly company-wide e-newsletter; a monthly manager e-newsletter; a monthly bank employee e-newsletter; a quarterly print magazine; our internet; internal earnings communication; employee events (and sometimes external events; employee engagement; and a little bit of our executives' communications. I LOVE it! I also developed most of it. LOVE that!

Currently I'm tackling a revamp of our corporate intranet site, which includes the addition of a CMS system. We're getting set to launch in the next month and need to train internal editors (content owners) on navigating the system, how to make changes, etc. My "brilliant" IT department didn't include training in their scope of work with our technology vendor, so the development and teaching of the training has fallen to my shoulders. News alert: I'm not a trainer. It's an incredible opportunity for me to shine - and a great way to make headway on goal #12 - or a huge possibility for me to fall flat on my ass in front of 60 people in my 560 person organization.

I'm scared and I'm realizing the enormous amount it effort it is taking to develop everything (training materials, PPT, script, training templates) from scratch. But somewhere outside of my fear I'm also really excited to be learning a new skill that I'll be able to use in future positions and add to my resume.

It's good to know that even when I'm not an intern I can still find a way for doors to open and broaden my skill set. Maybe that next door will allow me to finally understand what the hell net interest margin is; it'd really be helpful when I'm trying to explain it to our employees.

-B