Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 10, 2012

The cries of my host’s two-year-old son for more break­fast served as my alarm clock for Day 1 of my Princetern­ship. Priscilla Lo Atkins ’97, Vice President/Director of Media at Dig­i­tas Health, and her hus­band Joshua Atkins ‘96, Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Anes­the­si­ol­ogy and Crit­i­cal Care at the Hos­pi­tal of the Uni­ver­sity of Penn­syl­va­nia, were kind enough to let me stay over at their house dur­ing my Princetern­ship in Philadel­phia, Penn­syl­va­nia. As Mrs. Lo Atkins drove her son to day­care I spent the time get­ting dressed and prepar­ing for the day’s excit­ing events at Dig­i­tas Health. Dig­i­tas Health works with the worlds lead­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, bio­science, and med­ical device com­pa­nies to help their brands develop mean­ing­ful and valu­able con­nec­tions with health­care con­sumers and pro­fes­sion­als alike. I was per­son­ally curi­ous to see how these seem­ingly very dif­fer­ent fields, adver­tis­ing and med­i­cine, com­bined to pro­duce some­thing mean­ing­ful and some­thing that we can’t live without.

When Mrs. Lo Atkins came back from drop­ping off her son, she handed me a cou­ple of tokens for bus fare and we were off to work. We crossed the his­tor­i­cal cob­ble­stone streets and waited about a minute until the bus arrived. On our way to work my host pointed out the his­tor­i­cal build­ings around her neigh­bor­hood, Soci­ety Hill. A lit­tle closer to the office build­ing, she pointed out Inde­pen­dence Hall, where the con­sti­tu­tion was signed, and of course the Lib­erty Bell! After grab­bing some quick break­fast at a local eatery Mrs. Lo Atkins showed me City Hall, one of old­est munic­i­pal build­ings still in oper­a­tion. After­wards, we entered the Wana­maker Build­ing, which is now home to Macy’s, and trav­eled to the floor that houses Dig­i­tas Health. Right away I was shocked by how open the space was, how friendly every­one was, and how over­dressed I was. Notic­ing my shock, Mrs. Lo Atkins explained her dis­may when she went to inter­view with a suc­cess­ful invest­ment bank­ing com­pany at the end of her senior year. Their offices were just too strict and homo­ge­neous, she explained that this was one of rea­sons she fell in love with adver­tis­ing; it was just so open and welcoming.

After fin­ish­ing break­fast in the Café area, Mrs. Lo Atkins’s coworker, Jeanette, offered to give me a tour of the Dig­i­tas Health offices in its entirety while my host com­pleted a client call. Jeanette made a point to show me the beau­ti­ful con­fer­ence rooms, each named after parks in Philadel­phia, the relax­ing atmos­phere, and her favorite parts of the office. After­wards she took me to her desk and went through a pre­sen­ta­tion she pre­pared for me explain­ing a lit­tle bit more about what Dig­i­tas Health did and why she loved work­ing here. Jeanette explained that her cur­rent job is to work with a new dia­betes II drug. Her job in media is to work with her client to buy space on the inter­net to bet­ter adver­tise med­ica­tions and work with the other depart­ments at Dig­i­tas like Mar­ket­ing and Cre­ativ­ity to ensure that con­sumers and physi­cians bet­ter con­nect with their client’s drug. I was floored. I had absolutely no idea that this process I see every­day on the internet/television involved so much. I loved how metic­u­lous and dynamic this indus­try I knew lit­tle about yes­ter­day really was.

Joseph and Mr. and Mrs. Atkins

After Jeanette’s tour she took me to a meet­ing space and let me sit in on a meet­ing with her coworker Patti, who was busy debrief­ing her team on the year-end report that they were to present that afternoon.They gave me a copy of the pre­sen­ta­tion and year-end fig­ures, broke down every­thing to me, and actu­ally wanted me to ask ques­tions and com­ment on the ten­ta­tive plans. After the meet­ing I headed back to Mrs. Lo Atkins’s office, where she was busy answer­ing emails and read­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal arti­cles to make sure she stayed abreast of the times. She answered all of my ques­tions and let me know that we would be going out with a part­ner of theirs to dis­cuss the unveil­ing of a new mobile appli­ca­tion that would greatly ben­e­fit one of their client’s. We ate lunch at a Sushi Bar named Raw with the hilar­i­ous Drew, the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for their part­ner. He actu­ally seemed inter­ested in the work­ers in the Media depart­ment, which shocked me, it wasn’t just about busi­ness. This cul­ture is def­i­nitely very pos­i­tive,. Later, we met with a poten­tial part­ner where they dis­cussed a poten­tial new plat­form that could increase the pres­ence of their client’s drug. After­wards, I met with Dr. Wayne, Vice Pres­i­dent and Direc­tor of Sci­ence & Med­i­cine. We talked for almost 2 hours! He was so awe­some. He let me in on some secrets to make the most out of my time at Prince­ton and stressed the impor­tance of doing things not because they make money, but because I like them. Next, I met with Bren­dan Gal­lagher, SVP Emerg­ing Tech­nol­ogy & Chan­nels, and I was inter­ested in his career path from actor to adver­tis­ing exec­u­tive. It goes to show you that you never now what you’ll end up doing in life…but what­ever it is you have to make sure you love it.

After a taxi­cab ride home we waited for Mr. Atkins and their friends to arrive for a din­ner party. While I was play­ing “Thomas the Train” with their young son, Mr. Atkins and their guests and Prince­ton alumni arrived. They all intro­duced them­selves; there were sur­geons, there was a lawyer, a few res­i­dents, and a par­tic­u­larly hilar­i­ous polit­i­cal cam­paigner. Over din­ner they dis­cussed their dif­fer­ent career paths, shared inspir­ing anec­dotes, and relayed poignant advice. Mr. Atkins’s din­ner in my honor was amaz­ing, after Day One I was already sure that I had made the right deci­sion in choos­ing to go on this par­tic­u­lar Princetern­ship. I can’t wait until tomorrow!

Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 11, 2012

This time my alarm clock was the family’s two cats that crept into my room dur­ing an obvi­ous attempt to retake their guest room. This cute­ness proved an omen that this day was bound to be amaz­ing. This time we took a cab to the offices in order to make an early meet­ing I had with Matt McNally, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent and Global Chief Media Offi­cer. Mr. McNally gave some insight as to how Dig­i­tas Health was founded because he was one of the few peo­ple around when Media Broad­cast­ing Com­pany merged with Dig­i­tas to cre­ate Dig­i­tas Health. One very potent tid­bit that I picked up from our talk was about the impor­tance of strong work­place rela­tion­ships. “I would rather work with great peo­ple mak­ing lit­tle money, than with less fun peo­ple mak­ing a lot of money.” After­wards, I met with a few peo­ple who also offered great advice and helped expand on what they did at Dig­i­tas Health.

After what seemed like a sales pitch to the com­pany from a poten­tial part­ner in Mrs. Lo Atkins’s office, I embarked on arguably the most fas­ci­nat­ing part of myPrincetern­ship– lunch with Mr. Penn him­self– Dr. John DeMaio, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Busi­ness Strat­egy who is one of few peo­ple who was there since Dig­i­tas Health’s begin­ning. We trav­eled a few blocks down and ate at a quaint lit­tle Amer­i­can clas­sics restaurant.This 2-hour lunch was amaz­ing. Dr. DeMaio explained how he com­pleted nearly all of his study­ing at the Uni­ver­sity of Penn­syl­va­nia (Psy­chol­ogy, M.D., MBA, and etc.).  He stressed  the impor­tance of work­ing hard and he res­onated with a favorite quote of mine by Mal­colm Glad­well– “Hard Work is a Prison Sen­tence if it does Not Have Meaning”.

After a won­der­ful lunch…my Princetern­ship was com­ing to a close. Mrs. Lo Atkins left me with some last minute tips as she helped me pre­pare to hail a taxi­cab and take an Amtrak Train back to Prince­ton. In ret­ro­spect, I am extremely glad that I had this oppor­tu­nity. I want to thank Mrs. Priscilla Lo Atkins, Dr. Joshua Atkins, and every­one that had a part in mak­ing this such a spec­tac­u­lar Princetern­ship. I rec­om­mend Princetern­ships because they can expose stu­dents to fields that they are sel­dom exposed to and honestly…what else are you doing dur­ing breaks? This is a great chance to actu­ally ben­e­fit and develop your future. I now know that I def­i­nitely want to pur­sue a med­ical degree and one-day fuse my love for busi­ness and adver­tis­ing. 5 stars out of 5!