Interns@AutoCom

2012, a year full of adventures, is about to end and we plan to celebrate that as well as the start of the new year together: Cooking and having a great time together with some of the other interns will make this day unforgettable and a perfect start full of New Year’s resolutions!   We say goodbye for 2012 and wish you and your families a successful, wonderful 2013:

Christmas, the most important holiday for the Christians… During my time in America, I realized that Christmas is not the same and not even really similar in Germany and the US. I would like to take the time to share some of the major points that caught my eye: In Germany we celebrate the time before Christmas Eve. So, we have Christmas Calendars, calendars with mostly chocolate for every day in December until Christmas Eve to sweeten the time until the big day.   We also celebrate the Advents season where we light one more candle every Sunday before Christmas Eve. And last but not least there is Nikolaus Day on the 6 th of December where we celebrate St. Nikolaus, a Greek saint that gave his money to the poor people. In remembrance of him we still fill each other’s shoes with candy on the night of the 5 th . The major difference however is definitely that we celebrate Christmas on the 24 th of December instead of the 25 th and have three days of celebrating. After Chr

“How do we celebrate Christmas this year? Do we visit grandma? Do we invite Uncle George? What are we going to eat?” All those questions come up every year, but this year will be special for Nina and me: We won’t be spending the holidays with our families in Germany; we will stay in the US and experience the celebrations here! Although our plans are different, we are both really excited and can’t wait to explore the differences between the cultures and countries! Nina will visit her former host family in North Carolina, where she had a great time during school. On the other hand, I am planning a trip to New York with some of the people I met here. Both of us are expecting a great time and wonderful holidays! We wish you a merry Christmas and happy holidays J Jana and Nina

As another holiday season approaches, the whole AutoCom team wishes you and your family the very best. May the Christmas season fill your heart and home with joy! "Remembrance, like a candle, burns brightest at Christmastime." Charles Dickens

The Christmas Market- what a nice German tradition! Nina and I followed Jacks advice and went to the annual “Traditional German Christmas Market” in Birmingham. German everywhere, but would these white plastic tents host the same huge amount of different goodies as the frame houses in Germany? Actually the answer is no. We had Gluehwein, a hot and spiced red wine, saw Bratwurst and Weisswurst as well as German Potato Salad, but most of the sales booths, offered decorations or presented the work of their organizations. We missed roasted almonds, the warmly decorated booth and the smell of Christmas all over the place, but overall it was a really nice day and a great experience! We enjoyed it and it was interesting to see how German traditions are adopted here in America, although there is still some work to do. ;-)  

Last Friday, Craig invited Austin, Nina and Jana for a lunch at the Athens Coney Island Diner. We all had Coney Dogs (Hot Dogs with Chili served with fries (also with chili and cheese if you like that, too)) and a lot of fun! After some enquiring gazes, Jana and Nina enjoyed their lunch and tried their best to avoid a huge mess. We could argue about their success, but let’s leave it at that……… It was a typical American lunch and a great new experience for us interns!                                                                              Thank you, Craig!

Austin, Nina and Jana spend the last weekend together in Ann Arbor and watched the last home game for the Michigan Wolverines in the 2012 season. Leaving on Friday, we were hosted by two of Austins’ friends from university, had a nice dinner together and visited some other friends afterwards. The Saturday started early at 7:30 AM with a great breakfast with the guys we met on Friday and continued with “pregame traditions” such as beer pong. At 11:30 we reached the huge Michigan Stadium “The Big House” for being part of the 113.000 supporters. The whole atmosphere was amazing! This huge crowd, the marching band, the cheerleaders and of course the game which was clearly won by Michigan   42-17!!! Simply impressive. Thank you for this amazing time, Austin!

What a great evening at the PRSA Detroit Annual Meeting at the Dearborn Inn! Last Thursday, November 8, 2012, Larry was inducted to the Hall of Fame of the PRSA Detroit Chapter and the whole team attended him on this special day. After a wonderful dinner, Jack Harned took to the podium and introduced Larry to the audience. Everyone was listening magnetized and was visibly impressed by the experience Larry gained during his career in the automotive industry. Accompanied by standing ovations, Larry received the trophy and addressed his acknowledgment to his AutoCom family and the several hundred attendees. In honor of the occasation, we raised a glass of champagne in the cozy lobby of the historic Dearborn Inn. From all of us at AutoCom: Congrats, Larry! We are all proud of you and glad to be part of your team! Feel free to leave your comments either here, on Facebook or on Twitter!

Hello Everyone! We are Jana and Nina, the two new interns at AutoCom and would love to introduce us to all of you. We are both from Germany, both young, dynamic and want to learn as much as possible. Jana will go first: “Hi everyone!   My name is Jana Appelt. I am 22 years old, I was born in Hamburg and I have been studying Foreign Trade and International Management with a focus on Marketing in that awesome city since 2010. Prior to joining AutoCom, I served as an intern at Lutz Elevators and Allmiral Hermal. I also worked part-time at R&V Assurance and Lutz Elevators during my studies. Currently, I live in Royal Oak.   My first week is already over now and it’s a big adventure, everyday a new thing to discover!”   Now, let’s see what Nina has to say: “Hello there! My name is Nina von Spalding. I hold a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Bonn in Communications and Psychology and am currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Culture, Communic

Next week will be my last week at AutoCom Associates, and what an adventure it has been.   Throughout the course of my three-month summer internship I have learned a lot about the public relations field, along with event planning.   In my first month at AutoCom we had our annual Tech Crawl, which was a four venue event that took place in downtown Detroit.   This weekend we have a couple of our interns along with other AutoCom employees going up to Traverse City for the annual C.A.R. management briefing seminar.   We have been planning for months and now we are down to the wire getting last minute printing and supplies ready for the trip next week. Since we have so much to bring up north, I'll take my big yellow truck and I'll be on my way... Thanks for a fun time! Stay in touch! Andrea

Just one more week to go till Tech Crawl 2012: FORTECH's CEO will discuss growth and expansion plans  in Detroit June 19.   Alcantara SpA , Kenworth , Behr America ,   EB Elektrobit Automotive GmbH , GKN Driveline , KEMET and Saphran Solutions also will be making news at the day-long event .

Communicating is difficult. Not only do you have to mind what you say and how you say it - it is also what you do NOT say and how you do that. I just realized that when I got somebody mad at me for not replying to his text message. The problem was I didn’t think he wanted me to reply because if I was in his shoes, I would not have expected it. However, I was taught better: Equating your own communication standards with those of others is not a good idea. Even more so if you originate from different cultures – which was the case in that story. I could have used that as an excuse, actually… why didn’t I think of it earlier?! In order for you to avoid inter-cultural communication clashes, I came up with the idea to list a few things that made me wonder about the American way of communicating. Not only that, I will also explain shortly why Germans would do it differently. So to say, I’ll try to improve the German-American communication so it gets more efficient… which is very German

The thermometers have settled beyond the 70 ° mark, the air conditioning systems are running full force, the sun is a permanent part of the day and sounds of people mowing their lawns are ruling the area. Brace yourselves people, because Michigan Summer is on the way!  This does not only mean that you might encounter slightly red faces or spend a great part of your free time in back yards or at lakes, but it’s also time again for AutoCom’s annual Tech Crawl.  On June 19, 2012 the day has come for the 10 th time to get together with a couple of our clients and automotive journalists for a fun day of technology presentations, vehicle displays and social activities. This year, Tech Crawl will be held in Detroit and will include several venues that we will travel to by taking the Detroit People Mover. As a conclusion to the informative day, we will watch the baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals at Comerica Park. The 10 th anniversary of Tech Crawl