As a Magnificent Mile intern I get access to some pretty cool opportunities. We have monthly membership events at various members venues, for instance, last month we had a membership event at Lou Malnati’s where we were able to network with prominent Michigan Avenue business while eating pizza and tiramisu. Not a bad deal!
Another really cool aspect of the job is the intern project called “My Day on the Mile”. The project allows each intern to chose six members to visit and experience then write a blog post to feature on our website. Choosing which members to write about was definitely not easy considering we have over 700 amazing members to chose from, but I finally narrowed down my six choices last week.
My first member I selected was The Art Institute of Chicago. Today I was able to meet with one of the marketing employees for the museum who arranged a one-on-one tour for me, completely free of charge. Getting to experience the museum with someone who really knew all about the art and the exhibitions was absolutely incredible. There were so many things I learned that I wouldn’t have learned simply walking through on my own.
One of the coolest things I got to do was try out the MyJourney experience. MyJourney is a new interactive experience that launched just last month specifically for families to enjoy the museum in a brand new way. Essentially, guests can pick from several different journey “themes” such as superheroes or fashion.
After choosing a theme, you’re taken through five different rounds of choices. For instance, my journey was a fashion journey so I was first prompted to pick a hat/headdress to go see in the museum. I could choose between paintings featuring exceptional hats, crowns, suits of armor, and more. After making my decisions, MyJourney found the best route for me to see all the art I had selected and was printed out for me to fold into an origami shape and take with me around the museum. At each stop there was an activity to fill out in my MyJourney booklet. At the end of the journey, kids are encouraged to return back to the start where they can receive a prize for completing their personalized journey.
From a marketing perspective, I was totally impressed with the way the museum has worked to make art interactive and modern for kids. It was also an opportunity I would have known nothing about had I entered the museum on my own.
Another really cool exhibit I saw was The Thorne Rooms. To me, this is a must see if you chose to go to The Art Institute. Imagine a room just filled with tiny dollhouse rooms, that’s basically the The Thorne Rooms are, except they recreate rooms from history, ranging from the 13th century to the 1930’s. Each room is recreated to be completely accurate to the time period, meaning that the tiny chairs you see in the 17th century rooms are really made of mahogany. I could’ve probably spent an entire hour in this exhibit alone, but when you’re visiting a museum that is over one million square feet, there’s some pressure to see it all!
Being able to experience the museum in this incredibly personal way is just one of the many reasons I love my internship at The Magnificent Mile. They work so hard to give their interns the absolute best experience possible and it definitely shows. So there’s my shameless plug for:
I encourage anyone and everyone to check out all three of these great organizations!
