Oriel Square

Ben Angell, Lady Margaret Hall, Fourth Year DPhil, DPhil Ancient History, Remote Working

Work Projects

My daily tasks included editorial work such as proofreading, copyediting and document formatting; marketing tasks including producing and checking copies for the company website and newsletter, analysing survey data and updating the mailing list; and administrative tasks such as writing letters of contract for freelancers and setting up folders for new projects. As well as assisting the team with projects on a day to day basis, I was tasked with using my research skills to produce an assessment of the company’s strengths and weaknesses, identify opportunities in new markets, namely Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and produce a strategic report on how the company should approach these markets.

I was given good opportunities to make important contributions to the company such as redesigning Oriel Squares post-project surveys to gather more useful information and creating new templates for meeting agendas, project tracking documents and post-project review documents. I was also the main individual on an entire piece of work for a client which required finding the best way to convert a major educational publisher’s textbook materials into a storyboard form for inputting into a new online learning platform, then writing up that process as a set of instructions for other suppliers to follow.

Daily Life

The internship was remote, each day began with a short meeting of everyone at the company where we described our tasks for the coming day. There were also other regular meetings including a weekly meeting where every ongoing piece of work the company was involved in was discussed. We had weekly Zoom mornings, where everyone would remain on a video call while we went about our work, but the rest of the time I worked

independently and used Google chat/email/video call to interact with others when needed. I also had a weekly check-in with a member of the team to discuss my progress.

I would be given tasks at the start of the day or as they came up, team members were very good about briefing me thoroughly. Working from home was very difficult at times, especially being stuck in a tiny flat where I essentially lived in one room. This made it hard to maintain a distinction between working hours and my free time although I did ensure that I went for a walk every day. To relax outside of work I listened to a lot of different music from around the world, did online museum tours and watched footage of nature or other countries, really anything to introduce a bit of variety.

Lasting Impressions

The people at Oriel Square were lovely, from the start they were welcoming and keen to ensure that I felt like I was a part of the team. There was a very pleasant working atmosphere in which I always felt motivated to do a good job. I was given a variety of different tasks to do so that I had a good overview of the publishing industry, and although these experiences haven't changed my desire to do editorial work if I manage to get into publishing, I do feel that I benefited from getting experience in so many new areas. It was particularly interesting to see areas where the publishing industry is, in my opinion, bloated or inefficient. I do think that I missed out on a lot due to the internship being remote, such as not being able to be part of office conversations about the industry, asking questions, getting into interesting conversations meant that a lot of the insights one would usually get from being in an office weren't possible. However, the team did their best to try to answer any questions I might have and simulate some social events.