Hey y’all!
It’s one of your newest BerkleeICE Ambassadors, Alicia Caillier (pronounced A-LEE-SHA KI-YAY), reporting in from Boston, MA! This fall I will be blogging about my internship experience at Harmonix Music Systems and invite you to subscribe to my journey.
A little bit about me…
I just spent one of the best years of my life studying at Berklee’s Valencia campus and recently moved back to the U.S. with a Master’s of Arts in Global Entertainment and Music Business. I focused my studies on Emerging Business Models in the music industry, which led me to my current internship at Harmonix.
Harmonix is an amazing company that is best known as the developer of Rock Band and Dance Central, as well as the original developer of the Guitar Hero series up until Guitar Hero II. Yes, I get to work at an interactive music experience company — pretty cool, right?
As a BerkleeICE Ambassador, I have been given the opportunity to intern on Harmonix’s Product Management Team. This means I get to gain experience and insight into how the Harmonix team manages their products from conception to launch. Specifically, I am working on the Rock Band Rivals team which is super exciting because the game launches this month!
In my first few weeks of my internship, I have shadowed some really talented folks, played a lot of Rock Band, and have learned SO MUCH about video game development and product management. I’ve been able to apply knowledge and concepts learned in my Music Business Finance class and Emerging Business Models practicum (Thanks, Alex Perrin!), like understanding Profit & Loss statements and how to analyze competition.
My day-to-day tasks include attending a daily stand-up meeting with the publishing team and assisting the Product Managers with assignments such as product pricing analysis, competitive research, comparative game research and comparison, blog post writing, weekly sales updates, etc.
But it’s not ALL business.
In fact, I had a blast creating this Official Rock Band Spotify playlist of 1,900+ songs that are available to download and play in the game. It’s a pretty extensive and impressive library, so while you’re going about your day put this baby on shuffle and rock out!
Peace out,
Alicia