Here’s a great new spin to interning. Mid-career Interns.

Check what “Women on the Web” did. This a sassy web site for women started an innovative mid-career internship program. High-level former executives, — including publishers, editors and VP’s drawn from the shrinking print media companies — are retraining in on-line skills at wowOwow.com.  Joni Evans, WOW’s CEO explains, “These are people with wisdom and worth.  In our program we draw on their skill set for WOW while teaching them new skills, reequipping them for the new economy.  It’s a win-win situation.”

Lois Dreagin, a 55-year-old former senior editor at TV Guide is one of these mid-career interns. In her old job she did not need to know a URL from an SEO, facebook from twitter, or a Google trend from search engine optimization. Now at WOW she’s paired with a 24 year old WOW staffer, Randi Benfield, who’s teaching her how to write tag lines for Google and URLs in return.  Lois supports Randi with expert literary instincts and flawless copy-editing skills.

WOW editor in chief, Deborah Barrow, who conceived the program, says that she thinks, “This could only happen at a company like WOW.  This website is run and owned by women.  The idea of women helping women, empowering each other, participating in a caring community, is so different than the way male dominated workplaces have functioned.”  Deborah believes that other companies should imitate her concept of women helping women as a means of survival in the new economy.

wowOwow.com, was founded just over a year ago by former Simon + Schuster publisher Joni Evans, author Peggy Noonan, columnist Liz Smith, ‘60 minutes’ correspondent Lesley Stahl, and advertising guru Mary Wells.  Contributors Candice Bergen, Joan Juliet Buck, Joan Ganz Cooney, Whoopi Goldberg, Judith Martin, Cynthia McFadden, Sheila Nivens, Marlo Thomas, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Wagner join them on line.  These iconic women are making history with the first-ever website aimed at educated affluent experienced Women.