I think a good intern should be able to take real responsibilities as well. They shouldn't be exposed to the worst of the firefighting if it happens (they should still take part, but don't put them under the worst of the pressure; that's what your employees get paid for).
This means a number of things:
1. Give them at least one project to work on with specific things that need to be done. Don't necessarily have a hard deadline unless there actually is one for the project; as long as your intern has work to do he clearly can't justify goofing off, so always make sure he has work to do.
2. Have at least one project available for him to brainstorm on. Any good hacker is going to have loads of good ideas; the best way to waste these is to throw the hacker onto a project that doesn't need them. Your hackerf is not just a codemonkey. When you have your hacker dropping by your office or pinging you on office IM about a really cool idea he had for Project X, listen to him; it just might be a good one.
3. Ideally, hire an intern who has a skill set or knowledge base that nobody in your company has. I don't need to describe the value of this.
This means a number of things:
1. Give them at least one project to work on with specific things that need to be done. Don't necessarily have a hard deadline unless there actually is one for the project; as long as your intern has work to do he clearly can't justify goofing off, so always make sure he has work to do.
2. Have at least one project available for him to brainstorm on. Any good hacker is going to have loads of good ideas; the best way to waste these is to throw the hacker onto a project that doesn't need them. Your hackerf is not just a codemonkey. When you have your hacker dropping by your office or pinging you on office IM about a really cool idea he had for Project X, listen to him; it just might be a good one.
3. Ideally, hire an intern who has a skill set or knowledge base that nobody in your company has. I don't need to describe the value of this.