Hi everyone,
I'm Ram Anand from LimKokWing's Cyberjaya campus.
I pretty much have been fortunate enough to do my internship in the Singapore headquarters of the Microsoft Corporations. I am writing this on the second day of my work here, and even though I have not been involved in any event as of yet, I have learned significant things about the corporate world by just being part of the the Microsoft marketing and PR department so far.
My PR manager gave me a tour de force on my first day here yesterday, as far as she involved me in two key meetings regarding two forthcoming events and campaigns that MS in undertaking. What significantly affected me was the process in which things are being done here. The meetings are pretty much face-to-face and not as formal and intense as I thought they would be in this industry, and it quite surprising that such a casual meeting yielded some important questions regarding a forthcoming event. MS are endorsing a week-long event called the Documents Inter-Operability Initiative (DII), in association with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which will run in Singapore mainly on a three-day framework. The personell from the regional headquarters of MS were laying out the framework and strategies for the event, which will kickstart on December 16, and my PR manager managed to asses serious issues such as how aggresive will the campaign make MS look.
They decided to reduce their overall involvement in the event, concentrating more on the third day, which is an Open Standards Day which will be hosted by the ITSC (Information Technology Singapore Council). It was a great insight in to how such a big event is planned, and even more than that, a check on how many questions, we as PR people, will need to asses and ask before finalizing any decision on an event or campaign planning. The seemingly simple meeting ate up to hours, and not for once was I bored even though my PR manager did indicate that the meeting will be 'very technical'. I was also involved in another meeting, in which I learned the aspect of how much research has to be done in the build-up to a campaign. My PR manager had a meeting with one of the most tehnically-savvy persons from the marketing team, where he had done research on the PHP webbing system, its compliance with the new Windows Server, and also about the Open Source methodology. The meeting was pretty much a gathering of the latest information and happenings in the web service world, with a view for a web campaign MS will be holding mid-next year.
As I said again, nothing significant has happened so far, but things look good, and I have learned a great deal within my first day itself. Today in my second day, I have started to assist the team for a Christmas press party that MS is holding up this Friday, pretty sure I'll be actively involved in preparation to that event. Working in a multinational company sounded like an enormous task for me, but it was nothing like what I thought it would be. And above all, my PR manager is anything but picky, unlike what most of my friends have experienced with their managers. Way better than I thought. The best part, my manager has allowed to choose what are the works I prefer to do. I have stressed to her that my passion has always been writing, so I am looking forward to be given more tasks along those lines in the near future, and she seems to have complied with the idea.
On an additional note, here in MS, the team have branded their own staff as 'HEROES', which is pretty much apparents on their cups and also t-shirts, and that is a great example of internal PR and creating a good working atmosphere. MS, as a company, faces a lot of competition in the industry nowadays, but no matter how much external criticism they face, their working chemistry within the organization is as good as anything i can see. And I have to stress too that MS are true to their mission and vision statement all in all- which is to achieve diversity within their working sphere. Well, I am desked beside a top-draw American programmer who has enormous technology knowledge afterall (of which I have zero knowledge in comparison with). Despite being only a trainee, I was not treated with even the slightest bias and prejudice here so far. I was given all the facilities regular, high earning workers receive (my own extension phone and my own laptop along with a pretty large desk).
They have impressed me.
Now its my turn to impress them.
Till next time.
Regards,
Ram Anand.
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