my current life as an intern :) - Week 2

Well, I like where I work but being up by 6am hasn’t been easy and just when I was getting the hang of things, I’m off on leave for a week. The consultancy is closing for the holidays and I had made plans prior to my internship to take a trip with my family. .I’ll be back sometime in January.
Reading fellow students posts, I see that people are doing a lot at their places of work. The past week was not too busy as most companies are about to go on leave for the Christmas holidays and like I said in my previous post, I thank God that I’m not the coffee and lunch girl and the team does its best to involve me in their activities and assist whenever I need assistance.
Here’s how my 2nd week of interning went:

Day 7 - Monday 15th December 2008
The weekend was three days but they sure did fly. Sad!
We started of the day with the regular Monday meetings where we look at the past week as well as review the current week’s activities. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to show a copy of the minutes for the meetings which I assist in typing out after the meeting.
After our meeting, my boss and the rest of the team headed over to the HP offices for another meeting with the IPG Managing Manager for South,East and West Africa(SEWA)here in Kenya.
We discussed different matters such as the need for HP to give the Promax team regular training as HP deals with technology which is evolving everyday. We at Promax also added that it was also vital for the media to also receive training as a measure to enable them to understand HP and its products better. We also discussed the possibility of organizing a media luncheon for journalists where the main focus will be on focusing on technology. We also brought forward a Communication Strategy which will be used to incorporate HP marketing plan among other things.
I was glad to be present at the meeting and I appreciate the opportunity to be able to meet with one of our clients.

When we got back to the office, I called Nation Television (NTV) to arrange for Michelle- Marie, Kenya’s representative to the BA Kid’s Council interview. She is expected to co-host the children’s show G3 sometime soon, after her interview on KTN's Club Kiboko.

Since we had to leave early in the morning for the HP meeting, I did the Press cuttings in the afternoon. Usually for British Airways (BA), we collect not only Press cuttings for them but also on other airlines in Kenya and the world as well as news stories on the airline industry. Now the Press release we prepared on reduced holiday fares was published on this day in The Standard newspaper. The publication has a readership of 160,000. The 30 percent reduction of fares is valid for outbound travel form Nairobi and is for the Christmas holiday season. In other news, I got a story Rescue from Bangkok siege, how stranded Kenyans got home after Thai protests shut down the airport, another one on how Virgin Atlantic value of frequent flier-miles plunges and one on Kenya’s leading Airline Kenya Airways and how its setting sights on Asia to beat downturn.
Busy day it was but it was a fruitful day.

Day 8 -Tuesday 16th December 2008
I’m finally getting the hang of waking up early…I think!
Guess what? The story on BA reduced fares for this Christmas holiday season appeared on Kenya’s 2nd leading television broadcast station Kenya Television Network (KTN). What I’ve realized is that The Standard Newspaper, KTN and 98.4 Capital FM work together in a way. Anyway so the story appeared during the 7pm news which is in our national language Swahili as well as the 9pm news which runs in English. I was so excited to see something I had a role in come out. Like WOW!

Now onto the events and activities of the day, our meeting with HP was postponed due to unavoidable circumstances and was scheduled to take place in January 2009.
Not forgetting that we are having a meeting with Michelle- Marie with the media on Saturday, she and her mum confirmed that they would come to our offices in order to brief her before the interview goes underway.
We also received the British Airways kids packs from BA’s London offices which will be handed out as prizes during the shows in which Michelle- Marie will be co-hosting.

We at Promax pitched to the media that a news story should appear in the newspaper in regard to the new T5 terminal at London’s Heathrow airport where BA makes frequent flights to. The Standard newspaper chose to carry the story and we looked for the appropriate person to interview with help from the staff of the BA office. The area director of British American Tobacco (BAT) in South Sahara Africa agreed to be interviewed at his offices at the Nairobi Business Park. Now all we have to do is set the date ant time for the interview and there we’ll have it, a story for the Standard newspaper.

Day 9 -Wednesday 17th December 2008
After media monitoring in the morning, we called the Area Director for BAT South Sahara Africa to confirm our interview for Thursday at 10am.
The story for British Airways holiday season fares appeared in the Business Daily newspaper today. We also sent out a pictorial to Business Daily and wrote another press release for British Airways (BA).

We also got to wrapping Christmas presents for our clients and sending out Christmas cards to our respective clients. This was fun…the Christmas spirit is everywhere.

Day 10 -Thursday 18th December 2008
After media monitoring once again, I was assigned the task of designing an e-card and sending it out to basically everyone APR&P works with. I do not live in a cave but to tell you the truth, I had no idea what an e-card was. Where have I been all this time? So I consulted my long lost friend Google to help me out. I managed to get a fairly good Christmas e-card which I sent out via email.

Now the scheduled meeting with the Area Director for BAT South Sahara Africa had to be canceled because the journalist who we had informed that the interview was to take place at 10am was not available. This put us in a bit of hot water because my supervisor forgot to call Mr. Phike’s personal secretary to cancel the meeting. My boss wasn’t very happy about this because we kept him waiting. So I had to call him to apologize as well as send him a letter of apology via email. He air was thick at the office today…

Well, the day was long and slow. There was not much to do so I spent the day sending out e- cards, picking up phone calls and composing an apology letter.

Day 11 -Friday 19th December 2008
Today being Friday, I once again had to compile a weekly report for British Airways (BA) on the week’s activities. This was done after media monitoring. Now the Leisure Strategy for East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania & Uganda) that we came up with was approved by the PR group at the Promax headquarters in Dubai. Our next step is to approach the local BA; marketing and Country Commercial Managers to discuss moving forward actions. We will also go ahead and approach informally our proposed media partners to get rates, and start working on the details.

In the afternoon at 2pm, we met up with Michelle at our offices in preparation for the interview for Club Kiboko at KTN offices tomorrow. We discussed the BA frequent flier packs which she will be promoting on the show and give children viewers a change to win the packs as well. These packs are made for children to keep them busy during long flights on BA. They come with stationary such as crayons and books. We were glad to hear that BA took the children’s opinions seriously. During their trip to the 1st Kid’s Council meeting, the children complained that the packs were boring and lacked interesting and colorful designs. BA took this into consideration and when we handed over the pack to Michelle- Marie, she said it was different from the previous one and definitely more interesting. Her 4 year old brother seconded her on that.
Michelle- Marie will be representing Kenya in January during the 2nd Kid’s Council meeting which is scheduled to take place in London.

Day 12 -Saturday 20th December 2008
Last day of working until after New Year. Yaay!
Today, we will be going for the interview at KTN for the Kids show Club Kiboko where Michelle- Marie, Kenya’s representative to the British Airways Kid’s Council will be co- hosting the show.
Also, I did the regular filing of this week’s Press cuttings for Kenya and Tanzania.

Now HP is one of our clients and Promax works in conjunction with Edelman especially the offices in Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Muscat, Oman. I was assigned the task of compiling a new contacts database with the office addresses for our region (Kenya) and that of Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Angola, Zambia, Namibia and Mauritius because unfortunately, Edelman couldn’t find the information online. So I had to call all the Promax offices in the listed countries and compile the new database.

This week, I have carried the tasks of Media Coordination where we wrote Press Releases on BA , Strategic Communication and PR Campaigns Planning where we carried out the development of strategic communications plans, which contributed to achieving our client BA’s objectives and Management of Media Relations where we manage media relations through hands-on communication and relationships building with media to increase their understanding, inform their thinking and persuade them to support our clients’ objectives in stories of current or potential media interest.

It’s been a good second week of working I must admit. Christmas fever is on here in Kenya as we celebrate it next week Thursday. Most offices will be closed next week and will not be open until the 5th of January 2009. I know once we resume, there will be a lot waiting to be done.


xoxo
Carole, Limkokwing University Malaysia