The full time internship

Hello people.

I am Sharon Soon from Curtin Singapore. I am actually working full time for my current company for almost three years now. I have been lucky enough to get approval to do my internship with the company. So, it is alot of ongoing projects that I am handling which involves sales, marketing and public relations. I have also been procrastinating on doing this reflective blog entry. I know I am late and all but I am doing my best to meet all requirements of PR393 as much as I can. *grins*

Firstly, the industry I am in is to deal with consumer electronics. It is a highly competitive environment and I am constantly faced with challenges as to how to gain help the brand gain more awareness and increase publicity. Also, I am in a Japanese firm where the culture doesn't really allow females to shine as much, therefore, it is another challenge for me when I try to propose new ideas. Not to mention, I am also one of the youngest.

Luckily for me, I have a team of supportive colleagues. Together, we managed to convince the management slowly accept public relations programs. That's why I had the chance recently to organise a media launch for one of my products in Singapore.

I have always been working in small teams up till that PR program. I had to join another team from the Singapore domestic (I handle regional areas, and don't really have a physical location to work on), which made up for another four members. I never found it hard to work with people until I joined this team. I started to realise I had to take other people's view into consideration and didn't hold as much power to make decisions as I had when I am in my own department.

It didn't make things better when my colleagues were not PR trained and did not understand why certain things had to be done in a specific way. When it came to handling the media, it was even tougher. It wasn't always easy to get the attention of the media person and it is impossible to force a media to come for your event. So, the challenges were put ahead of me to make sure I get a certain number of attendance for my product's media launch and when we had to do the media tracking. It was truly a tedious process but fulfilling. As the time line given to organise the entire event took less than four weeks. Even till now, I am still feeling exhausted from all the activities and follow ups that my team and I have to do.

I do hope I can continue to provide PR assistance to my company and help the brand grow.

So long peeps. I hope everyone enjoys PR as much as I do.